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Austin Witte
Christian Gurrola

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K. Elyz Rosa
Luis Mireles

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Samantha Macias
Professor Ehrich - MKTG479

Slack Marketing Plan

Executive Summary
Slack is currently used by more than 50,000 teams across the globe, including 43 companies from the
Fortune 100 list. This accounts for 9 million weekly active users from over a hundred countries. As of this
year’s third quarter, the company’s revenue is estimated at 200 million.

The online internal corporate communication platform market, comprises of 3 segments; small, medium
and large businesses. Although we have customers in all of these segments, we want to target our efforts
to medium and large companies, which will lead to greater revenue.

This plan outlines our key marketing activities directed at establishing Slack as the market leader in
online communication platforms.

Situation Overview
Companies have an increasing need to communicate at all times and are turning to online workspaces to
do it. Medium and large companies, such as PayPal and Oracle have more than 10,000 paid seats
communicating which leads them to find a communication platform, and they found Slack. More and
more large companies are also experiencing changes in their communication platform and seeking the
best way to do so. The question is: who platform will these medium-to-large size business choose? We
have a solution: Slack!

The key attributes that companies look for in an online workspace is reliability, simplicity, and
innovation. For employees, to have the information in an organized and easy to access manner is a way to
increase their productivity and share documents and ideas across different company departments.
Customer service is becoming an increasing need for every company and many of them are turning to
chatbots to help their customer and filter them in order to help a bigger number. Many of these apps can
be developed and used inside Slack. We believe that having a customer-focused approach will be
beneficial for Slack. A collaborator focus can also have a huge impact since we are recommending Slack
get 20 exclusive applications by January 2019 in order to gain them a competitive advantage.

Ultimate Goal: To increase the number of Daily Active Users in order to create increased value for the
company so when Slack goes public in January 2019, we can create value for shareholders by having a
large user base established.

To achieve the ultimate goal, we have set the following objectives:

● Customer objectives: Convert the number of Daily Active Users (DAU) to paid seats by 5% by
April 2018.
Historical Information:
● Dec 15th 2015 – 2 million DAU, 570,000 paid seats (28.5%)
● Feb 12th 2016 – 2.3 million DAU, 675,000 paid seats (29.3%)
● Apr 1st 2016 – 2.7 million DAU, 800,000 paid seats (29.6%) ​(Constine)
● Sep 12th 2017 - 6 million DAU, 2 million paid seats (33.3%)​ (Smith)
○ Next quarter - Jan 2018 7 million DAU, we want 38% to be paid seats
so that would be 2,660,000 / Even if we stay at 6 million, converting 38%
to paid seats would be 2,280,000
● Collaborator Objectives: We want companies to create compatible applications exclusively for
Slack in order to gain a competitive advantage. We have collaborators like Google (their google
docs), Twitter (tweet straight from Slack), Salesforce (send data from Salesforce through Slack),
etc. We aim to have 20 exclusive applications for Slack by January 2019.
● Competitive Objective: ​Our primary competitive objective is to create competitive advantage
through a differentiation strategy which involves implementing exclusive applications for Slack;
see Collaborator objective​.
● Internal Objectives: We aim to create a better workspace in order to increase productivity. We
aim to support our employees in any way possible and push our employees to strive to be the best
while taking pride as they work at Slack. We want to provide $500 annually towards a personal
development opportunity of employees’ choice, and $2000 annually for professional
development.
Strategy
Customers
Slack can be used by various groups of people and we want to target medium-to-large businesses in order
for their communication efforts to be more streamlined. We want express the benefits of using Slack to
these businesses in order to improve their communication needs thus improving their company efficiency.
In terms of businesses, improving their communication efforts can help get them real-time updates almost
immediately. We want to create this value of improving their efficiency which will benefit them
financially. Our target customers are those medium-to-large businesses who have a need to improve their
communication efforts instead of using the traditional emails with CC and BCC in order for others to see
the message.

