Thoughts On Marketing, Jack Bauer and Arctic15. You have 24 hours.

    Alright, here is the ugly truth. This article is designed to make you buy a ticket to Arctic15 within the next 24 hours. Yapp, here we are telling you exactly what we want you to do and that this whole text is really only about one thing and one thing only – sales. So please, go ahead and buy our next edition Arctic15 tickets here. For the next 24 hours it will be at its cheapest point of €198 and will then go up to €249. When you are done, let’s get on with what I actually really wanna talk about. More information about why you can’t miss this years event will be after my rant about marketing.


    Arctic15 – 2016.

    Marketing in the modern day and age is a tough task, especially “content marketing”. How do you make people read your “content marketing” while being not too “salesy”, but at the same time wanting to sell?

    Frankly speaking, it is not an easy balance to hit. Most of the time, we say that you should not really try to sell and focus on great, interesting content. This will make you the thought leader, industry thinker, etc. That will drive your social media traffic and followers, yada-yada-yada.

    Having done that for a while, I think that it is not the best approach. In our experience – marketing works when it is done right. When you are open about what you are doing and why. As this amazing TED talk describes, sometimes you just have to ask.

    We have done the “asking bit” before and frankly – always received amazing results. When, however, you come up with a “sales technique” or a “sales campaign” it feels a bit less true to our nature.

    With this article, for example, I think I re-wrote the whole thing like 10 times. Starting with the “You Have 24 Hours To Buy Arctic15 Tickets: What Would Jack Bauer Do?”. Last year – it worked like a charm and we sold over 100 tickets in less than 24 hours.

    However I just could not bring myself to write yet another article just listing our speakers, the new features that we have come up with and then having three-four call to actions somewhere in there. It was just too boring to do.

    Instead, I am doing this, and I hope it works – while giving you all a bit of an insight into how we think about these things. Otherwise my team will be really disappointed.

    With that in mind, I will share three tips on how I think sales and marketing could be done:

    1. Be honest and true about what you want and what you do.

    Consumers are smart. Extremely smart. Perhaps too smart in our industry. The moment you start the good old marketing jargon, the filters hit in and you are very likely to lose people. When you are open and honest about your intentions, I believe that it gives people a sense of trust. It is also one of the best sales techniques that salespeople have been using for ages.

    2. Deliver a bucket-load of value and show that.

    If you have not yet seen AppSumo newsletter, I suggest you check it out. These guys make me wanna buy things almost daily. Why? They write as if they are my best friends and show real results with the tools they promote. The last part is important – value combined with good copy.

    With Arctic15, we are not worried about value. Today the price is EUR 198 but even at a full price of EUR 599, you will be paying less than 30 EUR per quality meeting if you have just ten a day. Many people had over 25 meetings a day last year. So again, get the tickets.

    See how I did that? Showed you value, linked it to my actual honest opinion and sneaked in a call-to-action? Pretty happy about myself here.

    3. Marketing still works.

    We see many startups not focusing on “marketing.” They just try content-marketing, word of mouth, blind belief in their product and of-course: growth-hacking. That is all well and good, but marketing still works and if you run a startup, think about pick up one some of that good old and tested knowledge.

    Pricing for example. Love pricing. You think pricing something at 198 EUR instead of EUR 200 does not work? It absolutely does. Proven by countless studies. Having a really expensive ticket next to the cheap one increases the sales of the latter. Spending money on ads – leads to sales. It’s all been done – just do it people. (Yes, that’s a link to the tickets again. Thanks.)

    Arctic15

    Okay, now that you know how I feel about marketing, let’s dig into the real thing here – Arctic15.

    Our main idea is to get you all to meet people at the event. That’s all we want to do. The right size. The right people. Optimized for networking. That’s all you need to know.

    When: June 2nd – 3rd.
    Where: Helsinki, Finland.

    Unique features: The Deal Room, Free Demo Stands, Amazing Food, The Right Size.

    The bucket-load of value: 2500+ meetings arranged last year, every single attendee/investor/speaker is accessible, leads to real deals, and of course – amazing food.

    Tickets: tickets.arctic15.com (You have 24 hours to get the best price, really. Why wait and pay more if you are going to be there anyways?)

    Website: www.arctic15.com

    Some notable speakers this year: Gil Penchina – “King of AngelList” Super Angel, Monique Morrow – CTO @ Cisco, Anne-Marie Imafidon – Child Prodigy, Founder of Stemettes, Uli Fricke – Managing Partner at Triangle Ventures, Marcos Battisti – VP at Intel Capital, Marie Ekeland – Co-founder at Daphni VC, Robert Pollak – General Partner at SV Angel, Dusan Stojanovic – Super Angel, Louise Fredbo Nielsen – Futurist.

    Quotes and stories:

    Meeting example: Marvin from 500 Startups met You-App at Arctic15. Guess who is their first portfolio company from Finland? Marvin is coming again.

    Investment case: Hunting for investors can be tough but not at Arctic15. Yoogaia met their seed investor at Arctic15 2014, and a follow-up investor at Arctic15 last year. Can you do the same?

    “Arctic15 was an awesome event. We even got our first Finnish portfolio company from there.”

    “A great event with talented, motivated people.” – Trip Hawkins, Founder of Electronic Arts

    “Arctic15 was an awesome event. We even got our first Finnish portfolio company from there.” – Marvin Liao, 500 Startups

    “I used to be in the military. Used to do field work for the CIA. I’ve been to some amazing places. I’ve seen some pretty intense things. I don’t think I’ve ever done this much in 24 hours.” – Jack Bauer

    See you in June. By the way, can you guess what is behind this link right here? What would Jack Bauer do?