Everything you wanted to know about marketing (but where to afraid to ask)

Our Marketing Coach Mark Jennings ran a webinar recently where he covered "Everything you've ever wanted to know about marketing (but were afraid to ask)". Many questions were sent and here are three key takeaways from the session.Our Marketing Coach Mark Jennings ran a webinar recently where he covered "Everything you've ever wanted to know about marketing (but were afraid to ask)". Many questions were sent and here are three key takeaways from the session.

“How not to scare a client with too much information”

First thing to think about - know your value to your customer. Make sure the team knows and agrees on what your value is. If you don’t talk about it, there’s a great risk of misunderstandings and different directions within the team. A Value Proposition Canvas is a great way to get it down on paper. There are lots of different templates to download for free.

Second thing is Personas. Make characters of your audiences and different customers. Do a couple of different ones. How old is he, where does she live? What’s their occupation, how do they get to work, what’s their challenges in life? How much spare time do they have? What do they do for fun? Go deep and write down who you think your customers are. Obsess over your different customers and really get to know them.

Having these personas will make some decisions much easier for you, and you make sure that the whole team is onboard. Everyone knows ”Downtown Denise”, ”Corporate Claire” and ”Suburb Simon” and how to reach them on specific campaigns.

Of course, this is guesswork. It needs testing, validating, measuring and some more testing. Use Hotjar for example, to measure how people use your website or app. Do they really go through the parts you want them to? It all needs to be tested again and again to find a good fit. Things change over time. In a longer perspective, you’ll need to be up to date to what your customers are up to and in what way the world is turning at the moment.

However, it is important to remember that early adapters, the first customers, are the ones that pick up a new and shiny thing, tell ten of their friends and move on to the next thing. Targeting that audience only will surely create great awareness and a certain buzz - but no long lasting customer relationships. Think about the late majority as well, to find a good balance.

“If you have a B2B company - what would be the most efficient SoMe channels to focus on, in your opinion?”

An obvious way to go, but often badly done, is going through LinkedIn. The good thing about it is that your customers are already there. But everyone is doing the same thing. Talking to people on LinkedIn can actually be pretty tricky, but business people are people too. They use traditional social media as well. It’s not as specific, but some people put their jobs and titles in their bio etc.

Of course, using Facebook, twitter and other social media channels is broad, and it can be difficult to hit the right target. But you may actually reach your customers during their off time back home or even during coffee breaks at the office. it might work if you’re targeting an individual type of role, small contractors or individuals that can make a purchase quickly.

B2B is not about selling a vision through a cool video, but more about offering value. Giving away knowledge for free, offering valuable services that they can’t get anywhere else. This is more time consuming than B2C, but can drive a deeper relationship.

The thing is to use LinkedIn better. Don’t bombard people, but think more about what valuable content you share and can create. But don’t be afraid of using other social media as well. As long as you’re thinking about how you set your targets.

“Why is the conversion rate so low after a google ads campaign, it's below 1% over time we have been advertising. How can you have a higher conversion rate?”

One obvious problem might be that you have the wrong audience. The target for the campaign is not good for you. They’re arriving at your landing page and realise that it’s not for them.

Or, the landing page is the problem. It’s not what they thought it would be when clicking on the ad, you’re not explaining how they will solve their problems or needs quick or good enough. There’s no aha-moment. The goal is making the consumer feel that it’s worth their time, that it will pay off later on. And bad landing pages don’t do that.

One way to go is to get a better audience. Think about your copy, do lots of different adverts to see where you get the best results and response rate. Break it all down – where did they come from, what time of day, what is successful and what doesn't work. Then you keep and repeat the good parts, and throw away the bad.

Another way is to, as mentioned above, use a tool like Hotjar to see how people interact with your page. Where’s the cursor going, what is read, how far down the page do they go. You can also do A/B testing – set up different landing pages to see which is more effective. And steal from competitors and make it your own.

To see low conversion rates can be very frustrating, especially if you’re paying for ads. That being said, that 1% can in fact be super powerful and effective, they might in their turn tell lots of other people about you. It might seem low, but these numbers are often very changeable.

Mark Jennings has spent over 20 years advising or launching startups, he is the Marketing Coach at Minc. Learn more about the Incubator!

About Minc

At Minc, we believe in creating something bigger than yourself. We offer everything an entrepreneur needs to go from concept to market in-house. Our international network of advisors and award-winning programs will help your startup scale faster and smarter. Welcome to the startup house of Malmö.

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