Qype’s (a pure web company) summer party where they invited all their users to come hang out and party.See #5 for why this is important. (Photo Credit: QypeUK)

1: Define what a Loyal User Means to You

It’s easy to say “We have very loyal users” but what does that mean? You need to define what “loyalty” means to you. Is it repeat purchases, is it repeat visits, is it the occasional retweet, is it interaction with you on a third-party site?

It could be one or all of those metrics but you need to define what’s important to your business. Remember, a casual event (visiting your site) could turn into a conversion event (e.g. a purchase) very quickly if you recognise the casual user and motivate/encourage them appropriately.

2: Know How to Identify Loyal Users

Once you’ve determined what a loyal user means to your business, you need to have the tools in place to identify those users, and their actions, when they take place. Having the proper analytics tools in place is key.

I won’t prescribe what software package is best for your business, only you can determine that, but suffice it to say that there are lots of good tools out there that will help you determine repeat (i.e. loyal) visitors, purchasers, advocates quickly, easily and quantifiably. You’ll be lost without this type of data.

3: Recognise and Reward Loyal Users

Almost all of us are fanboys (or fangirls) of at least one company. How awesome is it when they return your admiration? It doesn’t really matter what the platform is but when you, as a customer, go out of your way to praise a brand, it’s such a great feeling when they acknowledge that praise. Even if it’s a simple “Thanks!” on Twitter, or a simple reply to your email thanking them for a good experience.

It doesn’t take long to do but it can be a powerful way to increase loyalty. So understand who your fans are and be sure to thank them for their loyalty. You can take this a step further and, with the help of the analytics/CRM tools we talked about in point 2, you can reward quantifiably loyal users with automated messages, emails, promo codes, gifts, etc as a way of saying thanks. Again, simple but very, very compelling.

4: Improve your Product

You can’t build loyalty on a mediocre product (unless you’re an airline but that too shall pass, mark my words). If you have a poor product or experience and you’re trying to market or increase your customer base, stop.

Right now. Focus your time, energy, resources on fixing your product first. You’ll find building loyalty MUCH easier afterwards because your customers will be happier, less inclined to churn, and more motivated to sing your praises.

5: Real World, Real Love

Pure digital brands are often said to be at a disadvantage against bricks-and-mortar brands because they lack physical touchpoints, human interaction, etc. I disagree. Sure, your main line of business may be purely web based but that doesn’t mean you can’t exist in meatspace as well.

Find out where your users are in the world and meet them! Hold a meetup, do a hack fest, or just tweet out that you’re going down to the local pub and people should come hang out. Even if you only have 2 users, they’re your users for a reason – engage with them, buy them a beer, find out how they use your product, what they think you should change or improve. I guarantee they’re doing things that you couldn’t possibly conceive of.

As I’ve immersed myself in the startup community, I’ve come across a lot of people out there doing incredible things for startups and the community as a whole – Dave McClure, Chris Sacca, Paul Graham, Kevin Rose, Gary Vaynerchuk, Tim Ferris, and the Seed Camp crew are all doing wonderful things to help young companies. (I recommend following all of them on twitter.)

But on the flip side, I’ve noticed some rather odd trends. Negative trends. Trends that I fundamentally disagree with. I’m a HUGE believer that the startup and early-stage funding processes can be positive processes as opposed to the “American Idol” negativity that most people associate with getting funding. (Don’t even get me started on the Dragon’s Den.) There’s a lot of misinformation about there, some of it very damaging.

Here are the top 5 common myths about startups that I’ve heard recently:

1: Brand isn’t Important

Horseshit. Brand is fundamental. I’ve talked about this time and time again, to anyone who will listen. Startups are notorious for ignoring their brand or just expecting it to develop by itself. It won’t. If anyone tells you that “you don’t need to think about your brand at this stage” punch them in the throat. They’re doing untold damage to your ability to compete in a savagely competitive marketplace.

Remember, brand isn’t just your name and logo. It’s your values, your community, your tone of voice – every single experience by every single user you have. THAT is your brand. Watch it like a hawk, develop it, and give it the effort and energy it deserves.

2: You have to Fail Before you Succeed

Why do people keep saying this? It feels like something only people who have failed repeatedly would say. There’s a HUGE difference between “learn from your mistakes” and “you have to fail before you succeed.” If you don’t learn from your mistakes, you’re bound to repeat them – that’s simple.

