MAKE YOUR MARK
A recap of our live in person event powered by StartUp Creative x Squarespace
ABOUT THE EVENT
Make Your Mark: How to market your business online?
So how do you market yourself online when the average attention span of someone online is considered to be ranging from 8 to 12 seconds and on the decline?
As a result of the technology boom, we exist in the Information Age that transformed the way we communicate, access information, and conduct business.The Attention Age is a subset of the Information Age and refers to the fact that people's attention spans have become a valuable and limited resource. As a result we are constantly bombarded with information and content vying for our attention.
For businesses and marketers, this poses a significant challenge to have to find innovative and compelling ways to engage your target audience amidst the noise and competition.
When researching how much is spent on ‘vying for our attention’ aka online marketing per year, my good friend ChatGTP responded with:
As of my last update in September 2021, the global spending on online marketing, also known as digital advertising, was estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually and an estimate of hundreds of millions of websites at that time.
Author and writer for New York Magazine Fredie deBoer summarised it perfectly:
“The internet is a parasitic digital organism that feeds on human time and emotion, extracting money or attention through the most useless and shameless means possible”
Aka the world’s richest and most powerful men challenging each other to a cage fight to win us over to their attention-sucking platforms.
But fear not. Make Your Mark brought together three people who have managed to cut through the noise, click bait and doom scroll spirals to build themselves thriving online communities of people who genuinely love what they do.
In the words of marketing guru Seth Godin;
“Marketing is the generous act of helping others become who they seek to become. It involves creating honest stories—stories that resonate and spread.”
Our panellists have well and truly Made Their Mark; one was named Australia's fastest growing company by the Australian Financial Review in 2022, another is a Logie nominated presenter and another is a neuroscientist and award winning author who likes to drop a truth and F’ bomb every once and a while.
On the night they shared with us how they did it.
This event was co-hosted by Squarespace, a brand that helps brands to brand themselves. Our panel are all Squarespace users who have genuinely used the platform to help us build our brands to what they are today.
Our Panel
Kaylene Langford, Host
A proud queer, Guringai woman. My pronouns are she/her and the founder of StartUp Creative and author of How to Start a Side Hustle. She’s been helping people to start and scale their passions into viable businesses since 2014.
Co-founder of an award winning seltzer brand, Fellr. The duo launched amid the first lockdown and turned over just $11,701 in 2019-20, by 2021-22 they grew the company to $4.5 million in revenue and were awarded Australia’s fastest growing company.
Host of the hit podcast Do You F*cking Mind? and author of the bestselling book Be Bold. Her work as a pilates instructor and personal trainer led her to further her studies of the brain by undertaking a Master of Neuroscience.
FlexMami, aka Lillian
A best-selling author, Logie-nominated TV Presenter, Podcaster, DJ, Media Influencer, Social Commentator, Speaker, Brand Consultant, Model, Founder and CEO, simply put; Flex gets paid to be herself.
Key Takeaways
Will from Fellr shared how his brand is more then a product, it’s a lifestyle brand. From day one they invested in building authentic relationships with their customers to help them spread the word
Your website is ‘your own real estate’, you get to control the information and interactions with your audience and it acts as a safe guard against social media platforms that can influence who and what people see from you
If you create a brand that people are proud to get behind, that they’ll tell their friends
Fellr leverages partnerships with local businesses to stock their products in order to get it in the hands of more of their ideal customers
Make sure your business has a clear purpose with aligned values, it will help you to more easily attract your ideal customers who will fall in love with your product
Alexis shared that the science shows you have to see a brand 6 times before you trust it
Flex’s advice ‘no one is giving you the benefit of the doubt, it’s your responsibility to make a lasting first impression’
Your website serves as a customer service experience where you audience comes to get to know you and all of what you have to offer, make sure it’s a reflection of your whole brand
Build a team of likeminded people who understand what you’re out to achieve so that you can grow beyond your own capabilities and outsource what you don’t need to be doing as the founder of the business
Alexis uses her own unique POV on neuroscience that helped her to attract an aligned audience who love the way she shares no BS advice on her podcast
Flex has diversified her skillsets and offerings based on what she is passionate about so that she stays inspired and can keep showing up for her audience in entertaining ways
Listen to your audience, they will likely tell you what they more of from you
Stay tuned for follow up podcast episodes with our special guests, subscribe to the
StartUp Creative Podcast to be notified when the episodes are published.
Want a sneaky 20% Squarespace discount*?
*Enter promocode STARTUPCREATIVE at checkout by 11.59PM AEST on August 31 2023 to receive 20% off your purchase of a new subscription plan for a Squarespace website. Discount applies to the first payment of an annual or monthly website plan, but does not apply to future recurring payments. Discount may not be applied to previous purchases, subscription upgrades, combined with any other offer or applied after August 31 2023 2023 to purchases made before expiration of this offer. Use of Squarespace is subject to the Squarespace Terms of Service posted at https://www.squarespace.com/terms-of-service.
THANK YOU!
To the dream team at The Commons who hosted us and our 200+ guests at their George St location.
To the team at Kinokuniya Bookshop who ran the pop-up book shop on the night and made a lot of people very happy getting their signed copies.