Collaborators
Slack and Google banded together in late 2016 to focus on better integrating Slack’s services (Lunden,
2016). This included a Google Drive Bot, enabling automatic comments and requests for entry into Slack.
Recipients can then act on these comments or requests by approving/rejecting them or launching Google
Docs to work directly with these files. Another integration included allowing users to preview Google
Doc files in the app itself. Slack chose the right path by taking advantage of Google’s tech to improve
their services. Also, around the same time, the enterprise company announced a deep product partnership
with Salesforce (Perez, 2016). This integration made it easier to share data across the two cloud services,
as it did with Slack’s partnership with Google.

Since Slack is the top of the food chain in terms of business communication apps, companies have been
lining up to get a piece of the user base. Large technology companies like Zapier were among the first
companies to create a useful collaboration. Zapier is a software that automates integration between to
apps, for example Slack and Gmail. With Slack and Zapier having such a close relationship, it spawned
other companies already on Zapier app directory to push for integrations for Slack. Some of the most
common collaborations for Slack include Gmail, Braintree, Base, and Google Drive.

Competitors
Slack has revolutionized the way business employee communicate with each other on a daily basis. They
were able to create an all in one messaging platform that has an incredible UX. But technology is forever
progressing and recent competitors have emerged with a spin off of Slack. Some of their top competition
includes Br.im, Chatwork, and Azendoo. Taking a closer look, we find out that Br.im is profiling itself as
an all-in-one messaging app for teams. Collaborate on files, video conference, and manage team projects.
The main differential is within their push for video conference. Chatwork on the other hand has made its
stance for global team communication. Providing almost identical services to Slack but really honing in
on the global communication factor within a business. Lastly, Azendoo which is targeting the same
demographic but has a slightly different tech software. Azendoo has built a platform that it claims to be
“much bigger than a just a chat platform”. They are pushing for the AI factor in filtering messages by
subjects​ and incorporating more task organization into the service.

Company
“Making work simpler, more pleasant, and more productive.” Slack offers its customers a platform that
connects teams with the apps, services, and resources they need to get work done. Since its launched in
2014, and thanks to Slack’s unique offering, it is the fastest growing application in history. As of
September, Slack is worth $5.1 billion. Slack has global presence and a welcoming, respectful and
empathetic culture that makes sure that everyone working for the company has the tools to thrive.

Slack started turning heads in 2014 and it keeps doing it as investors keep coming on board. Slack expects
to go public at the end of 2018, which only reassures the position of Slack in the market. It is a tool that
has helped companies simplify their communication, giving everyone a shared workspace where
conversations are organized and accessible. As Slack continues to grow, it keeps integrating more
enterprise and productivity products available that keep its customers coordinated and working faster.
Slack’s ultimate goal is to make their customers “more productive, less stressed, and just a little bit
happier.”

Context
Regulatory Factor: The fact that Slack is a software is offered and managed on the internet makes it
subject to the ongoing rhetoric of Internet Governance and how until today it hasn’t been created an
official jurisdiction establishing standardized global general policies and sanctions, in terms of use,
access, privacy, content, software relying on it nor criminal activity; instead countries still regulate cyber
law within their own borders leaving the company subject to every national legal regime of each country
that it reaches. With that said, regulations revolving the Privacy of Confidential business information and
software protection against cybercrime, are the main concerns that Slack looks after to avoid possible
forthcoming sanctions. On the other hand, regardless of Slack being an online software, as any other
company, it still has the responsibility of paying levies, such as corporate tax which is a direct tax
imposed on the income or capital of corporations, still the percentage that companies have to pay varies
on the places where it bases its operations.

Economic Factor: Slack takes part on what specialist consider “A brighter future in our pocket” The
digital economy which is here, and growing every day. According to information obtain from AXXA
Investing Managers, Digitalization in the B2B environment can help profit margins through cost
advantages and revenue enhancing channels, nevertheless the digital economy is changing corporate
pricing and inflation, turbulent movements in the price of everyday staples are already a commonplace on
digital platforms that often resemble trading in financial markets, with the rise of e-commerce and
freemium services, online price based inflation measures are becoming more important and may lead to a
whole new inflation regime.

