Julia Kinner's Linkedin Analytics

💊 How We Grew a Food Supplement Startup from 0 to $5M in 12 Months Here’s a quick look at the 9 steps we used to grow a food supplement brand from scratch to $5 million in one year. It all started with a great product / formulation but no clear direction on what to sell (exactly) and how to sell it. That’s where we came in. 1. Start with the product The client had a powerful formulation with potential to solve different problems and be used in different contexts. However, they weren’t sure which use case to focus on and how to turn it into a strong brand. 2. Do the homework We ran consumer and market research. This helped us understand what people really needed, what problems they were trying to solve, how they talked about them, what's the willingness to pay, what's the competitive context, 4P preferences etc. 3. Find the right angle The research revealed the most promising value proposition; consequently, we didn’t have to guess and had data that pointed us in the right direction. Plus, we had a clear idea about what people expected from the product in terms of communication, channels, packaging, ambassadors, what drives them to buy etc. This shaped EVERYTHING we did after. Without the research, we would’ve wasted time chasing too many directions. Instead, we picked one strong path and stuck with it. 4. Refine the product Based on what people wanted, we defined the product and value proposition, made tweaks to the formulation and packaging so it matched consumer expectations. We knew we were developing a product that people wanted! 5. Get the price right We tested different price points and landed on one that felt fair to customers, kept margins healthy and allowed us to formulate an appealing price per dose communication. 6. Nail the message We created simple, clear messaging that spoke directly to what customers cared about, highlighted product USPs (and was legally compliant 😅). We implemented it consistently across channels and media. 7. Handle barriers and objections Based on the consumer research we knew that people had objections concerning the effectiveness of the product because it sounded too good to be true. Consequently, we distributed products to influencers and media outlets pre-launch that were posting about their experience and created a positive sentiment. 8. Launch with a bang We launched the product with a "PR Bang" that led to a massive product and brand awareness and created a lot of visibility online and offline (we were very lucky here 🍀) 9. Test and learn The post launch marketing plan was a "test and learn" based on the findings of the initial research plus post launch insights. --- This research-first approach is our standard for launching new products. WHY? It removes guesswork and helps brands grow faster and smarter. Most brands skip this step, and it shows: around 80% of new product launches fail. Don’t be part of that statistic. Do it right from day one. Cheers, J ---

𝗗𝟮𝗖 𝗖𝗘𝗢𝘀: 𝟲 𝗡𝗲𝗰𝗸𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄 Retail is THE big growth lever for D2C. However, few brands survive. Here's 6 things that break your neck in retail. 𝟭. 𝗜𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 Why would a retailer list your product? Because it adds value. Retailers want products that: - Rotate faster than what they replace - Deliver higher volume or margins - Increase basket size - Reduce dependence on dominant players If you're not creating incremental retail value, you won't stand a chance. 𝟮. 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗠𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵 D2C brands often rely on storytelling BUT retail gives you 2 seconds to convince; hence, you need to win the FMOT (first moment of truth) without - Video - Landing page - Influencer / UGC If your packaging doesn’t communicate your USP, you’ll lose. That's especially brutal in categories where: - Education is needed - The benefit is nuanced or hard to visualize - Packaging limitations prevent clear messaging D2C brands must rethink their pack and assume zero consumer context. Lose FMOT -> no rotation -> end of game 𝟯. 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 Retail supply chains are unforgiving. - Pallets & outer cases - Labeling standards - Secondary & tertiary packaging Retail requires a dedicated ops teams and systems to manage logistics and compliance, communication with buyers etc. That's a big leap for many. 𝟰. 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝘁 𝗘𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗰𝘀 Retail is margin brutal. You lose 30–50% to the retailer and need to account for: - Promotions - Trade marketing - Slotting fees - Damaged or expired stock If you already struggle with margins online, retail wrecks your P&L. 𝟱. 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆 Retail is cash-flow hostile. - Listing & onboarding fees - Retail media spend - Product demos, POS materials - Free-fill requirements - Extended payment terms Without solid working capital, retail will starve your D2C operations. 𝟲. 𝗥𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲 & 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹 𝗙𝗶𝘁 Not all shelves are equal. Some retail channels require high velocity just to stay listed. This is where many D2C brands make a fatal mistake: They choose high-traffic retailers, but underestimate the needed velocity. In contrast, niche retailers may allow lower rotation and more time to build awareness and trial. Channel strategy isn't only about reach, it's about the right fit for your current awareness and product maturity. 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗧𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁 Retail is not D2C 2.0. It’s an entirely different game with new rules, new economics, and new expectations. If you're entering retail, do it with clear eyes and an honest view of your capabilities and what needs to change first. ♻️ Your network appreciates a repost

