Top 5 Ways to Market Your Business on a Budget

Meet Andy Karuza, Marketing Lead at NachoNacho, a SaaS management and marketplace app helping companies find, vet and hire industry experts.

Andy shares his Top 5 Ways to Market Your Business on a Budget with Tara Thurber as they discuss common challenges that businesses face today and how NachoNacho stays up-to-date on industry trends.

Top 5 Ways to Market Your Business on a Budget 

1. Partner led growth
2. Product lead growth
3. Automate
4. Branding
5. Experiment

About our speaker: As the Marketing Leader at NachoNacho, Andy Karuza is at the forefront of the B2B SaaS marketplace, powered by cutting-edge fintech. He's not just an innovator; he's also a startup investor, inventor, and serial entrepreneur. Andy's work in marketing the SaaS industry's top AI products and developing AI-powered features for the NachoNacho Marketplace has set new standards in the field. His achievements include being featured in over 100 top industry publications, appearances on national TV, having a product displayed in the Smithsonian National Museum of National History, and selling his products/services in over 100 countries.

Transcript

Andy Karuza: 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome back to Top5 brought to you by DefinedTalent. We are a results driven service working with clients to connect them with quality talent as well as working to make an impact within the recruiting industry. We talk straight about today's professional world with real world professionals, experts in recruitment, job seekers and business owners alike. Have a question for us? Send it in, you might spur our next conversation. I'm Tara Thurber, co founder and Director of Talent Partnerships at DefinedTalent.. And joining me today is Andy karuah. marketing lead at Nacho Nacho. Hey, Andy, how are you today? Doing pretty good. It's good to be back in New York.

Tara Thurber: 0:42

Awesome. Welcome. Welcome back. So I want to just kind of dive in a little bit. And let's just kick this off with talk to me about the name. Nacho Nacho.

Andy Karuza: 0:54

Yeah, so the name Nacho, Nacho. And I always like to say in American means that's a cool name. Where do you get it from? Very memorable from a branding perspective. It's kind of fun, inviting , if you will. But the name actually means""Dance Dance" in Hindi. You know, some people in the know really, you know, recognize that. And they'll say, is that the same thing as the Hindi word for dance dance? And we're like, Yep, it is.

Tara Thurber: 1:18

(laughs)

Andy Karuza: 1:20

In American means that's a cool name. Where do you get it from?

Tara Thurber: 1:22

Right, right. That's so awesome. Andy. Tell me a little bit about yourself and explain a little bit about what Nacho Nacho does.

Andy Karuza: 1:31

Yeah. So a little bit about my past - I've been in startups for about 20 years, I've been in tech for a long time, as well, I built a variety of different software products, and even hardware products I've done like mobile apps, web apps, I've even done an IoT product company called Fence Sense. Design, these smart license plate frames, basically, that can communicate to a smartphone and live stream from behind your car to a smartphone in your car.

Tara Thurber: 2:02

Wow.

Andy Karuza: 2:02

I've done some really cool, exciting things over the years. I helped launch a company a couple years ago, that's an eco friendly phone and a safe kid's phone as well. So that company is still running, doing pretty well. And I'm the Marketing Lead at Nacho Nacho. So you know, I met Sanjay a couple years ago, and you know, kind of see this as like the next big Amazon, it's still early stage enough to where there's a couple of ways that could apply my you know, wear multiple hats and insights and experience, which I've learned over the years, through trials and tribulations, which I'm won and I failed. So other people don't have to go through all that same, same stuff I did. So we can take the product where it is today and make it a billion dollar company, hopefully.

Tara Thurber: 2:49

Beautiful. Tell me a little bit about how Nacho Nacho helps businesses with their marketing efforts.

Andy Karuza: 2:57

So you know we have a model, where, as we always say, in our marketing deck actually is a rising tide raises all boats, so for us by creating a community and a marketplace for helping create more visibility for SAS sellers and help tell their story. But we're also providing them a low CAC channel to acquire new customers. So the beauty of our model is that they don't pay anything until we actually refer actual paying customers to them. Which they love, of course, the general cost per acquisition is going up across the board. The cost of advertising on Google, social media, especially LinkedIn, I mean, you can be paying $10 plus per click.

