Marketing Strategies for Start-ups and Scale-ups-interview with Johnny J Pawlik
Good morning, 𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻𝗻𝘆. Thank you, to dedicate your time to this interview.
It is a pleasure 𝗟𝘂𝗰𝗮
𝗟𝘂𝗰𝗮: What are your suggestions from a marketing point of view about discovering the value proposition and problem definition? The first rule to respect is defining the population: is it a general one or there is a specific segment?
𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻𝗻𝘆 We create a marriage between the owner’s idea about the solution and its destination and what the market demands and people’s perception during the market research. Our research gives what potential customers perceive or think about the solution.
𝗟𝘂𝗰𝗮: What is your starting point for the research: classic demographics and what else?
𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻𝗻𝘆 Audience segmentation: from the company’s idea of future customers, we go through similar consumers to create a sort of verification of the original segmentation idea.
But what has been missed from new ventures is the specification of the marketing activities and the Marketing process and the investments destination. Verifying that everything is in the sales funnel. Especially for investors. And we supply this further specification about the process for Investors to make clear the funds destination for them. Ai is the tool that supports different research interactions.
𝗟𝘂𝗰𝗮: many founders are in rush to do things starting from the idea. But in terms of explanation or clarification about a road map, they are not efficient. Based on your experience what would you like to suggest?
𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻𝗻𝘆: There are two diametrically opposed ways of thinking among entrepreneurs. One is the get rich quick scheme. Invest in an idea. And then as quickly as possible, sell it to somebody else. And exit. There is no consideration for sustainability or environmental impact. Society. There is a completely unique way of thinking, which is, that money doesn't equal happiness. Personal meaning and value equal happiness. That means understanding what my values are as an entrepreneur, and how I behave consistently with my values in the market. There's a huge group of entrepreneurs, particularly young ones, actually, who want to create a business or a lifetime or want to create a business that is ethical, that is environmentally sustainable, that is having a positive impact on local communities. They are reluctant to exit.
𝗟𝘂𝗰𝗮: A start-up is in the launch stage. Speaking about marketing strategies, what can you suggest, or do you think that is more valuable and consistent for this phase?
𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻𝗻𝘆: From a marketing perspective, you need to be consistent for a certain amount of time to understand the impact of the strategy that you are already implementing. Many start-ups move too quickly when it comes to strategic change. And that can be detrimental. Once you have formulated a strategy based on the audience segmentation that you've developed, utilising the platforms that are most relevant.
Consistency is the keyword.
The overall guiding principles of that marketing strategy are the whole funnel itself, and the digital estate need to stay on point because it takes time to develop that engagement, that consistency, that familiarity. And if we change things too quickly, we do not get enough knowledge of impact to be able to make it function in the right way.
𝗟𝘂𝗰𝗮: What are the most effective strategies that you think are available now?
𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻𝗻𝘆: we find that for B2C funnels. LinkedIn is ideal, we find a high-level implementation of LinkedIn strategies, engagement strategies specifically. So LinkedIn PPC is great for the start of the funnel. For B2C, we find that Instagram and Tik Tok are great, particularly for still younger audiences.
Tick tock is going through an interesting time, a growth phase. However, if you look at the number of fake profiles, views, and followers that did everything else on tick-tock, it's meaningless metrics.
Some businesses don’t have any marketing they rely just on channel partners, but it obviously depends upon the specific solution or product.
Facebook strength is the group's you know, having a specific group and engaging with a specific group can be good. But then it has to be kept to a certain size because as soon as it starts actually getting bigger, it can be counterproductive because no one is heard and then people disengage.
My five tips:
§ Linkedin: telling compelling stories about you as a human being your personal life, you, out of business, things or happenings.
§ Instagram: collections of short-form videos that are visually exciting and different, maybe use speaking for maybe 15-20 seconds in an interesting environment fast-paced in succession is a great strategy right now
§ Tick-tock: If there is movement, it will get people's engagement. Humour is ideal for tick tock
Do not use a platform just because it's popular; use a platform because it's relevant to who you are as well. Authenticity.
𝗟𝘂𝗰𝗮: What are the key metrics to measure the success of a marketing campaign, in the middle between launch and growth? What are the two-three key metrics that you should just keep in consideration?
𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻𝗻𝘆
1. how many people are at the top end that you can potentially reach the meet the demographics,
2. continually understanding how many of those you've had at the start of your funnel.
a. So how many of you reached out whether it's PPC or organic posting or video pushing video out on other networks?
b. How many people are you reaching on a daily basis at the start of the funnel?
3. How many people are then going into the funnel, and reaching the website or the digital estate or social media platform?
4. The next key metric is what engagement is
a. So what are they doing when they come into interaction with the funnel? You can see then how many people you have reached; you can see what happens when they go to the website, or they go to a landing page.
b. A key metric before an acquisition is, what is the specific activity that you that particular user are making on your digital estate? What are the pages they are looking for? How long are they on those pages? Is one more interesting than another? Does that mean they then do something else? What is the average time on site? What's the average time on each page?
So, there are lots of metrics before acquisition where we understand activity and engagement with the digital state?
𝗟𝘂𝗰𝗮: After I had some traction on my digital estate, I can see that there is a decline in the audience, who buys or ask for more information. What is your support from a marketing perspective?
𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻𝗻𝘆: We are able to look at and investigate each component of the funnel to verify what is not working and identify the roadblocks. From a recent case study, a customer said that they are not getting clients. They have a brand and a website.
We analyse both and we ask 𝗟𝘂𝗰𝗮 s too, to understand the client’s behaviour on the digital estate and funnel.
𝗟𝘂𝗰𝗮 what do you think about the level of digital tools to explore and analyse deeper segmentation in terms of customer persona?
𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻𝗻𝘆: There is a gap in the market when it comes to particular types of tools. When it comes to personae analysis and applications in-depth. Even Google, Facebook, and Tick Tok utilise algorithmics to grab attention. But it is very surface level. It does not include understanding; it does not go deeper. So, there is a gap in the market for a marketing tool that can give you data that is actually based on pulling the different sciences together like psychology, linguistics, and others because it's not there right now.