Technological Factor: Annie, an analytics tool maker, dedicated her latest report to the "application
industry economy" (Re: Yes, apps are an industry) and according to ReCode, although it would seem that
we all use mobile apps today, new research report says we are just starting to do so, in just five years, App
Annie estimates that the application industry economy will reach a value of about $ 6.3 trillion, compared
to $ 1.3 trillion the last year. Another trend is that the applications that started in the B2C world are going
to be adapted for business, which will increase Slack's direct competition.

Sociocultural Factor: “Over the last few years there has been increased interest among start-ups in using
Internet-based platforms to crowd​source a wide variety of resources, including funding, labor, design and
ideas” (Ghose, A. 2016) Nevertheless according to AXXA´s Investing Managers executives, “Digital
markets are largely based on network effects, making a large user-base critical, this often leads to a
‘winner-takes most (if not all) game” Slack has an advantage here, being considered the planet's
fastest-growing startup, with 4 million users, it is now in the position to create barriers to entry as a result
of their robust growth.

Value Proposition
Customer Value
There is an unmet need among our target customers for online communication that is efficient while at the
same time it eliminates the inconveniences of traditional communication.
Streamlined workflow​. Slack integrates with nearly every enterprise and productivity product available,
and you can also build your own with our open API. Adding apps to Slack keeps your team coordinated
and working faster, all within the context of your conversations.
Simplified communication​. Slack brings all your team's communication together, giving everyone a
shared workspace where conversations are organized and accessible. Designed to connect teams with
apps, services, and resources to get work done.
Increased productivity​. Slack aims to make work simpler, more pleasant, and more productive. It also
brings team’s communication together, giving everyone a shared working space.
Ecosystem for work​. Connect your conversations with the tools and services that you use to get the job
done. With over 1,000 apps, the Slack platform team works with partners and developers globally to build
apps and integrations that streamline your work.
Positioning Statement: Designed for teams who want to increase their productivity. Slack is a platform
that provides continuous communication with everybody within the company. Millions of people around
the world use Slack to bring their teams together, make sense of their work, and drive their business
forward. Unlike others, Slack has a product that will adapt to each team’s needs.

Collaborator Value
How does this offering create superior value for the company’s collaborators relative to the competitive
offering?
Monetary Value:​ Potential to increase revenue and profit margins.
Strategic Value: Increased customer usage since collaborators’ products can complement Slack. Having
them be compatible for Slack, such as google docs and Salesforce, can allow for customers of Slack to
have increased sales.
Positioning Statement: More businesses have switched to Slack’s software that offers the best in
streamlined workflow.
Slack allows collaborators to reach their goals and stay on task, making work more effective and efficient.
Since these companies are more effective and cost efficient with their workflow efforts, these firms are
reducing costs which leads to an increase in revenue and profit margins. Companies can easily adapt to
Slack’s software with it’s easy to use platform that can eliminate the use of email in the workplace all
together. With a faster way to communicate, getting work done is a breeze.
Company Value
By increasing the number of DAU in Slack, when the company decides to go public, Slack will have a
large user base established which will increase shareholder value. The ultimate goal falls in line with the
value proposition of the company. In addition, increasing the number of DAU can lead to conversion into
paid seats, adding more profits to the company.

Tactics
Service
Slack is a service ​that offers consumers a workspace that connects teams with the applications, channels
and resources needed to get work done. Currently, Slack offers three plans, categorized as free, standard
and plus. Each category has different offerings, with plus having the most benefits out of the three. One of
Slack’s primary factors in its service is the platform’s ease of use. Slack offers a user-friendly space by
implementing a simple hub that’s easily navigable from both online and its mobile app. Another primary
factor is Slack’s compatibility with third-party software. Microsoft Office and Google Drive files can
easily be shared among a Slack workspace. If the firm wants to optimize its offering and increase the
percentage of paid subscriptions, Slack should consider improving performance on various attributes. For
example, Slack has been facing connectivity issues with their service recently. Addressing such issues by
increasing the performance of having a more reliant connectivity would optimize its services, thus giving
consumers more of a reason to switch to a paid seat.