Tara Thurber: 3:40

Yeah.

Andy Karuza: 3:41

So it's, you know, it's not really affordable for a lot of businesses. So our premise is that we'll bring you paying customers and then when we do then you could you could pay us from that. And kind of the backend magic that we utilize is that we use some affiliate links, but really the the magic is the Nacho cards, which is a virtual card solution that we offer all the buyers on the buyer side of the business.

Tara Thurber: 4:03

Right.

Andy Karuza: 4:04

They can really use virtual cards is more of a FinTech tool. So you can apply one card. I mean, there's trillions of possibilities, right? One card per vendor per employee. And what that

Tara Thurber: 4:12

Right. becomes is like a very granular tracking and control tool over all the expenses across the entire company. So you know what you're spending, where you're spending it, who's spending, who has which subscription. And if they ever leave, the company could just cancel their cards with one click and therefore cancel the subscriptions with one click, too. So it's kind of become a one win win platform for both buyers and sellers. That's awesome. And then it was subscriptions. If these employees have subscriptions, what happens if their yearly subscriptions or like does the business lose out on money sometimes? Because individuals join subscriptions without realizing the terms.

Andy Karuza: 5:00

Yeah, sometimesso depends on the contract.

Tara Thurber: 5:03

Right.

Andy Karuza: 5:03

We recommend that anybody try to get around their contract. So if they have a soul contract with you, they could still come after you for the amount owed.

Tara Thurber: 5:11

Right.

Andy Karuza: 5:12

And some of the more enterprise applications are very aggressive about that. So we don't recommend that it's not meant for to kind of get around the sellers, terms and conditions and everything. It's more for the month to month subscriptions that don't catch up those which the majority of software as a service, don't try to stick you to like a whole year plan and everything. But yeah, we don't recommend trying to get around legal obligation.

Tara Thurber: 5:35

Yeah, yeah, definitely

Andy Karuza: 5:37

We could. But that's up to you.

Tara Thurber: 5:41

Right. Right. So when we're talking about businesses, what are some of the common challenges right now that businesses face when it comes to marketing on a budget?

Andy Karuza: 5:53

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is like I mentioned before, is that the cost per acquisition is getting really extremely high. Everybody's flooding into digital channels. So it's becoming hyper competitive across the board. So especially for startups, and SMBs, it's very hard to get the word out there and get your business noticed. Because some enterprise company, like I mentioned earlier, can pay 10 bucks, click for LinkedIn, whatever, if they're selling their software for $1,000 a pop makes sense for them. But for an SMB, it's really hard to play that game. So, I think that's the biggest challenge out there for marketers today. Generally, there's just a lot of noise, especially in the software as a service space. There's over 200,000 software companies now. And if we're looking at the new AI tools, which you can even have non engineers launch a new web app or, or mobile application with zero knowledge of building apps, it's just gonna load over the next few years.

Tara Thurber: 6:53

It's crazy how fast everything is growing and moving, right?

Andy Karuza: 6:57

Yeah. Yeah, it's business moves at a hyperspace. Right.

Tara Thurber: 7:02

Right. (laughs) So for Nacho, Nacho, how do you specifically address these challenges and help the businesses in optimizing their marketing strategies?

Andy Karuza: 7:14

Yeah, for us. So, we do a lot of programs for people, or marketing premise is, you know, rising tide raises all boats. And you go far together if you go fast alone, kind of a thing. So we've really positioned ourselves as like a long term solution for SAS sellers to be able to grow with us, and for us to be a long term lead source for them. So a lot of the stuff that we offer them is not only a free listing, we only get paid when we generate actual real business for them. We set up a lot of really exciting co marketing

Tara Thurber: 7:44

Right. programs. So a lot of times we'll do a webinar where we interview the CEO or founder of the company, trying to help personify the brand a little bit and humanize it, which I think is a more important element these days than ever in marketing. A lot of people want to know who's behind the scenes, like, who are they buying from actually? And that human element really comes out in those interviews. So that's really important. We also do newsletter blasts, social media posts, we'll do collaborative events, all sorts of things to really promote our seller partners. And all those programs are free to sow. We're inherently tied to each other success. So it behooves us to promote them as well. Yeah, I love that. It's playing with everybody in the playground at the same time, right? Love that. When we're talking about the fast pace of technology and trends out there, how is Nacho Nacho staying updated with the latest marketing trends and strategies, just to make sure to ensure businesses are always ahead of the curve?