👉 The SaaS & Consumer Tech "Founder Disease" 7 Things Tech Founders Get Wrong (All. The. Time.) Let’s face it. Most tech founders are brilliant with code, numbers, infrastructure. But when it comes to understanding humans, not so much. That’s where things falls apart. I’ve seen it over and over again. Here’s a breakdown of common mistakes. 1. Falling in love with your idea You think your idea is great. But you forget to validate product-market fit because marketing and consumers feel like a foreign language. Guess what, if nobody needs it, nobody wants it. And nobody pays for it. 2. Falling in love with the technology You’ve built something “cutting-edge.” That’s cool. Except: consumers don’t care. They care about their own problems. Tech is just a means to an end. It’s not about your innovation. It’s about their job to be done and if you solve it better vs. alternatives. 3. Skipping market research altogether You don’t know what your consumers want. You don’t understand the value behind their needs. You don't understand their barriers and drivers (what matters) So you have no clue how your value proposition should look like, who's interested and how many. 4. Speaking fluent “tech” on your website Your product page reads like a whitepaper. The average user has no idea what you're talking about. Consumers don’t buy features. They buy benefits. 5. No clear GTM strategy You launch and wait for magic to happen. Newsflash: your two biggest problems are: a) Nobody knows you b) It's unclear if anybody needs you 6. Undefined target segments You're targeting everyone. Which means you're targeting no one. You haven't identified which consumer segments are worth focusing on. Your value proposition is generic. Your messaging is all over the place. You're running in circles (burning time, energy, and cash). 7. A pricing model only your dev team understands You’ve built a pricing structure that looks like a logic puzzle. It’s not optimized for value capture. It’s hurting conversion. HOW SHOULD IT BE DONE? - Understand the consumer jobs to be done & real problems worth solving. - Understand the value at stake (size × willingness to pay). - Analyze current alternatives and figure out if/how you can win. - Tailor your value proposition to specific segments. Position accordingly. - Build your pricing model around willingness to pay, not just cost structure. - Build a GTM strategy that matches your target segment. Focus first on the ones where you have the highest right to win. THE BAD NEWS? You probably don’t have the marketing knowledge to do this alone. And that’s okay. But here’s what you should do: Get a co-founder who is a real marketing wizard (not just someone who “likes branding”). Or: hire external help. Because the money you spend on a marketing consultant will pay off 10x. They’ll save you months of wasted dev cycles, missed revenue, and half-baked launches.

🔥 Exciting & mind-blowing This happens when you work with us ;) It's absolutely mind-blowing what we have achieved with MindKeepr - The Knowledge Retention Company in only few weeks. Congratulations to Sarim Zafar and the team. Well done and well deserved! The most exciting challenge is still ahead, validating the business model in real life and creating and capturing substantial value. 👉 If you're interested in a product that allows you to retain knowledge in your business despite staff turnover, please reach out to Sarim directly. They are currently recruiting test customers. --- Growth follows a playbook, no matter if you're a startup, scale up or mature business. JK & Associates SA follows the zero based growth framework of Frederic Fernandez & Associates of Frederic Fernandez which is a systematic approach to identify the largest profit pools in the market and design a growth strategy and value proposition accordingly. For me it's the best way to minimise luck when starting a business and scaling up. --- If you want to work with us as well, please reach out. We have few free slots for Q3 and Q4 2025. --- #startup #scaleup #profitablegrowth #growth

