B2B SaaS is Cool Now: Insights from a Marketing Expert

Navigating Early-Stage Startup Marketing: Insights from Lucy Heskins

The challenge of achieving more with limited resources is a common request for marketers joining early-stage startups. Lucy Heskins, a British consultant, understands this pressure intimately. Her expertise offers both a replacement for and a complement to nascent in-house marketing teams, frequently involving founder education regarding essential marketing functions.

The Core of Marketing: Understanding Customer Needs

Heskins emphasizes that marketing fundamentally revolves around comprehending your customers, establishing effective channels to connect with them, and ultimately fulfilling their requirements – a process intrinsically linked to profitability. This perspective is central to her approach, detailed on her website, Oh, blimey.

Experience and Expertise: From "Scars and Stripes" to Big Lemon

Having accumulated significant experience across various startups, Heskins recently assumed the role of part-time head of growth at “tech for good” company Big Lemon. Simultaneously, she continues to provide marketing consultancy services to SaaS and early-stage startups. Her insights, shared with TechCrunch, offer valuable guidance for both marketers and those considering hiring them.

(This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.)

Collaboration Strategies with Startups

Heskins typically engages with startups in two primary ways. One approach is project-based, such as exploring new customer segments or implementing a freemium model.

Alternatively, she functions as a mentor or extension to existing marketing personnel. This often involves providing guidance to marketers new to the startup environment, facilitating faster learning and quicker results.

Synergy Between Employment and Consultancy

Heskins’ direct experience as a startup employee provides invaluable insights. She has actively participated in reshaping business models, experimenting with freemium strategies, and repositioning brands – experiences she acknowledges as demanding.

As a consultant, she leverages these learnings, offering practical advice and avoiding past mistakes. Her experience across four startups allows her to adapt her approach, recognizing the multifaceted demands and pressures inherent in such environments.

Common Misconceptions About Startup Marketing

Startups frequently make several key errors in their understanding of marketing.

• Premature Hiring: Often, marketers are brought on board before genuine product-market fit is established, leading to conflict and unmet expectations.
• Lack of Trust: Founders, particularly first-time entrepreneurs, may undervalue marketing expertise, prioritizing short-term lead generation over strategic initiatives.
• Replication Without Consideration: Applying strategies that succeeded in previous ventures without accounting for the unique characteristics of new customers and markets is a common pitfall.

The Initial Focus for an In-House Marketer

Regardless of the startup’s stage, the primary initial focus should be on customer research and development. Heskins cautions against hiring a marketer who doesn’t prioritize this crucial step.

Understanding the motivations behind customer purchases or subscriptions is fundamental. This knowledge informs traction channels, value propositions, and pricing models.

The Benefits of Outsourcing Marketing

Heskins advocates for outsourcing marketing until a startup definitively determines both the existence of a solvable problem and the presence of a sufficiently large market to sustain a business.

During this validation phase, investing in skill development can be counterproductive. Outsourcing allows startups to concentrate on their core competencies while gaining specialized expertise. Once validation is achieved, they can strategically bring skills in-house.

SaaS and Customer-Led Growth

Focusing on SaaS Startups: A Unique Marketing Landscape

Heskins’ preference for working with SaaS, particularly B2B SaaS, stems from the holistic nature of the role. It integrates marketing, product development, and commercial considerations, demanding a comprehensive understanding of the customer experience.

The trial/subscription-based model inherent in SaaS necessitates a strong focus on customer retention, fostering a continuous cycle of improvement and innovation. Furthermore, she notes that B2B SaaS marketing is becoming increasingly dynamic and engaging.

The Power of Customer-Led Growth

Customer-led growth, a strategy learned from the founders of Forget the Funnel, views the product through the customer’s perspective, aiming to deliver value “whenever, wherever and however they need it.”

This approach is particularly relevant in the post-COVID landscape, as customer needs are constantly evolving. It provides a framework for identifying opportunities to enhance the customer journey and adapt to changing demands.

Content Marketing: A Strategic Approach

Heskins advises startups to avoid creating content simply for the sake of it. Content should be tailored to the customer’s stage in the buying process and address their specific motivations for solving their problem.

A strategic approach to content marketing ensures relevance, improves results, and fosters respect for the marketing function.

Sales and Marketing Alignment: A Collaborative Effort

Heskins emphasizes the importance of alignment between sales and marketing. Understanding sales’ needs for information to progress customers through the sales cycle is crucial. Marketing can, in turn, provide insights to sales regarding effective channels for lead conversion.

She advocates for marketers to actively engage with sales, contributing to content development, refining strategies, and ultimately driving revenue. This collaboration involves understanding the steps required to nurture prospects and build relationships, testing hypotheses about customer behavior, and identifying opportunities for improvement.

Ultimately, successful marketing is about understanding and addressing customer needs, fostering mutually beneficial relationships, and making their lives easier.