Sales & Marketing challenges

Liam Nolan, Senior Growth Marketing Manager and Joseph Westlake, Marketing Executive, JustPark
Joseph: We wouldn’t say either are more important than the other. The two work together very closely - JustPark’s essentially a marketplace. Marketing work to build the demand side of the business and Sales work to build the supply. Marketing also work very closely and strategically with Sales to grow that supply side of the business.

Liam: At JustPark, Sales and Marketing are equally as important. We take a really integrated approach and work really closely together.

Polly McMaster, CEO and Hannah Widdicombe, Senior Marketing Manager, The Fold
Polly: The Fold is very much a direct to consumer brand, so everything we do is really led by our marketing, so we don’t really have a sort of sales force, per se. We sell obviously to our customers, but it’s really through a marketing-led approach. Hannah leads our digital marketing and we’ve got a couple of channels that are really important to us to grow the brand.

Hannah: It’s a mix of digital, offline with our store, and our catalogue channels as well. All of them complement each other. Direct mail has been very good for us in terms of leading new customers to the brand, especially from the start, and I would say to this day that still helps us on a UK and international level. And off the back of that, it’s just supporting that with complementary materials.

Sebastian Allen, Head of B2B, Pact
At Pact, the role that Sales and Marketing plays within our success varies at different points in time. Within our D2C market, the marketing aspect of customer acquisition is very important to our success. Within B2B, although lead generation is important, the conversion of those sales leads is paramount to our success in that field.

Liam Nolan, Senior Growth Marketing Manager and Joseph Westlake, Marketing Executive, JustPark
Joseph: We wouldn’t say we necessarily have a most important marketing channel. We like to use an omnichannel marketing approach in which we utilise a variety of channels. That can range from social to PPC, to advertising, events. We try to use an integrated approach where possible.

Liam: The marketing mix at JustPark is really broad, ranging from the more traditional channels like trade press and events right through to PPC, social media and inbound marketing.

Sebastian Allen, Head of B2B, Pact
In order for us to reach our target customers as best as possible, and for the best and most efficient way, PPC and Social enable us to target those individual consumers in a very precise way.

Steven Dring, Co-Founder, Growing Underground

Our most important marketing channel is social media. As a small start-up company, the amount of money we have budgeted to spend on marketing is extremely small. It’s only when you really can propel yourself as a large multinational, when you can get to those kind of marketing budgets where you’re running tube campaigns or you’re running TV campaigns, so for us it’s the social media channels and really interacting and engaging with our end user customers, and that’s where we get a lot of insight as well for new product development, and we know where our product’s being used, so that real touchpoint with the end user through social media is the key channel for us.

Liam Nolan, Senior Growth Marketing Manager and Joseph Westlake, Marketing Executive, JustPark
Joseph: At JustPark the biggest promoters of our business are definitely our clients and our consumers. Our drivers are really positive about the app and the service that we provide them. Our space owners, whether that’s driveway owners or our commercial property clients or our local authority partners, are really positive about us being able to connect drivers with their spaces and provide them a really positive service.

Liam: The biggest promoters of our business are our consumers and our clients, and that’s really shown on the consumer side through our five star rated apps and on the client side through our numerous testimonials and case studies.

Hannah Widdicombe, Senior Marketing Manager, The Fold
The biggest promoter of our business is without a doubt our customer. They are our biggest brand ambassadors and they go within their networks and share the story of The Fold.

Sebastian Allen, Head of B2B, Pact

Here at Pact, by far and away our biggest promoters are our customers. They ensure that we have a higher repeat purchase rate, but also that they’re passing on how great the customer experience is to other friends and family and [that] increases our referral business also.

Steven Dring, Co-Founder, Growing Underground

The biggest promoter of our business are our end user customers. Whether it’s through reviews, whether it’s contact back to us as well, whether it’s online reviews, you get that instant feedback through those social media channels, so for us the biggest promoter is the end user.

Liam Nolan, Senior Growth Marketing Manager and Joseph Westlake, Marketing Executive, JustPark
Joseph: Our biggest challenges in marketing, I would say, would be resourcing and prioritisation. There’s so much we can be doing so it’s identifying what the most valuable opportunities are and then resourcing that effectively.

Liam: Being a marketplace and serving both sides of that market, and also servicing different verticals within those sides of the market, our biggest challenge is always prioritisation and making sure we’re doing the right thing that’s going to provide the most value at any one time.

Hannah Widdicombe, Senior Marketing Manager, The Fold
I’d say one of our biggest challenges is probably resources. We are in a market with much bigger competitors that have a great marketing team and budget, and it’s wanting to stay ahead of the curve, and feeling fresh, relevant and exciting for the customer, and something that they can relate to, resonate with and that excites them as well as us.

Sebastian Allen, Head of B2B, Pact
The biggest marketing challenge we have here at Pact is ensuring we maintain our cost per acquisition and also maintaining our brand identity as we grow.

A big challenge we have within Sales is maximising the time we spend selling, standing out from our competitors and also the way that we convert leads into sales through the sales funnel.

Steven Dring, Co-Founder, Growing Underground
Summarising the challenges with sales for what’s key here is the fact that we’re supplying fresh produce. Some of the challenges are making sure that it’s fresh every single day, on the customer’s shelf through that logistics cycle, so getting the product to the customer in exactly the format, the quality and flavour – that’s always a challenge when you’re distributing fresh produce, so that’s one of the major challenges with sales for us.

Liam Nolan, Senior Growth Marketing Manager and Joseph Westlake, Marketing Executive, JustPark
Joseph: First of all targets, obviously, but also being able to see the impact that the sales you’re bringing in have on the business, but also the opportunity to work within new sectors and really grow the business into new areas.

Liam: What motivates our sales team, other than obviously targets, is the fact that because they’re talking to our customers, they’re always at the forefront of shaping what our product and service actually looks like.

Steven Dring, Co-Founder, Growing Underground
What motivates our sales team, it’s that winning business, and losing business, effectively. If we’re under challenges from a competitor, say, it’s retaining that business, it’s winning any new piece and launching new products into large customers, that’s what excites and motivates the sales guys. With the sales team being led by one of the founders it’s really driving that passion through to our customer base, in terms of what we have here is a business that has impact as well as a great product.