💂 I am in London next week. If you're interested in catching up to discuss how we can help you grow your business profitably, please reach out. Our approach is simple yet powerful and defines a value focused growth strategy in 8-12 weeks. How we do it? 👉 Phase 1 / Diagnosis Looking at business performance Current business growth model (4Ps) Competitive context Current consumer segments/value Qualitative consumer research Hypothesis formation 👉 Phase 2 / Validation Validation of hypothesis with consumer research 👉 Phase 3 / Recommendations Recommendations to adjust the BGM including value at stake analysis plus detailed action plan. Sounds like something that is worth 15 minutes of your time? Let's have a conversation. --- If you have any great dinner recommendations for London, please let me know as well 😅

🙂🙃🙂 Exciting My first LinkedIn Live Happy to share that I'll be speaking at MyTelescope Talks with Rodrigo Pozo Graviz. The topic: Small brands need market perspective too. Make sure to attend on May 8. https://lnkd.in/ekYd9ZTP

🧐 Why do you send me an invite if you don't reply? There's one thing I really dislike about Linkedin. People sending invites and then ghosting you. I just don't understand. I screen all my invites. Look at what they do. Accept the ones where I see mutual fit. Send a personal message to say hi. ... However, 80% of people don't bother to reply. I really don't get it. Why do you send me an invite? If you just like me content, you can read it without being connected. The point I'm trying to make: Let's stop wasting each others time here. If you want to have a conversation, please invite me. If not, please just follow. How do you manage such things?

☀️ Starting another trip around the sun today I really love this way of thinking about your birthday: it's the day you start another trip around the sun. Even though it's always the same trajectory, things change quite a bit with every new round. Grateful for anyone who joins me and the most exciting things are always ahead 🙂 P.S. Still digging - just on different topics.

🧠 Brands Are Memory Tattoos But Consumers Have Exfoliating Minds I loved Dale W. Harrison's post about what happens when brands stop brand advertising. Here’s 3 counterintuitive things that I learned in the comment section. (1) Brand awareness plateaus even with consistent spend At first, this seems counterintuitive. Shouldn’t you keep growing your reach? Unfortunately not: - You're reaching a fraction of buyers each month - Meanwhile, other consumers forget your brand This leads to a dynamic equilibrium: a balance between people remembering and forgetting, driven by your budget. No budget increase -> no awareness increase. You're just fighting against mental decay. (2) Aawareness bounces back faster after a marketing pause After a 12-month break, brands return to their original awareness faster than it took to build it initially. Here’s why: - Your first campaign builds awareness from zero. - After a pause, you’re working from a "residual memory base" (a faded tattoo, not a blank canvas) - Plus, purchases refresh brand memory without advertising. So the bounce-back effect is real, but the ceiling is still capped by your spend. (3) Big brands lose awareness faster This one was the most surprising. Here's the explanation: - Forgetting happens at a constant exponential rate for everyone. - But big brands start with a "larger base" of awareness, which means there are more people who can forget them. - The rate is proportional, but the absolute loss is much steeper for large brands. 💡 Key Takeaways (1) Awareness has a ceiling and it's driven by spend, not time. (2) Pausing isn’t fatal, but you’ll lose memory unless you refresh it. (3) Big brands are more vulnerable to silence than they realize. (4) Don’t rely on bursts. Memory needs ongoing "refreshment" So the real challenge? Not just building mental availability, but maintaining it. Your job isn’t just to make a mark. It’s to make it last - because customers have exfoliating minds.

🧐 I Asked ChatGPT: How To Destroy Marketing Without Anyone Noticing? The answer was disturbingly accurate. Here's the answer: 1. Promote Vanity Metrics Encourage the team to obsess over metrics like likes, impressions, and followers rather than meaningful KPIs like conversions, customer retention, or revenue attribution. They’ll feel successful without actually driving results. 2. Create Silos Foster poor communication between marketing, sales, product, and customer support. This prevents alignment on messaging, customer needs, and value propositions--crippling campaigns from the start. 3. Encourage Shiny Object Syndrome Constantly push the adoption of the latest marketing trend or tool without strategy or integration. Chase AI today, Clubhouse tomorrow, and TikTok ads the next without a cohesive plan. 4. Undermine Strategic Thinking Reward execution speed over strategic insight. Push for more content, more campaigns, more channels--without ever stopping to ask why. 5. Starve the Budget Slowly chip away at the marketing budget under the guise of efficiency or shifting priorities, until there's just enough to stay busy but never enough to make an impact. 6. Overload with Data, Starve Insight Give them too many dashboards, tools, and reports. Let them drown in noise so they can’t see what actually matters. 7. Erode the Brand Encourage constant changes to logos, taglines, and tone of voice in pursuit of “freshness.” Eventually, no one will recognize or trust the brand. 8. Make Leadership Doubt Marketing’s Value Subtly seed the idea that marketing is just “fluff” or “support,” not a revenue driver. Once leadership believes that, cuts and marginalization will follow naturally. The really disturbing thing? Many organisations are doing this every day and quietly destroy their marketing (without anyone noticing) 😈