Telling people that they have to fail before they succeed is supremely dangerous because it plants a negative seed in the mind of otherwise optimistic entrepreneurs.

Why shouldn’t an entrepreneur swing for the fence during their first at bat? Screw the naysayers, surround yourself with positive, hardworking people, and go be a Kevin Rose.

3: You need Millions of Dollars in Funding to get Started

No, you need it to scale. Every day you read about startups taking tens of millions in venture finance and it plants this false seed of “I need millions to succeed.” in the mind of young entrepreneurs. Do you know what Kevin Rose spent to start Digg? About $2000. Peanuts. It wasn’t until almost a year and a half later that they took their first round of funding and that was only $2.5million.

Some of the most successful seed-stage companies like YCombinator put very little money into a business (around $20,000) initially because you don’t NEED any more than that. The cost of starting/running a small business is exponentially lower than it has ever been.

Besides, do you really want to fork over a large chunk of your company to an investor. No, you don’t. Bootstrap for as long as you can, seek angel funding when you need it and work hard. You’ll do fine.

4: Profit is Everything

“We made 200% profit last quarter, we’re so awesome.” Really? That’s awesome? Because you only made £420 in revenue. Whoopdee doo. Focusing on profit margins and percentages as a young startup is idiotic and not an accurate barometer of the health of your business at this stage.

Instead of obsessing over profit, obsess over acquisition, conversion, retention, referral, and REVENUE, as Dave McClure so accurately preaches. Not profit. Drive your revenue hard, work on keeping your costs really low, and track them as separate metrics.

5: I have to be in the Valley to be Successful

Ok yeah, I thought this was the case when I first moved back to England after almost 10 years in the US. This might have been true even 2 years ago, but it’s just not the case anymore. The UK and EU tech scenes are booming and there have been some huge successes in the last 18 months.

The handicap has always been the lack of good VCs/angels who really understood the web, and who could take a startup from the spare room to the board room. That’s not the case anymore with outstanding events like SeedCamp.

The infrastructure is there, the talent is there, the audience is there. Go out there and crush it. (And email me if you need any help or want to talk angel stuff: ahunter (at) haebc.com).

Photo of Alex Hunter by http://www.alexdesigns.com/. Used with permission.

I’ve been lucky enough to make public speaking part of my career. It’s something I love doing and enjoy every second of, but that’s not the case for everybody. For many of you, the thought of standing up on stage fills you with vomit-inducing fear.

But I can’t stress enough how important it is to be able to clearly articulate your thoughts to an audience in an engaging manner, whether it’s a handful of your co-workers or 2000 people at a tech conference.

If you’re trying to get a project green lit, pitch your idea to investors, relay your experience to a group of bright eyed young developers, or rally your employees, keep the following few tips in mind.

1: Rehearse

Again and again and again. So you know every detail of your talk, all the slides and the order in which they appear. Practice in front of a mirror or even video yourself. This is the best way to find potential tripping points, inconsistencies, and also gives you a chance to weed out the crap jokes.

But more importantly, it will make you so comfortable with the content that you won’t need notes or prompts and you’ll appear conversational but knowledgeable.

2: Don’t repeat what is written on your slides

It’s painful when a speaker reads verbatim what is written on each slide. Give your audience some credit, they’re going to be pretty good readers so you don’t need to help them out. Your job is to give context and detail to the one or two lines (at the most) on a slide. Or in some instances, vice versa; I often use slides to add a quick parenthetical note to something I’m saying to the audience.

3: Don’t overload your slides

Further to the last bullet, nothing is uglier or less appealing than a slide with 15 bullet points and a graph. It’s confusing, cluttered, hard to understand and of no value to anyone as a presentation aid. In my recent keynotes, over 80% of my slides only have one line OR graphic/chart on them.

Sure it’s more clicking for me but this isn’t about me, it’s about the audience, and simple slides help you guide the narrative in a clear, concise way.

4: Make eye contact

This may sound like a no brainer but so many speakers spend their time looking at their feet, at their slides, at their notes – anywhere but the audience. If you don’t make eye contact with the people you’re talking to you end up looking like you’re talking to yourself, just like the guy you avoid sitting next to on public transport.

5: Know your audience

I spoke at a two-day tech conference recently and was scheduled to speak on the second day. This turned out to be a huge advantage for me because I spent the whole first day following the (substantial) Twitter traffic surrounding the event and I noticed some interesting trends in the audience reactions to speakers and their content.

