As we approach the end of the StartGBC program with all the knowledge and work developed during this time, there are some questions I still would like to address to Neal Lelliot to help my company, Key-4 business, achieves its true potential. During this program, my business idea has improved and has been gaining shape as we progress. Neal and all the other classmates’ ideas were essential to bring the business idea to life.
Is a Small business a good niche, or should I select a more specific field for marketing?
The first question I would like to address is regarding the niche. After seeing the pitches from my colleagues, I saw one other company in the marketing industry which specialized in the market for pharmacy and all the relevant information that Neal shared about the importance of the niche, I was wondering if a small business is a specific niche or should I be more specific selecting a field.
Do I need a physical location at the beginning?
The second question I have for Neal is related to physical location needs. Initially, the plan is to have a home office to save in the initial phase. However, would a physical location be necessary to help at the awareness phase, bringing more credibility or this phase can put on hold for now when would be the right moment to open an office?
Is there a way to keep following StartGBC program?
My last question and the most important is to request if I would be able to somehow keep following his classes or have access to the information he shares. I think it is so important to keep in contact with so much valuable information and I think I need the support and the knowledge shared during the sessions I do feel I have so much more to absorb and somehow would like to have this support longer.
StartGBC has been a great experience for me to build my skills to open my own business and improve the weaknesses I find in myself. Working with Neal Lelliot has been a priceless experience. His content is rich in knowledge, and resources and I can say 80% of what he shares is new and extremely valuable.
There are a few projects we have been working on. I want to highlight the pitch with Canvas for Business and Cooperathon. The pitch is the most exciting project because I have been working on building my company to work on the pitch. I redesigned the logo and currently working on the website, redoing the mission and vision statement, and the structure of the business. The next part of this project is the Canvas business model. To get the desired results I sent Neal all my questions and requested a review of the work done. I have also been sharing my ideas with my peers and always have a positive outcome from doing that. The pitch will be sent this week and I hope to receive positive feedback.
The second project is Cooperathon, I was invited by a company called Scikoop to be part of the marketing team. Scikoop is a health research company improving the quality of research by including different types of stereotypes to provide more accurate results. I have been working on their designs for the pitch, and interface design with the user experience and AI team. To improve communications so not everyone could join the meeting by doing group projects and by creating tasks using slack! Which I strongly recommend for working with teams. The project will be done within two weeks, and all were able to manage all tasks within the desired timeframe and overcome expectations on the final piece. The team is happy with the workflow and the excellent feedback we have been receiving from the Cooperathon.
This semester I opted to StartGBC program as I plan to develop my business. In December 2021, I opened Key 4 Marketing Solutions to provide digital Marketing services for small businesses. I have been in the Business Development field for over almost 20 years. In search of convenience and changing lifestyle, I opted to do something I enjoyed doing during my work journey and opted for digital marketing.
Even though I have vast experience in management and operating business in Brazil, I want to gather valuable information to operate my own business in Canada. The program led by Neal Lelliott is an excellent font of information on what I need to address the challenges I have with lack of information and resources for new business in Canada. I have been building the company and improving services every day, with all that I am learning through the course and the available resources. Key 4 has been growing and acquiring new clients every month. However, this semester at StartGBC is helping me to do so. I am learning how to create the foundation for the company and make sure I have all the knowledge and structure to keep growing and make this job my primary and only source of income.
Key 4 works with all digital media marketing services. We have a team now offering services from website development to social media content and designs. We have been operating online only. We are now learning more about the competitor’s stages and weakesses as one way to improve our services and offer the best solutions to our clients. Marketing is constantly improving and changing. The least news and media reports, at this moment, is AI improving the quality of social media and what to expect. Yesterday at Cooprathon, AI was a relevant topic.
Imagine having the opportunity to participate in 11 weeks of Marketing Seminar Series, where you can learn from so many different areas of marketing. Thanks to Wendy Greenwood, I had the pleasure to immerse myself in this experience. This seminar was informative and an amazing opportunity to open my mind to all aspects of digital marketing.