💡 Even Chat-GPT says AI marketing strategies are bogus. Here's why There are so many posts about: - AI marketing strategies - The best prompts - How great it is So I could not resist to ask Chat GPT about the "truth" about AI strategies and their shortcomings. Here's a no-filter breakdown of where AI generated marketing strategies fall short. (1) AI is addicted to the generic Most AI marketing strategies are the equivalent of lukewarm soup, technically edible, but completely uninspiring. Why? Because people feed AI generic prompts and expect brilliance. Create a go-to market strategy for a wellness brand gives you the same cookie cutter, nonsense buzzwords, empty frameworks and recycled ideas. result. You get a Frankenstein generic mix of best practices. AI doesn't know what it doesn't know. (2) Hallucinated facts Human strategists know when the data is incomplete or flawed. AI doesn't. It will confidently recommend strategies based on hallucinated facts, outdated patterns, or misinterpreted tone. Worse, the output sounds convincing, which makes bad ideas harder to detect for non-experts. (3) Depth, not its thing Category expertise means understanding the politics of shelf space, buyer psychology, and specific retail environments, and the realities of distribution. AI doesn't know what it's like to be in a pitch with a sceptical buyer. (4) AI knows only what already exists Marketing is part science, part art. Humans make intuitive leaps that change the game. Think Nike's just do it. Doves real beauty or old spices, absurdist reinvention, ai, it's bound by the gravity of what already exists. It can remix, but it can't reimagine garbage in, garbage out. (5) Garbage in garbage out The average user asks terrible prompts. Write me a content strategy for Gen Z produces vapid results unless you explicitly feed it. Customer profiles, psychographic nuance, market differentiators, brand voice and competitive analysis. But here's the kicker, even if you feed it all that it still won't fully understand what makes a 19-year-old college freshman in Atlanta care about your product it just correlates traits. Humans connect dots that aren't visible yet. BOTTOM LINE If you want safe derivative soulless strategies that get out shined by your competitors. In turn, go full ai. If you want magic, you still need messy, brilliant humans. ---- For me the key argument wasn't even mentioned: To define a marketing strategy that is in line with your context you need SPECIFIC data and not a generic and outdated collection of facts that's available in the www. You need to understand "your consumers" and the value behind.

🤑 CMOs, CEOs: I bet 1k your segmentation isn't driving growth. Time to do better. Here's how I bet 1k your segmentation isn't driving growth. Why I'm so sure about this? Very simple, I see it every day. Most segmentations are like this: Men and women between 18-65 interested in xyz. Great. What to do with it? Let me tell you N.O.T.H.I.N.G. Because those "segmentations" are neither actionable nor value based and won't allow you to adjust your strategy and tactics. They're just a big pile of fluff. Before you invest another dollar into campaigns or product innovation, ask yourself: (1) Is our segmentation changing what we do? (2) Can we tie segments to actual revenue or margin? (3) Are we prioritizing the right segments? (4) Do we know how to reach and serve key segments? (5) Is our segmentation still valid? In 99% of cases the answer to all 5 will be a big fat "NO". This week’s newsletter shows how to fix it. 👇 Read the full framework: “Stop Guessing. Start Growing.”

