The Difference Between Marketing at the finding Stage and Delivery Stage

Once a recent business has reached the delivery stage, its throng needs to restructure its marketing efforts. Kristina Shtaudínger, the head of online marketing of Admitad Startups, talks about the difference between marketing at the stages of finding and delivery

At the finding stage of the recent business advancement, marketing is a peripheral service. The main bulk of work rests on the shoulders of a product manager rather than marketers. So the job of product managers is to generate hypotheses and direct their throng members towards resolving their current questions. 

During this phase, the marketing throng only needs to

• receive part in developing a hypothesis,
• make an appealing package for it,
• ensure its verification.

But as a recent business begins to develop, marketing becomes increasingly significant. The closer the capital round, the more significant the contribution of marketers.

Marketing: finding stage vs delivery stage

Any business starts with finding. It’s the period of intensive research. During this period, a throng conducts CustDev interviews and looks for a issue-answer fit.

But when a recent business gets capital, it reaches the delivery stage, also known as the growth stage. Growth largely depends on marketing and sales, so by this instant, a recent business’s throng needs to have a savvy product marketer with a solid schedule. 

Product marketer is a multifunctional specialist working at the intersection of marketing, product advancement, customer achievement, and sales.

At the delivery stage, businesses typically have some objective that can be converted into a marketing objective — for example, a sure number of leads. Whereas at the finding stage, a recent business simply can’t have financial goals. In this phase, the throng’s job is not to make a boost on the product but to discover a product that they will be making a boost on in the scaling stage.

Then, startups at these two stages treat buyer’s persona in different ways. Namely, a recent business only has a vague concept of what its leads are like, so interviews and surveys assist with confirming characteristics of the target spectators. However, at the stage of growth, a recent business already knows its buyer persona and has a corresponding propose. So its job is to:

• Formulate the USP.
• arrive up with a name for the propose.
• Design a logo for it.
• make an appealing package (landing page, slide deck, visuals).
• Draft a targeting schedule and tactics.

To sum it up, the finding stage is more labor-intensive because too many factors remain unknown. That’s why the marketing specialist can’t guarantee any results yet. Their mission is to back the recent business’s throng with ideas and validation.

On the other hand, companies on the stage of growth have more responsibility because money is involved. Marketers work predominantly with challenging facts and numbers, so they are supposed to be proactive, assertive, and able to guarantee the results of their work. 

Duties of a marketing professional at the delivery stage

As a product gets launched, recent features are added to it. This impacts the developers’ communication with users. Marketing is synonymous with comprehensive communication — basically, marketers act as the mouthpiece of the product.

But there’s more to that: at the delivery stage, the marketing specialist determines the path of throng efforts. It’s because they have a deep understanding of which goals a recent business needs to achieve. So marketers keep testing hypotheses and running HADI cycles, but with one crucial difference: along with developing customers as it was during the scoping stage, they are looking for ways to boost sales. Customer advancement comes second here.

Organizing the work of a marketer

Below, I’ll distribute with you how the work of product marketers is organized at Admitad Startups incubator.

1. The product marketer and the product manager work hand in hand, collecting the information about the product and its target spectators. 
2. After processing and adapting this data to the marketing needs, marketers forward it to the traffic and content managers, helping them decide on what copy to write, where to place ads, etc. 
3. Together with traffic and content managers, marketers describe characteristics and preferences of the target spectators to the sales department. Plus, they explain how sales reps should talk with leads. 
4. Feedback from all these professionals gets back to the product manager. It means that they distribute what features of the product the spectators didn’t like and recommend how to fix it. 

I personally view this procedure as a busy junction where vehicles leave back and forth between the marketing, sales, customer achievement, and product departments. But instead of traffic lights, product manager is the one regulating the whole junction. 

When throng members way our marketers to get advice on a sure issue, their mission is to provide a step-by-step navigator and keep an eye on how these instructions are followed. So the older the assignment, the more issues arise, and the more responsibility a product marketer has.

How many marketing specialists a recent business needs

The scope of work that the marketing department needs to handle might vary considerably throughout a recent business’s lifecycle. At the finding stage, a recent business normally needs to have a throng that consists of at least two specialists:

• Product marketer
• Traffic manager

Traffic managers set up ads. Additionally, a content manager and a designer might also get involved. These professionals are continuously included in the work of the marketing department. Sometimes, they also attend all the finding throng meetings. 

At the delivery stage, the department will be scaling in proportion to the allocated strategy. The business will hire or outsource any number of professionals that is relevant to its current goals.

Why one professional can’t substitute the whole throng

To cut down costs at the finding stage, founders might desire to inquire one person to complete all the marketing tasks. But it would be unreasonable to do so. 

Sure, a Jack of all trades might be able to set up a landing page using website builders, make advertising campaigns for social networks, and google anything they don’t recognize in between. Yet it would receive them too much period to tick all the boxes. Also, the outcomes of their efforts will turn out substandard at best.

If needed, a recent business can outsource nearly all the specialists it requires. Sometimes, it might be reasonable to outsource managers that will receive worry of targeting, content, and SMM. Even though the standard of their work might be not mind-blowing, it should be acceptable nevertheless. But you should never outsource a product marketer. This person is deeply involved in everything that goes on within the assignment. If the recent business outsources this professional, they uncertainty missing out on meaningful insider details. They might fall short to properly convey the USP to the target spectators.

Final thoughts

At the finding stage, the marketing department acts as a supporting structure and helps develop and validate hypotheses about the product. Whereas at the growth stage, marketers set quantitative goals for the sales throng and overall play a much greater role.

Product marketers require to ponder and act strategically to ensure the consistent growth of the recent business. They act as the mouthpiece of the product, establishing comprehensive communication with users.

At the finding stage, the minimum marketing throng consists of a product marketer and a traffic manager If the strategy permits, a content manager and a designer might join them packed-period — otherwise, these two professionals can be outsourced. Whereas at the growth stage, the marketing throng begins to scale together with the recent business, and its size depends on the corporation’s needs.