During the past 11 weeks, we had the opportunity to interview the following great names in marketing:
Stephanie Lee Assistant Media Planner, Wavemaker Canada
PAUL MICHEL Senior Manager, Performance Marketing Harry Rosen
Gar Concannon Senior Customer Success Manager, Hootsuite
Caroline A. Berryman, CMMP Manager, Departmental Communications, Strategic Initiatives & Programs Transportation Operations Public Works The Regional Municipality of York
Ashley Walsh Account Director North Strategic
Lia Grimberg Divisional VP, Customer Marketing The Bay
Jennifer Stoll VP, Strategy Valtech
Cathy McKnight VP Strategy and Consulting The Content Advisory
Steven Tran Account Director The Aber Group
Jennifer Melton Group Account Director, Search Saatchi & Saatchi
During the seminar, we were given case studies as an opportunity to explore and discuss new scenarios and challenges in a specific area of marketing. Moreover, we discussed the challenges and opportunities in every aspects of the career.
Caroline A. Berryman was a great inspiration to learn more about Marketing in the public sector. I have never had the opportunity to discuss this topic before and always wondered how the process was to have a project approved in the public sector and how the campaigns were managed internally. The other interesting and challenging point of marketing in the public sector is that your target audience is geographically the same but demographically different and it would include everyone in that designed area and it would require different formats of campaigns for each demographic group.
I had the opportunity to connect through LinkedIn with most of the guests such as Caroline Berryman, Blair Roebuck, Paul Michael, Gar Concannon and others. As Porter Gale said, “Your network is your net worth”.
The most important thing to learn is that there is always so much more to learn. Marketing is always changing in concepts, technology, and relevance. It is a trend that you need to follow, keep updated, talk about, use social chats and network. It is a constant learning process, and it changes faster than any other career.
Network and Resources:
Which career do you want to pursue in Marketing?
To get the best out of your career you need to understand which field of marketing you would like to work in. So many options to choose from, analytics, creation, social, public sector, search engine optimization, etc.
– Publicis
I had the amazing opportunity to network with Alister Adams the Digital Manager and Chief Digital Officer from Publicis and Jessica Balter Analytics Manager. It was an incredible experience. Alister invited us for a meeting to present the agency and clarify all our questions. During the meeting, we had the chance to understand their process, policies and their team including the HR team which spoke about the open opportunities that they have and how to apply.
– Collision Conference
Collision was the best event for Marketing and Technology that I visited this year. The collision Conference took place in Toronto from Jun 20 to Jun 23. The event brings together the “world’s best speakers, tech’s leading companies and top media in North America”. The connections start with their App where you can scan a QR code and add the contact to your network which had led to many LinkedIn contacts as well. The event was so rich in information, innovation, and connections. In 2023 the event is scheduled to take place at Enercare Centre from Jun 19 to Jun 22 in Toronto.
– Marketing Groups to Join
Another effective way to network is through groups. I joined many groups to keep me updated and learning. I would recommend some groups to join in from different platforms. On LinkedIn for example there are many options to join groups for marketing and I recommend to follow hashtags, you can follow brands like Hootsuite and Canva. Twitter is another tool to keep updated and participate in social chats. On Facebook and Instagram, you can follow brands like Canva, Adobe Creator and others. It will always have free courses that the brands host online or new features that they launch.
Job Search resources in Marketing
In my opinion, LinkedIn has been the most successful job search option. I recommend learning everything about the company before applying. On LinkedIn, you can also directly contact someone that works at the company and get all the information that you need. As a secondary source, I would recommend Indeed which is also a great tool with more limited features but also a variety of options. If you are using Indeed. Always remember that more important than to know if you are a good fit for the company is to know if the company is a good fit for you.
If you are A GBC student and looking for a co-op I would suggest using the college resource to find your opportunity. In my case, I opted for StartCBG.
Interview with Lia Grimberg, Divisional Vice-President, Customer Marketing for The Bay.
