Lisa Hughes: Before you sell your story, you need to understand what your story is

“Marketing is everything you do in terms of communicating with a customer. Before you sell your story, you need to understand what your story is,” according to Lisa Hughes.

A coach with 20 years experience in both start-ups and large corporations, she gave the 11 AIB Start-up Academy finalists a crash course in digital marketing last week.

While marketing used to focus on generating awareness about a product or service, it has become more of a two-way conversation though digital channels. Consumers are more informed about what they buy because they have access to recommendations on websites like Tripadvisor.

“Rather than marketing being about these above the line campaigns…now it’s about how you have a conversation with your customer. It’s still all about storytelling, but you’re not the hero of the story anymore. The customer is the hero.”

Hughes used several case studies to illustrate her points. One of them was the story of Lululemon, the Canadian athletic clothing company. She says it is very much a specialist brand built that “took on the big guys”, huge manufacturers like Nike. Lululemon built such brand loyalty in its customers that they began doing the marketing.

“Lululemon is such a brilliant example of how, by using a grassroots movement, you build your advocates and get them to really sell your products for you.”

She says this is an achievable marketing plan and is “very much in keeping” with the AIB Start-up Academy. “The lean business model and the community aspect of it doesn’t just mean a community of entrepreneurs. It’s also how do you find your community? How do you market to them to create a social movement?”

Hughes taught the start-ups to master “the funnel”, which she says is a numbers game. At the beginning, a large number of people should know a product is available. The end of the funnel is the narrowest part: customers.

“Once they’ve purchased, how do you turn them into not only loyal customers, but advocates? Very often the funnel starts at the point of purchase, but from a marketing perspective, the cheapest marketing will come from people who’ve already purchased.”

Hughes also says it is important for a company to have a message congruent with its position. She says Facebook is an example of incongruence.

“It’s a new world platform with old world values. They don’t take on board from the community what the feedback is. They’re playing a really dangerous game because it’s not congruent with their market position,” she said.

Ryanair, on the other hand, is an example of congruence. "It's really clear what their market position is. It's no frills…We all know what we're buying into because they're really up front with it."