Andy Karuza: 8:51

Yeah, so we're always you know, I'm a pretty, I'm ADHD (laughs) so I'm always pretty fast thinking and trying to do the next thing. Next thing today.

Tara Thurber: 9:00

Right.

Andy Karuza: 9:02

So I'm always trying to stay on top of all the new trends and everything going out there. You know, we get to meet frankly, with a lot of people as well, a lot of industry leaders and thought leaders, which, you know, I'm learning something new every day, right? So I'm doing a lot of interviews with these founders. And a lot of times I might ask them questions to kind of pick their brain.

Tara Thurber: 9:20

Right?

Andy Karuza: 9:20

Kind of learn on my own right? So we have a pretty good, you know, our fingers really on the pulse for the entire industry. So we kind of learn about the greatest new tools coming out, the new methodologies and approaches that people are going, but I think a lot of it comes down to always like to provide a great experience for your customers. Do you have a great storytelling and branding that really draws people in and shows that you have a really high quality brand and then to back it up with the experience that you offer? And that's, I mean, that's always Marketing 101 in my opinion is, is having a good product to sell first and foremost.

Tara Thurber: 9:55

I love that. Now, I want to ask to just tip put this out there. I hear a lot about Nacho Nacho Tuesday. Am I correct?

Andy Karuza: 10:06

(laughs) Nacho Tuesday? Yeah.

Tara Thurber: 10:08

Nacho Tuesday. So talk to me about what Nacho Tuesday is.

Andy Karuza: 10:12

Yeah, so Nacho Tuesday is a webinar series where we interview founders and CEOs from the companies. And we'll dive deep into their industry expertise. So we have one coming up, for instance, about top five cybersecurity trends. We're interviewing a founder at a cybersecurity company and, you know, perfect guy to pick his brain about it(laughs)

Tara Thurber: 10:31

Right (laughs).

Andy Karuza: 10:32

I hope he does right. Pretty sure he does really well. You probably talk to me for hours about it. But yeah, so now Tuesday really covers all these different SAS topics from like industry leaders and the people that are doing it in the trenches. We also launched the in person event portion of that called Nacho Tuesday as well.

Tara Thurber: 10:51

Okay.

Andy Karuza: 10:52

And for that we're we've been doing yet New York Tech Week. So last year, we did it at New York Tech Week, we had a couple 100 people show up. This year, we're going to aim for at least 500 people maybe more. And we'll probably expand that motion with Nacho Tuesdays to other other tech weeks, probably la in San Francisco, then we'll look to expand it further into like Sastre and other types of software, Industry Focus events from there.

Tara Thurber: 11:17

That's really exciting.

Andy Karuza: 11:19

But yeah, we like to keep it fun. So yeah.

Tara Thurber: 11:20

(laughs) Yeah, that I do know that I do know, just from meeting you, I it's always been fun conversations. And you all look like you have a lot of fun when I've seen you out at events.

Andy Karuza: 11:30

Yeah, I mean, if you were if you love what you do you never work a day in your life (laughs). And I just put in 15 hours yesterday but we're fine.

Tara Thurber: 11:40

Exactly. Looking ahead, what are some upcoming developments or features that Nacho Nacho is working on to further assist businesses with their marketing efforts?