💡 10 Marketing Must-Knows for CFOs & CEOs You're making decisions about marketing? Read this first: Marketing is THE business function that everyone likes to talk about but noone really understands. I put together 10 things of which I believe every CEO, CFO and Board Members should understand: (1) Marketing is more than communication Marketing should manage product, price, promotion and channels based on a clear targeting, positioning and objectives. It bridges your business with the market. (2) Brand is a multiplier, not a vanity metric Brand marketing amplifies performance marketing. (3) Short-termism kills compounding Focusing only on the short term tactics harms long term gains because only 5% of buyers are in market at any given point in time. (4) Attribution will never be perfect Not everything converts in a straight line. Time lags are normal and channels have synergistic effects.   (5) Creative quality drives results Creative ads drive have higher impact. It’s worth investing there. (6) Marketing uncovers blind spots Customer and market insights reveal where strategy, product, or operations need to evolve. (7) Great marketing requires risk If it feels “safe” to you, it’s probably invisible to your audience. (8) It’s not about you. It’s about your audience You don’t like a campaign visual? You aren’t the audience. (9) Inconsistent marketing weakens results Constantly shifting your message, audience, or style resets trust and traction. Consistency compounds. (10) If you don’t invest in strategic clarity, you’ll pay in wasted execution. Most underperformance stems from unclear positioning, targeting, and goals. --- I'm 100% convinced that a lack of understanding of how marketing works is the root cause of many business problems. From weak growth and misaligned teams to wasted budgets and missed opportunities. Marketing isn’t fluff. It’s a strategic business function. And when done right, it’s a growth engine. Not understanding marketing means: - Chasing tactics without strategy - Confusing noise with results - Undervaluing the long-term If you want better results, don’t just demand more from marketing. Understand what it’s really built to do and give it a platform where it can do so. --- What's missing on the list?

🚀 CEOs, CMOs: Try This "Anti-Growth-Hack" Growth Framework Follow structure, not luck Most businesses want to grow. Few know how to diagnose, measure, and do it intentionally. I get it. Too many levers. Too many things you could do. Your head starts spinning when you think about "Growth"? Here’s a framework with clearly defined levers, enablers and concrete KPIs. Once you break "Growth" down in a structured way, things become MUCH easier. 5 DIMENSIONS OF GROWTH 👉 1. CONSUMERS Grow by acquiring more consumers Things to manage: (not repeating this below) Awareness How many people know you exist. KPI: % of target market aware of your brand. Consideration How many actively consider your product. KPI: % of market considering your brand. Conversion How many actually buy. KPI: % target consumers who become paying customers. Distribution How widely available you are. KPI: Brand channel share / Total category sales. 👉 2. VALUE CAPTURE Grow by making consumers more valuable. Pricing Are you charging what your product is worth? KPI: Profit margin Sizing Make consumers buy more. KPI: Avg. order value (AOV), units per transaction Repeat Rate KPI: Purchase frequency per customer Retention KPI: 6- or 12-month retention rate Sales Efficiency KPI: CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) 👉 3. PRODUCT PROLIFERATION Grow by offering more things people want. New Products Launching more SKUs or variations. KPI: # of new SKUs or % of revenue from new ones Product Mix Improving margin across your portfolio. KPI: % of revenue from high-margin products. Upsell Encouraging customers to move to premium tiers. KPI: % of users on higher-priced plans Cross-sell Selling adjacent or complementary products. KPI: % of multi-product customers 👉 4. MARKET PROLIFERATION Grow by entering new places or audiences. New Segments Targeting new industries or segments. KPI: % of revenue from new segments New Geographies Expanding into new cities, countries, or regions. KPI: % of revenue from new regions 👉 5. STRATEGIC PROLIFERATION Grow by evolving your business model. New Categories Entering entirely new product or service lines. KPI: % of revenue from new categories New Business Models Subscriptions, platforms, marketplaces KPI: % of revenue or margin from new models M&A or Ventures Growth via acquisitions or incubation KPI: % of growth from M&A & ventures. ---- This is still a lot? How to prioritize: (1) Business maturity The growth levers are in order of priority from start-up to mature business. I.e. you start with lever 1 and work your way up (2) Value Things are getting really interesting once you understand the "Size of the prize" of each of the levers. This allows you to allocate your efforts where the opportunity is the largest. (3) Feasibility Not every lever is easy to pull. Some require new systems, teams, or investments. Focus where you're able to execute. --- 🧐 Isn't it strange: I wrote a growth post w.o. paid social mention? ---