As a result, I spent several hours that night retooling my presentation to better suit the audience – I like to think my keynote went down well the next day.

6: Move around

As a speaker, I loathe standing behind a podium when I speak – it feels like I’m preaching down from the pulpit and as far as I’m concerned public speaking is about conversation not lecturing. Also, a podium is physical barrier between you and the audience making it much harder to connect with them psychologically.

So wherever possible get out from behind that podium or lectern, get out on stage, move around, gesticulate and really CONNECT with your audience.

7: Don’t read the script

Reading word for word from a prepared script is the fastest way to put your audience to sleep. It’s also lazy. Don’t do it. It’s perfectly ok to have some notes jotted down which you glance at from time to time but anything beyond that is a disservice to your audience and to you as a speaker.

8: Slow down

It’s really easy to rush through your content and speak very quickly, especially if you’re nervous. It’s much easier for an audience to engage with your content if your delivery falls into a natural rhythm. Try to pace yourself and remember to punctuate your speech with pauses to emphasise key points.

9: Make ‘em laugh

Humor is my most powerful tool when I’m giving a presentation. I almost always try to get a laugh within the first 60 seconds of a talk. It relieves the collective tension in the room almost immediately and helps ease the transition into the bulk of the content.*

10: Be passionate and energetic

I learned this from the best, Mr. Gary Vaynerchuk, whose energy on stage is completely captivating. Look, chances are if you’re standing up in front of people giving a talk, you know what you’re on about – and if you know what you’re on about, you’re probably passionate about the subject.

So make sure you project that passion during your presentation! Raise your voice when it makes sense, be effusive, throw your hands up in the air when you’re making a point! That type of energy is totally infectious and your audience will appreciate the effort.

*A note on swearing during presentations. Those of you who have seen my Future of Web App keynotes might have noticed that I punctuate my talks with some occasional swearing. This is a calculated risk on my part and certainly not something I do whenever I speak at conferences.

Hell, if you did at work you’d probably be fired so I strongly suggest you suss out your audience before you drop F-bombs during your Quarterly Sales Review with the Board of Directors.

That’s the theory, here’s the real thing

Ed: The following video is of Alex’s presentation from Future of Web Apps London 2009.

Brand is one of those things that often falls by the wayside with developers. Developers are constantly creating amazing technologies and incredible platforms that are fundamentally changing the way marketing and branding works.

Applications and platforms, i.e. social networking, now exist that allow consumers, i.e. users, to connect with brands for the very first time. Consumers today have the power and the tools to research, get feedback and participate. Today as a result of the platforms and technologies that YOU’VE created, and that’s beautiful irony, users have a really loud voice.

Why is brand important for web applications and products? Well, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of web apps out there. You’re in direct competition with them, every single one of them. You have to stand out in the crowd and get people coming back to your site.

If you’re developing a competing application to an incumbent you’re going to have to work ten times harder to get people to change. As sites start to use even more social currency, points systems, giving more “value” to a user, it will be harder and harder to bring them over. Bottom line: you’re going to have to work your ass off.

With this in mind here are some quick DOs and DO NOTs for building and managing a successful web brand:

What to DO

DO: Define your values

What are you? Your values are going to be the foundation of what you are, and more importantly, what you will be – now, tomorrow and in ten years time. Set them early and set them well because they will define you for the rest of your existence. It’s really, really easy to half-ass this. Don’t, because it will come back to bite you if you do.

The convenient thing would be to dump all of your “values”, your product, and brand name into a blender, dump out the contents and proclaim “There, we’re done!” It’s not that easy and more importantly, what comes out won’t be an accurate representation of what you are.

So to do this right, take the best of what your team, vision, and product represents, in appropriate doses, and create a whole new identity. Remember, this is NOT something a single person (e.g. founder) can do on their own. Involve the team, involve friends, involve advisors. Stop trying to do it yourself, take a step back and get people involved.

P.S. Everyone wants to be “fun”, “ethical”, “challenging” and “revolutionary.” Skip those values from your brainstorming and consider them as given.

DO: Be emotional

How are you going to get the public to love you? How are you going to get people to have that emotional connection with what you do? And let’s be clear this IS about emotion, so please BE emotional.

This is your baby, your blood sweat and tears that you’ve poured into your project. Your users will be able to connect emotionally if they sense the emotion, a key ingredient of loyalty, that you’ve put into your creation.