Last week we had the amazing opportunity to interview Lia Grimberg. Lia is the Divisional Vice-President, Customer Marketing for The Bay. Lia is a data-driven marketing expert that understands customer needs using customized marketing communications to increase ROI. Close to almost 20 years of experience in the retail and financial services industries. During the interview we discussed what is data and how important data is for business, types of the data collected, how companies gather data and how data can be collected without affecting customer trust. The other relevant subject that she pointed out is Loyalty programs and how we can use data to improve customer relationships through loyalty programs.
I would like to outline the types of data that companies collect. We can separate data into two different groups: First- Party Data which includes contact data; transactional data; web-browsing data; loyalty data; and others. Second and Third-Party data includes partnership data; audience data; aggregate data. Below you can find the type of data collected that was shared by Lia Grimberg during the interview.
Data is improving customer relationships on so many levels. This relationship makes the customer feel that the company knows what they want and what they need. On the other hand, customers are concerned about their privacy. According to Canadian Marketing Association 2018, 77% of Canadians have concerns about their data privacy.
Companies such as The Bay follow 4 standards to use data without hurting customer trust. Legal Standards are established by law, or rule to compel treatment of certain classes of data and which is guided by PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Document Act). Ethical Standards are established by industries or professional organizations seeking to establish the level of non-legally binding treatment of information. Policy Standards are the company’s Data Privacy Policy and Good Judgment Standards.
According to Lia a strong loyalty program positively impacts the full customer funnel. Four stages impact the customer funnel: The first stage is Acquisition, which brings lower acquisition costs and identify the best acquisition channels and prospects. The second stage is Onboarding which increases reach by higher channel engagement; lower reach cost; and higher promotional response. The third stage is Customer Affinity which counts with a higher share of wallet and increased spending; higher margin; and improved return to promotions. The fourth stage is Retention which has higher lifetime value; reduces churn and higher brand advocacy.
During the case study, we had the opportunity to discuss ideas for loyalty programs for a retail store to increase the frequency of new customers. The group discussion was insightful collecting different ideas from such different perspectives and opinions. We used first-party data to develop new loyalty programs offering more customized offers.
After the interview with Lia and learning about Loyalty Marketing and data use to increase loyalty I was fascinated by this marketing segment. With my 20 years of experience in business and analyzing customer behaviour, I like the concept of reading the customer through their data and using them to convert sales and loyal customers.
Data is a tool that needs to be understood and used wisely to drive sales and ROI.
This week we had the pleasure to interview Caroline Berryman the Communications Manager of Community Engagement and Marketing for the York Region to discuss marketing in the public section. It was an incredible opportunity to see marketing from a different perspective. For me, with 20 years of working with business and developing an idea of a product or a brand, having another conception of marketing where your audience is your product of marketing and where you cannot build a persona because everyone in the community needs to be represented. I had never thought before about a difference and similarities between marketing in the private and public sectors as I did after this meeting.
Social marketing in the private sector differs from marketing in the private sector on many levels. According to Caroline, Social Marketing is an educational campaign that can influence positive behavioural changes, benefits individuals and communities and the concept of selling ideas instead of products. As we can see the market campaigns in the private sector are dedicated to the community at all levels. When thinking about promoting an idea for your community you are considering children, adults, and elders. Moreover, to have a project approved in a public sector is way more bureaucratic than in a private sector.
Caroline shared with us the current opportunities and projects in York Region. The creation of a pollinating bee and butterfly meadow in Richmond Hill to transform boulevards, replacing existing grass with gardens. We had a group discussion to exchange marketing ideas for this project, in which our team discussed different approaches that could be used for each age group children, teenagers and adults.
When a marketing campaign in a public sector is to bring awareness and change behaviour and attitudes of the public it has opportunities and challenges. The opportunities, for example, to bring awareness for bullying at school or the Every Child Matter campaign make a positive contribution to society and are easily embraced by the community. However, when the campaign is to change physical environments or involves investment there are different approaches from the society. Communities are made of diversity, different ideas, and different backgrounds. Sometimes you can not please all the community members, so it is very important to outline all the benefits of this campaign to make a clear and positive impact.
