1% Startup Marketing Challenge

Weeks 1 & 2

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Hey folks! 👋

Thanks so much for joining us for the 1% Startup Marketing Challenge.

As a refresher: This challenge gives you one thing each week that you can do in ~15 mins to improve your marketing by 1%*.

Why? Because most founders and operators, despite their best intentions, are often stuck in what we call "Marketing Drift". You don't have time for best-practice marketing amongst the craziness of building the plane while flying it, you're more reactive than proactive, and some weeks nothing marketing related gets done at all. Before you know it, it's been 6 months and you realise you've done very little to progress your marketing efforts (sh*t!).

We hope that by participating in these weekly challenges (as often as you can), you'll feel like you're making incremental progress towards your marketing goals. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. 🐘

This issue brings you weeks #1 and #2. It's not flashy or fancy, but it is useful. So let's get stuck in. 🚀

*OK, maybe not 1% exactly but you get the idea!

(And no, Stella Startups does not condone eating elephants.)

Challenge #1: Pretend to be your own prospect

Let’s play make-believe for a sec.

You’re at an event. You meet someone interesting. A few days later, they’re trying to remember your startup’s name…

They vaguely recall a post you made a few weeks ago. Or was it something you said on a panel? 🤔

Now they’re curious. What do they do next?
​They probably try to find you.

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This week’s 1% task is simple but powerful: Put yourself in their shoes and pretend to be a prospect.
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➡️ Google your startup. What comes up?
➡️ Check out your socials as if you're seeing them for the first time.
➡️ Try to navigate to a signup, demo or purchase point, just like they would.
➡️ Ask a friend who isn’t in your industry to try the above too. What do they notice first? What confuses them?
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Be brutally honest:
📍 Is it clear what your product/service does?
📍 Is your LinkedIn (or other primary social media platform) pulling its weight?
📍 Can someone take action in under 3 clicks?
📍 Does anything just seem plain out-of-whack?
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Write down 3 small things you could improve in the next 1-3 weeks. Then… actually do them.
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If your marketing isn’t making it easy for curious people to take the next step, you’re probably leaving money on the table.

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Challenge #2: Add a CTA to your email signature

Yes, this challenge is super easy. Super quick.

If you’re sending emails every day (and let's be honest, you are), you’re sitting on a piece of free marketing real estate.

So this task is to... 💥 add a CTA to your email signature.

That’s it.

Some ideas of what to include:

🔗 Link to a recent blog post

📣 Share your next event or webinar

📬 Point to your newsletter signup

🛠 Send people to your product demo or waitlist

Even if only a handful of people click through each month, that's a handful of (engaged) leads you didn't have before.

It should take about 5 minutes to do, so give it whirl!

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Any feedback? 💌

We'd love to hear it. Did you try these challenges? What did you find? Hit reply on this email to let us know.

This newsletter is from the team at Stella Startups 👋

ICYMI, we’re Stella Startups – a marketing partner for AU and NZ startups from early stage to scale up.

We bring you marketing strategy, brand expertise and hands-on execution, all with a commitment to innovation so you can make an impact bigger than your budget. Head to our website to find out more and if you’d like help, book some time to chat (we don’t bite).

See you next time,
Gemma & Bridget