- Tell us how to create an email we can send to potential clients; what shall we say in our advert. – I heard almost from the first minutes of our conversation.
- Sure, no problem. Please share with me the details of your market research so that we can establish our audience, how we are going to offer your product, our competitors and USPs - I answer and hear silence and annoyance from the team leader...
Our founder Marianna Modenova recently participated as a mentor in a business accelerator for start-ups from Eastern Europe and Central Asia looking to expand into Western Europe, the US, and the Middle East.
She was invited as a marketing & communications mentor. Her role was to help the participants set up their initial marketing activity, provide advice on entering new markets, and promote their business to new audiences.
All companies were different, apart from a few with similar automation solutions. Only time and, perhaps, investors’ decisions will tell how brilliant their ideas are.
At Modenova/London, we usually work with start-ups after their first investment round, when they are ready to commit and have funds to invest in professional marketing. So, the experience of mentoring those who were only looking to raise funds gave us a new perspective in terms of where the start-ups really are and what they lack when looking for the first money to be invested.
In a nutshell:
Lean marketing for lean start-ups
Following the lean start-up approach, founders are eager to start sending offers and gather potential clients’ databases. However, and this is pretty common, they have no DATA to BASE their efforts on. That means that before crafting an email and putting together the list of people you will send it to, it is crucial to conduct basic marketing preparations that won’t take much but will definitely save tons of time and effort.
Here is how you can do it:
1. Market research is a must. Not the reason to get annoyed
Surprisingly around 85% (if not more) of the teams did not do proper or at least initial market research in the country they were looking to enter. The most common answer to why they chose this region was “it seemed to have a potential”, and conversation about the necessity of initial market research seemed to annoy founders as something unnecessary, even daunting.
When preparing the pitch, a lot of start-ups are looking for easy answers and quick fixes in regard to the market they are entering, satisfying themselves with vague, sometimes irrelevant or worse, inaccurate data. All these lead to inappropriate audience descriptions and strategic and tactical choices.
TIP: No need to spend thousands on bespoke market research. There are plenty of open sources and free options to get the feel of the market and dig deeper when needed. You can still find the size of the market, define main competitors and put together the list of potential clients/partners to reach out using Google, social media and less pricey options like Statista.
2. Beware of your enemies or their absence
Success in one country does not guarantee victory in another. Being too concentrated on the product itself, team leaders often forget about its market fit and those with who they will have to compete.
There is a chance that the same solution already exists. There is even a bigger chance that a few companies already enjoy success in the same niche. If so, it is good news on the one hand – what you have is something people need; on the other – you’ll need even more versatility, creativity and sophistication when entering the saturated market.
If there is no competition, you’ll be the first one – on the one hand; on the other – think and do your research again. Often (not always), demand creates supply. Make sure there is one (see point 1).
TIP: imagine if you were a customer looking for your product. What would you type on Google?
3. Why you?
So the market and competition are established. It is time to answer the question – why? Why should customers buy from you?
Another peculiar detail: technically savvy founders are usually eager to talk about their product. Still, they cannot give a straight answer to what exact perks it gives to the customer. In reality, it is not always easy to formulate that magic sentence that will make others’ eyes shine. But it needs to be done after some thinking and researching (coming back to point 1&2).
With time you might find different answers, but it is important to have at least one option from the beginning.
4. The art of reaching out
Without thousands (or even hundreds) to spend on marketing and advertising, you have to be creative when looking for customers, partners and introducers. Sales Navigator on LinkedIn is good, but if the team is not ready to put their heart and soul into communication, the outcome will be little to none.
We all are flooded with tons of information. If something is not of interest – it goes straight to the bin. In B2B leads – quality comes over quantity. My advice to start-ups and anyone else practising cold emails was (after points 1-3) to create a meaningful and genuine conversation flow. Take a bit more time getting to know the people you are about to reach, make them feel special and not just one of the hundreds you’ve collected for your heartless email automation.
The better you know your clients, the more chances they’ll respond.
TIP: Don’t forget to put together initial audience segments and their description. Your client’s avatar can change with time, but to start, you need to know who you are looking for and eliminate uninterested parties later.
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