Brand
Brand Name: Slack Technologies

Brand Logo:
Brand Color: Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow
Brand Associations: Communication, streamlined, business communication, simple
Key Brand Associations: Streamlined process when engaging in business.

Pricing
The market for business communications apps such as Slack have really exploded in recent years. This
makes for an interesting pricing structure between the top competitors. Taking a deeper look into the
pricing for the top 3 business communication apps Slack, Stride, and Basecamp we find that Slack is
charging a premium compared to the others. Slack’s pricing ranges from $8 to $15 a month per user.
While Stride charges just $3 a month per user and Basecamp just $99 a month for unlimited users. It’s
important to note that Slack does offer a host of integrations that others do not and have been praised for
the UX design.

Incentives
Slack has a limited number of incentives for users to sign up. The few that they do have include reduced
pricing when paying annually compared to monthly. They also have a referral program which offers both
the sender and receiver to receive a billing credit towards their next billing period.

In addition to their pricing plans that cater businesses of all sizes, they have opened their API for
developers. This allows other software companies to go build a product that directly integrates to Slack.
For example, Standuply is a performance and task manager tool that automatically send specific team
members a set of questions requiring a reply. These questions are typically based around what was
accomplished that day and any issues that arose. Since Slack has a bunch of other tech companies looking
to use the platform for exposure, it will become the hub for new B2B tech development.

Communication

Customer Communication
Slack is a company that has focused in developing a unique, personable, non-salesy brand personality;
that is consistent across all the communication channels they use to reach their customers.

Media & Strategy: Although throughout the years, Slack has had some interesting and successful ads in
mass media. Today, to communicate with its target market, Slack mainly uses digital platforms:
webpage, blog, and social media. Slack’s main goal is to drag traffic to the webpage or blog, which are
strategically filled with different ‘call to actions. To achieve this, they rely in a pull strategy, obtaining
viral word-of-mouth brand awareness, by putting the customer experience at the core of all they do, and
this way, keeping their loyalty and satisfaction. “Word-of-mouth marketing creates pull marketing
because the consumer naturally wants to experience what their friend might have experienced” (Corday,
2014) therefore since so many people already have an idea of what Slack is about, 91.35% of Slack’s
website monthly traffic (108.6 million) comes from direct sources, visitors are going to the website
directly.
Whereas to Slacks SEO strategy for their official website, 90. 16% of web traffic is organic. Opposed to
content marketing, a big part of Slack’s organic SEO success comes from the Slack App directory landing
pages, they ‘piggyback’ off the success of other platforms, with their 1000+ integrations. Nevertheless, to
amplify this organic traction they also use PPC advertising and this accounts for the other 9.84% with the
Top 5 paid words being Slack, Slack App, Slack Download, Slack Pricing, and Download Slack.

The other main communication channel slack uses with its customers is ‘Medium Publication’ which
brings them an extra 76,063 interested visitors to their site every month. SlackHQ.com, also called
Several People Are Typing – The Official Slack Blog is Slack’s Medium publication. This is where Slack
creates direct communication and brand identity with consume. In its medium publications, Slack does
post articles related to the things that its potential consumers are interested in, as well, it is a clever way to
provide customers with more product info without just referring them to a boring “help” page. Medium
Publications come with CTA’s, mostly referring to the main website and Social Media.

Besides using twitter as main channel for customer service communication, slacks social strategy consists
in redirecting customers to the main webpage and to the blog.

As it can be seen, the core communication purpose of Slack is getting traffic into their website, this is
because, this is the place where Slack delivers its message and the direct medium to get started with the
application.