DO: Be transparent

Transparency, especially at the beginning when you’re building something or when it’s just an idea, is really beautiful because it brings people into the journey. It’s why reality TV is so hard to look away from.

The development cycle IS dramatic, emotional and painful with “4 o’clock in the morning” caffeine-induced coding frenzies, the wins, the losses, the highs and the lows. Bring people along on that journey.

But remember, when things go wrong, hold your hands up and admit to it – be transparent, be human. Don’t hide behind a brand name or a product name. People will engage with that. You don’t hear people talking about Spotify’s massive data leak very often, do you. No because they came clean, notified users, fixed it and busted ass to continue making a great product.

DO: Extend your brand

Despite what you might think, your app is not the be all and end all. Don’t believe this “if you build it, they will come” mantra, that is “weapons-grade bullonium”. It’s just not true. You have to extend the reach of what you do with content and engagement, physical and digital engagement. Build up a voice and personality around your brand.

Consider Digg, who are masters of brand extension in the web world. Their blog is written by the people who are responsible for rolling out new features, managing the database, marketing the site, not just the founder or the VP of PR. Real names, real faces, real people that we as users can connect with.

Whenever they roll out a new piece of technology or a new development, the person responsible blogs about it, explains what they did and asks for feedback. That breeds loyalty. They take it further with Diggnation, Digg Meetups, and DiggDialog.

DO: Bridge the gap between online and offline

Bridging the gap between online and offline with real world events breeds loyalty. There are a lot of web companies that are getting really good at hosting real world events where users meet up and are rewarded on a macro level, for example Digg or Qype here in Europe.

Both introduce users to each other and to the people that curate the community they’re involved in at events that are tailored to the users’ interests. Launch parties and regular user meet-ups get people talking and get people connected. That really breeds loyalty. It’s astounding what that can do in terms of competitive advantage and brand awareness.

What NOT to DO

DON’T: Ignore your brand

As web developers, application creators and programmers, we don’t think about brand nearly as much as we should. We don’t care. We don’t think it’s important. We’re busy building our apps. We’re not focussed on brand, it’s not our core activity. But you cannot afford to ignore your brand at any point in its existence.

Brand loyalty is getting harder and harder to gain and, ironically, easier to lose. As marketers get savvier and people are convinced that the same product is better just because it has a certain brand, the harder you’re going to have to work to build a loyal user base.

DON’T: Half ass your brand development

You have to put the time and energy into this that it deserves. Do this and do it well. So many people think that brand is about product name. Cute name, great brand, done. WRONG. So wrong it hurts. And besides, we can’t even get that right.

So many web apps out there have thoughtless names. There’s no rationale or logic behind the names at all, they just think it is cute and memorable. It’s oh-so-fashionable to drop a vowel here and there or misspell something and be done with it. That doesn’t mean anything and it’s lazy. Don’t do that. Or if you do, have a reason for it. Give your brand development the time and energy it deserves.

DON’T: Put your interests ahead of your users

I know this is hard because, ultimately, you have to pay the bills. But a reputation of looking after your users, being ethical, will put you head and shoulders above anybody else.

I often cite the example of Amazing Tunes, a site for unsigned artists. Sure, there are other unsigned artists sites out there, but not that give 70% of the profits back to the user and not that have a DAB radio station that artists are featured on. THAT is looking after your users. That’s the definition of an ethical web company.

DON’T: Be Precious about consistency or message

People often say to me “The more people I give the message or brand to, the more watered down it becomes and the less consistent the message is”. Big brands are especially scared of losing the refinement of their message. But realistically, they’ve been doing it for the last 30 years because the person who answers the phone in the call centre is the first point of contact that a user has with their brand.

The call centre employees are representing your brand. The receptionist is representing your brand. So giving someone an account on Twitter to do the same is no different, it’s just a little bit more of a public stage. But, that’s a GOOD thing because people can see you responding to positive comments and negative comments and reacting and helping people and participating in the CONVERSATION in a very public forum.

Ultimately, you’re giving people the tools to go and evangelise your brand and product – don’t fight that.

Ed: Need further convincing? Check out the video of Alex’s presentation at Future of Web Apps London 2009

By the way, there’s only 26 early bird passes left to The Future of Web Apps Miami. With speakers like Twitter, Facebook, Mint.com, Fred Wilson, Molly Holzschlag, John Resig and Reddit, it’s going to sell out quick. Hope to see you there!