To conclude, Caroline also responded to all the questions we made to her. The majority of the questions were related to working in the public sector, benefits, challenges and opportunities. Berryman pointed out all the benefits and described her trajectory to get where she is now. In my opinion, to have an opportunity to work in an environment where you can help to bring value to your community and impact someone’s else life is a job that also brings value to you as a professional and as a human being.
I would like to thank Caroline Berryman and our professor Wendy Greenwood to this opportunity and all information shared.
The impact of the Covid-19 outbreak on the economy has significantly changed the outlook for retail spending. We are experiencing a new era where the business has to adapt to a digital concept to survive. Furthermore, digital media has been the biggest strength for businesses to reach new customers and bring brand awareness.
Paul Michel
Last week, we had the pleasure to interview Paul Michel, Sr. Performance Marketing Manager from Harry Rosen, who shared with us the challenges faced by Harry Rosen during the pandemic. Paul provided us with insights on marketing strategies used to increase the business as Harry Rosen is expecting a considerable return of clients this summer and a busy wedding season.
The first impact of Covid-19 on retail stores was the lockdown. All stores were closed, working from home, people not leaving their house for any special occasion
What is Performance Marketing and how to measure success?
“ The role of the Digital Marketer needs to evolve beyond a single channel focus to a more integrated & holistic view. “
According to Paul, Performance Marketing goes beyond Digital. Performance Marketing can be described as digital marketing; planning; performance budgeting; conversion analysis & optimization; Journey Mapping & Creative Briefs; Omni-Channel focus; social media & listening; traffic building; and segmentation & loyalty. However, Digital Marketing inside Performance Marketing is Online Channel Focus; Media Planning, execution, reporting & optimization; and achieving digital media KPIs.
The measurement of success is a combination of Digital KPIs and Overall KPIs. While the Overall KPIs are based on gross sales; net sales; gross margin %; gross margin contribution; share of wallet; and market penetration. The Digital KPIs involve: ROAS = Revenue / Media Spend Cost Per New Client Acquired = Media Spend / # of New Clients CPA = Media Spend / Transactions CPL = Media Spend / Lead
Digital Media Journey at Harry Rosen
Paul also pointed out the Digital Media Journey at Harry Rosen. The start point is understanding the customer and macro-trends, developing KPIs and measurement strategy, testing and optimizing media and finally, measuring success. As per the graph below:
In my opinion, the two steps I would prioritize more would be understanding the customer and developing KPIs and measurement strategy. The two steps are directly related considering that your KPIs would have no direction or meaning without your customers.
Case Study
I personally loved the opportunity to work on the case study in which we had to come up with the best plan for a summer wedding season campaign and social media platform after a low season due to the impact of the pandemic and thinking of some innovative campaigns, I enjoyed discussing all the idea with my team and presenting to Paul. It was an incredible opportunity.
To conclude, I would like to thank Paul Michel for the interview and for the rich content shared and for Wendy Greenwood for providing us with this opportunity.
We are constantly turning to our devices for almost everything that we need. The technology and the world we live in today allow us to get immediate responses and information to our daily needs. How many times a day do you use your mobile to get answers in moments like “I want to know”, “I want to go”, “I want to do” and “I want to buy”? These are Micro-moments that we are using to get answers on our device all day. In today’s post, I will mention 5 apps that I personally use and how businesses should take advantage of marketing to increase their brand awareness and sales.
My phone is with me all the time, I know that most of you also think that if your phone runs out of battery or if you forget it at home, you will feel lost like Tom Hanks on Cast Away without Wilson. When I’m leaving home to buy something, and I don’t have my phone with me I won’t be able to go if I don’t know the store I am going to or where it is located. I need to search where I can find what I need, and what is the closest place to go. When I want to cook something, I use to search for recipes with the items I have at home. When I want to play a song, I search for the chords online. I use my phone for micro-moments all the time and I know you do it too!