👉 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲. 𝗜𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀. We love to talk about how marketing generates revenue. Or how it's supposed to and eventually doesn't. But we forget ONE thing. Marketing doesn't generate revenue. At least not directly. What it DOES generate is awareness, consideration, and eventually purchase. In other words, it creates the conditions for revenue to happen. It shapes how people think, and what they choose to do next. Marketing shifts minds and changes behaviour! It does this through the 4Ps: Product, Price, Promotion, Place. That’s what we call the "Business Growth Model." It’s how your 4Ps work together to grow your business. 𝗦𝗼 𝗹𝗲𝘁’𝘀 𝗯𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿: The impact of marketing shouldn’t be judged just by revenue alone. It should be judged by its ability to generate and amplify awareness, consideration, and purchase. Because those are the steps that ultimately drive revenue. This is marketing objectives! 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝘄: Marketing is being reduced to short-term lead gen and mostly promotion. Businesses desperately try to prove the direct revenue impact of marketing. By doing so, they forget one thing: revenue might be the end goal, but it's not a direct objective that marketing can achieve. The direct marketing objectives that are directly quantifiable and measurable are awareness, consideration, and purchase. If you're not doing this, there's a good chance that you measure marketing the wrong way and have unrealistic expectations to start with. It's definitely time for a mindset shift here. Let's start measuring marketing in more realistic terms. What do you think?

Marketing is F*cked Up Beyond Repair Too many people who don’t know what they’re talking about are selling their approach as the ultimate solution, mostly just recycling partial truths from other people who also don’t know what they’re talking about and aren’t addressing the core problem. But maybe it’s just me. It’s time to take a step back and look at the very basics. All the shiny stuff will bring you nowhere. The market Consumers Product Price Promotion Channels Not just picking one, but looking at the whole picture. With a focus on value. --- Sorry for the rant, just seing too much BS here.

😍 This is lovely Pinch me, I’m dreaming! I’ve been posting on LinkedIn about marketing & growth for almost two years now, and it’s really nice to see that consistency pays off. After two years, I’m in the: Top 1% Influencers in Switzerland Top 1% Worldwide Top 2% in Marketing & Sales (Switzerland) Top 3% in Growth & Lead Gen (Worldwide) What am I doing here? (1) Sharing the insights I accumulate while working with my clients on their growth projects. (2) Trying to make people understand that marketing doesn’t need to be reinvented - it needs to be understood. (3) Preaching that great marketing starts with understanding your market and consumers both qualitatively and quantitatively. (4) Repeating (often!) that this understanding must be translated into a clear 4P strategy. (5) Meeting some really great people along the way 🙂 A BIG thank you to everyone who’s been supportive here. I truly appreciate it. Let’s go for that Top 1% :)

💡 Boardroom Dialogue: We don’t measure Brand Marketing ROI?   Board Chair: Let's start. What's the ROI of our latest brand campaign? CMO: We don't calculate ROI for brand campaigns.   Board Member: Why not? Isn't that standard? CMO: Unfortunately it is, but if you don't have Marketing Mix Modeling it produces nonsense numbers.   Board Member: Okay. I didn’t know that. Why does it produce nonsense numbers?   CMO: ROI means cleanly tying spend to profit within a defined period and brand marketing doesn't have clear timelines because it influences buying decisions over months or even years. That means brand marketing simply doesn’t fit the concept of ROI by its very nature. Board Member: So the problem is the time lag?   CMO: That’s one problem, but it’s not the only one. Brand marketing also has synergistic effects with performance marketing and increases its efficiency. Without proper modelling we cannot understand the full effect of brand marketing on the business. We would overstate performance and understate brand. Board Member: Then how do we track if brand marketing is working? CMO: We focus on leading indicators: We analyse Share of Search where we track how often people search for our brand compared to competitors and how this evolves over time. Our share of search increases, that’s how we know that more people know us and our brand marketing works. We’re also doing a yearly Brand Awareness Survey to understand how many people know and consider us. Board Chair: Fine. Then what about performance marketing? We calculate ROI there? CMO: Actually we don’t. It’s a messy affair.   Board Chair: Why so?   CMO: For the same reasons. We just don’t know which part of the effect of performance marketing comes from prior brand campaigns, so we’d be crediting performance marketing for results it didn’t generate alone. Furthermore, attribution to different channels is never perfect and we'd just come up with inflated numbers that ignore synergies and overstate the impact of performance marketing. This would lead us to wrong investment decisions and harm us in the future. Board Member: So how do to measure performance marketing then? CMO: We focus on effectiveness, incrementality and cost-efficiency. For example we run controlled experiments to isolate the impact of specific campaigns or channels and understand the causalities and incremental effects. We also look at blended acquisition cost over time which allows us to gauge efficiency. The goal is to optimize outcomes and understand if we’re making better decisions. That’s more valuable than misleading ROIs.   Board Member: Thanks a lot.   💡 Major Learnings: (1) Brand ROI can't be calculated without sophisticated modeling. (2) Brand marketing builds long-term mental availability measured through leading indicators like Share of Search and Brand Recall or MMM. (3) Performance marketing ROI is closer but still misleading. --- ♻️ Your network appreciates a repost ---