Andy Karuza: 11:52

So we have three core tenets, one is around discovery. The other is around managing your software, the other one's around saving, was trying to do more in those three areas, helping you know, businesses get the best deals, by direct negotiations with vendors. Also, price comparisons is another thing we're gonna have coming out soon. Discovery is another area that we're investing heavily into. So we just launched a tool called Sherlock, which is pairs with our Chrome extension tool, which we called Sidekick. And basically, it'll identify any software subscriptions that your team is using, and even the ones you didn't even know about. So with the Chrome extension, you can use it as like a research tool, as you're going around different websites, see the price what people are saying about our reviews, buy it if there's a discount available. But then we can also you know, if you want enable browser tracking, so we can see which you know, sites you're visiting. And then compare that data with using Sherlock with QuickBooks information, bank account information, website stack information, Google login history, as well too, all option of course. But with Google login, you can log in to see what sites like actual SaaS subscriptions your team is logging into.

Tara Thurber: 13:12

Okay.

Andy Karuza: 13:12

A lot of people use SSO these days, single sign on,

Tara Thurber: 13:13

Wow.

Andy Karuza: 13:13

So if I'm looking for an email marketing tool, I you can see which apps are using a lot of times like we've had can see what like marketing people like me with the same our early users really identify a ton of subscriptions they didn't even know they were paying for, and they're able to cancel those right away. So there's a lot of value in that, being able to bring in that SAS pro problem as a company first, by using those discovery tools. And then second from that to just creating a better AI recommendation engine. So we collect a lot of buyer data. You know, a lot of it's optional as well, you can provide your name, title, industry information, as title and the same size company in the same geographic area, we track the stuff that you're buying, we could also, you know, utilize that data. And make it anonymous, of course, and then use that with all the other software that all the other buyers in our ecosystem are buying. And then eventually, as we collect more data, we could get very, very accurate with the maybe even what type of software that they're using. That might type of software that we recommend for people. be like the name brand software, but maybe 50% the price, but it's got all the same features. So, you might as well go with that choice. So we're doing a lot in that regard, too. So, very excited about those features that continue to develop.

Tara Thurber: 14:36

It's very awesome the way that that works out too because a lot of companies don't know what they don't know, in regards to what's out there. So to have something like that and access to that to see what's being used most, what's cheapest or not cheapest, but what will bring more value to each individual business.

Andy Karuza: 14:58

Yeah, totally. You I think that goes for life in general, too (laughs). Nobody knows what they don't know, right? But the more perspective you have, and the more angles you could look at a problem from, the more you can triangulate what's the best choice is. And for us that those perspectives is data from other buyers like you being able to accurately predict what you should be using as well.

Tara Thurber: 15:21

Super awesome. So Andy, let me ask you, what are your Top5 Ways to Market your Business on a Budget?

Andy Karuza: 15:30

I love this, Yeah, because I've always been a shoestring budget kind of guy(laughs) even if you have to have a budget. So I started off my FBI career sleeping in my car. So when I was in a, I was in Bellingham, Washington, I would drive down to Seattle, and it would take about an hour and a half trip. So I'd go down there, and I'd run my company from there, drive back to go to school at Western Washington University, go to class, and then at the end of the day, drive back to Seattle, so I was probably doing that five/six times a week, sometimes, right? So didn't have a lot of money to work with. But always thought from the creative angle of like, how you can make things happen with little to no money. It's kind of stuck with me my whole life. So for

Tara Thurber: 16:12

Right. me, I'm always thinking in terms of which, frankly, the best ways to market are usually free anyway, ironically (laughs). So I will look at a couple of key areas for people things that I've, you know, really noticed over the years and including things that are really trendy now. So there's two forms of PLG. So one is partner led growth, which is kind of what(laughs) we're doing here doing these podcasts. A lot of the CO marketing stuff we do with our partners, we'll put them in our blog posts, they'll put us in theirs, we'll do a webinar where they share with their audience and vice versa, together working with other businesses, we can help introduce each other's networks to each other, and therefore, we can grow together. So that's the power of partnerships. And a lot of that stuff's free. So I definitely recommend anybody get really good at building partnerships, making Win Win relationships too, a lot of people fail in this regard, because they try to make it about what they're gonna get out of the partnership they don't think about in terms of what the other person gets, and a lot of times how you establish those bigger relationships, even as you pitch them something that's going to speak to them, like, what can you do to benefit those people? And that'll get their attention. The second is product lead growth. So building viral loops in your product, designing your product to have, natural areas where people want to share or invite team members. There's a lot of ways you can do it. You could also have maybe

