In my 15+ years of experience as a marketer, I’ve learned my fair share of tips and tricks. When helping startup founders understand what marketing tactics are most effective for their own business, I like to keep it simple and actionable.
Lipstick on a pig – a phrase used for decades to describe “making superficial or cosmetic changes to a product in a futile effort to disguise its fundamental failings”, according to Wikipedia. This applies to a scary amount of marketing out there.
In my previous role as Director of EMEA Marketing for a silicon-valley B2B SaaS company, one of my favourite parts of our marketing was involving customers in our thought leadership. The power of having the voice of our customers not only positively impacted our reputation and lead generation, but also the growth of that existing customer base who joined in on our marketing.
Marketing is a critical part for a startup in driving growth and retention, yet one of the main challenges of any startup leader is having the time and resources to spend on it. From being the HR manager, to the main salesperson, to developing and launching the actual product, startup leaders already wear many hats, so when it comes to marketing, they need a simple and doable approach.
Launching a new startup is always a huge risk, but with effective user research and testing, product leaders can gain valuable insights from end users to reduce risk from the outset and build a culture of learning from their customers. We recently held a virtual event titled ‘From Idea to Launch: How startups succeed with UserTesting’ and we were joined by product and startup experts, including Arielle Kilroy and Justin Berkovi, to get their top tips for ensuring success.