Message: ​You need Slack because “​Slack creates alignment and shared understanding across your team,
making you more productive, less stressed, and just a little bit happier” (Slack)
Slogan: ​“Where work Happens”

Collaborators Communication.
Who were Slack’s Collaborators? The other platforms willing to work together and integrate with Slack.
Media: ​Slack communicates to its potential collaborators through the same channels that they
communicate with customers, mainly website, blog, and social media.
Message: ​“You’ve built technology that’s changing how work is done. We’ve got millions of users who
want to do their jobs more effectively. We’d love to work with you. Partner with Slack so that we can
shape the future of work, together.” (Slack)
Call to Action:​“Get inspired by what leading partners are doing with Slack.”
● Slack tries to attract big companies by showing of the win-win results with its actual collaborators
such as Google or Pay-Pal, publishing or sharing publications of prestigious sources were results
are shown.
○ For smaller companies who look forward and are trying to integrate with Slack. Slack
offers a whole guide of features, policies and an application for approval.

Distribution
Slack is an online service with mobile accessibility. Although by the nature of the service, it has to be
distributed through third party platforms (web browsers, App Store for iOS mobile or Google Play for
android mobile). It is a direct channel distribution because these mentioned platforms, have no influence
in the direct communication, negotiation between the final customer and Slack. Neither have any effect on
pricing.

Recommendations
1. Limit free to 50 people: In order for Slack to give back, we think it would be great for them to
offer their services free to small companies who cannot afford a communication platform like
Slack. In order to do so, we recommend that Slack offer a maximum of 50 seats per company in
order to provide for them. Once these companies become larger, they would have loved working
with Slack and would have no choice but to finally pay and they would be able to afford it since
they grew.
2. Make workspace urls easier: Workplace URL’s are hard to distinguish. For example, a workspace
can be called “mktg479.12pm.f17” and the URL would be “mktg479-12pm-f17.slack.com.” It is
confusing from a user experience standpoint, so we recommend Slack let the URL’s remain the
same but let administrator edit the name of the workspace to cease any confusion. The URL can
thus be “mktg479-12pm-f17.slack.com” and the workspace name could be “Mktg 479: 12pm Fall
17.”
3. Advertise on YouTube/TED videos with videos relevant to businesses: With having
advertisements placed in YouTube and TED videos, we feel that business owners and
decisions-makers will be the main audience for these videos. Having Slack showcased on these
videos will get the word out there about Slack.
Control
Performance Evaluation
Reaching out to companies that are currently using slack to make sure they know that slack is around to
provide customer service when needed. Also, Slack should check on the number of Daily Active Users
quarterly to constantly see if the company is obtaining an increase in DAU. The software company should
also follow up with customers by increasing customer service. By enhancing the customer service team,
valuable customers will be retained and a potential increase in new customers can occur through positive
word-of-mouth through Slack’s reliable software paired with its reliable customer service team. The firm
should constantly check in with developers on new applications. As mentioned in our collaborator
objectives, we want Slack to include exclusive apps in its software to gain a competitive advantage in the
marketplace. By having these exclusive apps, Slack’s value and functionality will increase among users.
Finally, the last method Slack should take is to obtain employee feedback. As mentioned in our internal
objectives, we want Slack to create a better workplace for its employees. An increase in its internal
marketing efforts can enhance the workplace, such as providing $500 annually to each employee in
personal development opportunities as mentioned in our objectives. The more employees are satisfied, the
better they can perform their jobs well, potentially leading to more paid seats as well.

Environmental Analysis
SWOT Analysis:
Strengths​: Improves business communication, one of the fastest growing companies, over 1,000
applications that are compatible.
Weaknesses: ​Communication-focused only, price per user can be high, user guide is not
extensive.
Opportunities: ​Add more features, expand their target market to schools, more strategic
partnerships.
Threats: ​Other similar platforms already exists, email is still loved, security threats are an issue,
companies are developing their own in-house communication platforms like Salesforce’s Chatter.
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