Andy Karuza: 17:39

Maybe you're paying them. I hope you're paying them even a community on your web app or platform where people can go and ask questions and get answers. And that creates like a artists should get paid. But a good branding draws people in sense of community, it gets people to want to go to you for answers. And we have that too, in the form of mastermind for Software Advice. Yeah, so there's a lot of product led right. So like Nacho Nacho, for instance, one of the things I growth initiatives, once again, you just have to build it, but they're technically free to have to pay for them ongoing. Social noticed with it right away when I met Sanjay was that it was a media is another big one, obviously, if you're SMB or bootstrapped, you probably don't have a lot of money to spend, you got time, right time is money. Spend that time maybe great brand. There's a lot I could do with this. Nacho Nacho, reaching out to people on LinkedIn. There's also a lot of tools that could automate it. But be careful with that. you know, it's a great name, in my opinion. I'm speaking more Obviously everybody else can do that stuff these days. So it's becoming very disingenuous. So automation is good, but try to for him, not on my behalf. But they had some branding going personalize it as much as possible. And if you really, really want that sale, or really connect with somebody, write a personal message like reach out to them on LinkedIn and connect before I stepped into and there's a lot to work with that with them directly. But if you didn't want to go some form of automation route, we have platforms like demand cloud it becomes a natural draw for people to want to work with you. chat, holons platform is really great for that you can automate email marketing paired with LinkedIn messaging, and some LinkedIn engagement tools like viewing their profiles, stuff So definitely invest in branding and telling your story, the like that to kind of get grab their attention. Once again, it's very affordable. Branding, branding is technically free, right ways to really connect with your audience. That's but you should have a good designer on board. really key there. And then lastly, I'd say experiment. So a lot of times the best opportunities or new channels that a lot of people might be wary of trying so you could try. For instance, tick tock ads might be, you know, kind of an interesting channel to try today, even from a B2B perspective, right, right. A lot of b2b people think it's just Somebody's use social media consumer app. But you know what business people are on, they're consuming as well. And you know, they also have a very data driven approach. So you can target those people looking for business content. And it's not super competitive yet for advertising. It's getting up there, but not like the Facebook's and LinkedIn's of I mean pennies per click sometimes was insane. And this world. So don't be afraid to try new channels as they come same with the Amazon ads, too. So I was running a consumer electronics company for many years. And a lot of the business we did was on Amazon. And when they launched Amazon ads we were out, and be kind of one of the first to go to market with all over that right away, because we're getting traffic - high intent traffic from search engine results related to our those, because a lot of times, they're going to be really products for like five cents a click even (laughs) it was insane. So the sales and the cop the ROI as the return on adspend affordable. A great example that when Facebook ads first was, was very high for that now it's getting more competitive, but it's still, you know, relatively very affordable launched, I was all over that. compared to other channels.

Tara Thurber: 21:11

Wow, I love all five I think what great ways for businesses to be able to get themselves out there on a budget and not have to break the bank just to to grow. Right? I think that's most important to grow and get themselves out there and make a mark make an impact.

Andy Karuza: 21:32

Yep. Yeah. And a lot of times people think because it's a business it's okay to spend money and frankly, waste money. But I've seen a lot, a lot of companies fail because it's death by 1000 cuts, usually, it's not a big deal that sinks, you. It's in all these subscription expenses, you didn't even know about which, hence, Nacho Nacho, it's, choosing this platform when there's this similar platform, that's 50% the cost, right? Paying 10 bucks a click for LinkedIn ads, when maybe there's a hyperfocused community that would love to have your business and maybe it's a couple cents a click, and it's, but it's very, a very targeted audience. So don't be afraid to experiment, try new things and, go against the flow (laughs).

Tara Thurber: 22:14

I love that. Andy, thank you so much for taking time today to speak with us and be on our podcast. Really appreciate it.

Andy Karuza: 22:22

Thank you. That's been great. Good to see you again. And hopefully I'll see you in New York Tech Week. Definitely. Thanks, Andy.

Tara Thurber: 22:30

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