🚨 I'm getting really tired of "Marketing is the bread and branding is the butter" posts. Sorry. Thousands of people like those posts where people who don’t know what they’re talking about take a lot of effort to create beautiful carousels filled with accumulated BS. I just can't see that anymore. And seeing this almost every week just confirms my belief that marketing is f*cked up beyond repair. Branding maybe too. So let's cut the crap and look at what it really is: Marketing Marketing is the process of identifying, attracting, engaging, converting, and retaining customers. It covers everything from market research and product positioning to product, pricing, channels, and promotion. Goal: Drive business growth by connecting the right offer to the right audience, in the right channels, with the right message at the right price. Branding Branding is the act of shaping the perception of a company, product, or service in the minds of its audience. It includes the visual identity (e.g., logo, colors), tone of voice, values, and the emotional associations people attach to the brand. Goal: Build trust, recognition, and long-term preference by creating a distinct and consistent identity. There’s no need for esoteric definitions that make things more complicated that they actually are. This one might not be perfect. I'm sure someone out there has something to add or to complain. That's okay. Thanks.

𝗖𝗠𝗢𝘀, 𝗖𝗘𝗢𝘀: 𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘀, 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗲𝘀?! Many things go wrong in marketing: (1) Short-term performance > long-term brand (2) “Data-driven” yet insight-empty (3) Digital obsession without strategic clarity (4) Forgotten 4Ps (5) Basics? Misunderstood But nothing beats this nonsense: - Personas - Sinus Milieus - Brand Archetypes - Millennials & Boomers You think that’s harsh? Maybe, but it's true. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝘂𝘀 𝗾𝘂𝗼: All these "segmentations" look pretty on slides, but they don’t meet the most basic criteria for business relevance: Value-based: Can they tell you who drives profit or loss? Actionable: Can they shape pricing, product, distribution? Strategic: Can they unlock a competitive advantage? No!! Then WHY are we doing this? I really don't know. You tell me. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴: They give a false sense of understanding and make you believe you know your consumers when in fact you have no clue. The problem is that segmentation is THE lever for profitable growth and if you base it on fiction instead of value, you're not just wasting time, you’re actively hurting your business by building strategy on sand / fiction. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗱: Customer Value-Based Segmentation 1. Know profit pools Segment sizes Segment value Growth rates Repeat behaviour / loyalty Acquisition cost / Customer value 2. Build segments based on real value Who delivers the biggest upside potential? What do they need? Where are your right-to-win opportunities? How can you address it? 3. Align 4Ps to segment needs Now craft your pricing, product, promotion, and placement to win the most valuable segments - not an imagined eco-conscious multitasker named Lisa. I get it. This is all very hard if your CMO has never heard of segmentation, targeting, positioning etc. That doesn't change the fact it's BS. 𝗕𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗺 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲: Want real growth? 📌 Dump pseudo segmentations 📌 Start with value based segmentation Then use segmentation to build real strategy and execute with excellence. Thank me later. This is what we do with our clients and it works. --- ♻️ Your Network appreciates a repost. ---