6 Greatest [Marketing] Insights from the School of Startups

I was lucky enough to be both a volunteer and a participant at the School of Startups, organised by The Shortcut. The School of Startups is series of creative business workshops, bringing the insights on different sides of business, from tech to design. This year specialists from different fields and startups came along together to help and encourage future startup stars. Being at the same time a volunteer, I had a chance to be a mediator between speakers and the audience and get insights from both sides. Excited by marketing, I am happy to share my greatest findings from 6 marketing-related workshops I participated in.

Content is about how you get on that first Google page — by Peter Seenan from Leadfeeder

Although blogging seems to be everywhere, marketers come up with new ways to catch attention. Search engine optimisation, or keyword search together with proper linking will skyrocket your content up to the first Google pages. Ever thought of using Quora? Quora turns out to be of great marketing use in terms of generating leads. When used properly, Quora enriches your personal brand together with bringing high-quality traffic to your website. Leadfeeder itself is a very powerful b2b marketing tool, that gives you a prospects on which company visited your website.

Business development is everywhere around you — by Dean Pattrick

There is Oreo and there is Burger King, both very successful and well-known brands. How can you boost sales then? The answer is simple, but genius, all you have to do is to get them together. Examples are endless: Marabou + Domino, Oboy + Daim, Fazer + Angry Birds etc.. Famously stated by Seth Godin, business development is “for entrepreneur or small business to have fun, create value and make money”.

Magic of Facebook Ads — by Kalle Tiihonen from Smartly

Hard to deny that internet advertising revenues continue to grow, last year Facebook & Google Ads reached unbelievable 99% in the US market. Although, for anyone, who has ever worked with Facebook Ads before this seems to be obvious, my first impression was that Facebook used pure magic to know everything about everyone and the professional use of it is even magic of higher level. Want to target travellers interested in web-development, who recently visited Helsinki? Want to find one more million users, with the same interests as your 100 existing customers? There is no limit for you.

Why branding is not only for corporations — by Robin Lemonnier

SME and starting entrepreneurs often mistake branding for logo and visual designs. Taking branding not serious enough might damage your business from the very beginning. In a nutshell, branding is the promise you make to your customers and technically covers your relationships with customers from the start till the very end.

Lean Branding goes together with storytelling — by Pouria Kay from Grib

“Lean” becoming a very trendy business concept still is getting power. Lean branding is about innovation and being flexible in the world of constant changes. Lean branding, explained by Pouria, a good friend of The Shortcut, in 4 steps starts with identifying the problem, offering value delivered through design and storytelling. The message of storytelling can not be underestimated either, same as lean branding itself.

Experiment with Google Analytics! — by Tatu Mäkijärvi from Nosto

Google Analytics tells you everything about the audience of your website: audience acquisition, behaviour, conversion and demographics. Google Analytics, let’s say, uses the same magic as Facebook Ads. Except that in this case, luckily for us, Google assists in learning the basics of Google Analytics via Demo Account, allowing you to try and experiment with all the main features.

The Shortcut is a community-driven organisation empowering diversity as an engine for growth through gatherings, workshops, trainings and programmes that help people explore ideas, share knowledge and develop skills to enable new talents required in the startup life. Follow The Shortcut not to miss next School of Startups and many more entrepreneurial events.