The top 5 Apps I use or like the most are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google Search Engine and Google Maps.
Facebook: I use Facebook mostly to find local businesses and items sold on the marketplace. I also use Facebook to find reviews from local restaurants and stores.
Instagram: I like Instagram to find tips on cosmetics products, watch reels of self-makeup tutorials, and fashion.
LinkedIn: This platform I use to search trends on business and marketing, find local events and promote B2B.
Google Search Engine: My top research goes on google to find quick answers to what I need at that moment. Sometimes these searches will lead to an action to purchase, get directions, find things to do or to get information .
Google Maps: Every time I need to buy something or find a place like a restaurant or a store, I rely on google maps, which will provide me with address, distance, hours and reviews.
When a business develops an App or a Progressive Web App to improve customer experience, it needs to be tested with a designated group of people that will be able to test all functionalities before making this available to the public. Mobile friction can frustrate the customer and lead to the opposite results, you can lose customers or receive a bad reviews. For example, Canada’s Wonderland App frustrates me every time that I will use it. Some of my membership information is not saved under “my account” and I constantly have to search for my membership number, some of the functionalities of the website are not available on the app and some are not available on the website, I have to be constantly switching between the two platforms.
Marketers and Businesses need to focus on improving the customer experience online using micro-moments. We have seconds to catch the customer’s attention on their search. Customers need to find all the answers to their questions when they look at your ad or post. Understanding how to address the 4 micro-moments in a short, informative or creative way is the key to success.
As mentioned in our previous posts one of the main reasons that lead the new business to fail is unsuccessful marketing initiatives. What are the first steps that a business owner needs to think about before opening their business? The first step is to predict their company’s marketing needs financially, audience reach, and accurate conversion-ratio predictions. Miscalculations and incorrect estimates may need to allocate found that may not be available.
Predicting Budget
A marketing budget is essential to plan your business and generate revenue. To plan your marketing budget, you should create a marketing plan and business strategy. The marketing budget is a tool to reach your goal. You will need a clear and detailed business strategy or you will not have a direction to follow. A marketing plan is part of your business strategy, and here is where you define your brand, product positioning, target market, your competitor analysis.
The next step to predicting your budget is a breakdown of all costs with marketing. It is important to list all activities, including tradeshows, sponsorships, and others.
Measure the efficiency of your marketing expenses to get accurate ROI. Once you decide on your marketing plan you should analyze every metric with the respective Key Performance Indicator. Once you have all the information on hand you will be able to create your marketing budget for your next goal. By aligning your growth plan with the information that you now have and ROI you will be able to decide what marketing strategy you will apply to reach your next goal and how much it will cost you.
Now that you have all the information that you need for your marketing budget you need to monitor metrics and actual spending adjusting when needed.
Thank you so much for reading! Follow us to get updates.
Having a business does NOT make you an entrepreneur. Your business behaviour does. Business behaviour, knowledge and strategy are the key factors to determine if your business will survive for more than five years in the market.
As discussed in our previous post, we will provide you with the 4 top priorities to have in mind when planning your new business. Knowing your threats and your strengths will provide you with the base for a successful business.
Business needs to be seen from a wider prospect. You can have the best product or idea to offer and still not be able to make any profit from it. How can we change it? Creating an entrepreneur mindset, getting information, and applying it to your business.
The four keys that we will address in this post are Financial Plan, Smart Management, Business Plan and Marketing Strategy.
Understanding how others succeeded and failed can drive your business to success. For that reason, it is important to understand the four main reasons new businesses fail: lack of capital or funding, retaining an inadequate management team, a faulty infrastructure or business model, and unsuccessful marketing initiatives.
Financial Planning is the first key to success. Small businesses fail for many different reasons, starting with a lack of money or operating capital. Poor management skills are another reason for small enterprises failing followed by a lack of well-thought-out plans and more important do not design a marketing strategy.
Key 4 