Drei Monate ist unsere Jungunternehmerin Jaqueline nun schon in Portugal für ihren Erasmus-Austausch. Sie übernimmt vielfältigen Aufgaben, um das Start-Up Ihres Gastunternehmers bekannter zu machen.

Developing a Marketing Strategy

Now I’ve been with Build Up Labs for over three months. I used June mainly to develop marketing strategies. I was able to finalize and present the social media strategy for our LinkedIn page. The goal for the next weeks will be to develop a continuous posting schedule. To simplify the process, all postings will be scheduled two weeks in advance and automated by using the tool Hootsuite. This not only saves time, but also guarantees high impressions and engagement rate. I also defined our target audience and created a content ratio. It is important for a successful social media strategy that the social media goals are always aligned with the business goals. In total, I have defined 6 different business goals and defined metrics for them that can be measured using our social media accounts. The next step is to compare the KPI’s on a weekly basis so that we can measure the success and see which activities are working and which not. In addition, a second strategy for our Twitter profile has to be created.

Furthermore, I analyzed competitors with an Instagram profile. The aim here was to find out whether competitors with an Instagram account can generate sales through this. Therefore, we looked at the engagement rate of the posts. Other incubators with an Instagram account have a high follower rate but little engagement, which means that awareness can be increased, but this will not necessarily lead to more sales. We came to the conclusion, that in the current state of Build Up Labs, it would not make sense to invest the time and money to create an Instagram account and fill it with content on a regular basis.

Increasing the awareness

To increase the reach and awareness of Build Up Labs in Europe I was working with the customer-centric marketing model “Marketing-funnel“. Here I described the steps a visitor goes through before buying a product, here our incubation program. In total there are 5 different action levels. These are awareness (measured in website visits), activation (call to actions, using the typeform, subscription for mail form and newsletter), retention (program extension), revenue (monthly recurring revenue) and referral (number of new startups through recommendations). To generate more awareness, I formed several other funnels such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, cold calls/ emails and SEO. All these external media can be used to attract potential customers to us. Then to increase the number of subscribers and social leads I will continue to optimize the website in the coming weeks. In addition, I will work out a new startup referral program.

Working on E-Mail Marketing

Regarding our framework, I have been focusing on cold mails and SEO in the last weeks. I developed an automation for follow up emails. If someone signs up for our free Miroverse template you get a discount code two weeks later via email. I also created a cross link from our Incubator website to the framework landing page. Moreover, we launched a guidebook full with extra tips and resources on how to use the Miro template. Therefore, I created a preview with Notion and added an additional page component on the landing page to promote it. Together with my colleagues we also gathered feedback from industry experts. In the next few weeks, our task will be to revise the value proposition of the framework and develop a new strategy. The framework is not market-ready in its current phase and needs to be redesigned. In addition, it is important to define the user journey. From which sources do the users come, how long do they stay on the websites and when does the purchase take place. Ultimately, the goal is to find a sustainable acquisition channel and generate passive income with the framework.

Upcoming steps

In the coming weeks I will also be working on one of our new projects „Teamsurvey“. This is a tool of our webapp „Tap my Back“ to create surveys. For this we have to work out a marketing strategy. Here we want to focus mainly on the B2B market. At the moment the idea is to give the new tool to schools and universities to achieve market presence. For this purpose, contact lists have to be created and first steps have to be described.

Another main task for the next two weeks will be to develop a strategy for other incubators, accelerators and business hubs. Ecosystem players are our second target group besides entrepreneurs and startups and I would like to find out what would be an interesting value proposition to approach them.

Overall, this month I learned a lot about strategies and how marketing should be aligned especially in young companies. I learned that in startups the marketing and sales team work together and the two departments are not separated like in already established companies. The learnings of this month will also help me for my own startup, as I would like to work mainly with startups and young companies.