Iliyana's Blog

17 Learnings from the 2019 Internet Trends Report by Mary Meeker

[fa icon="calendar'] 03-Jul-2019 10:00:00 / by Iliyana Stareva posted in Marketing, Technology

[fa icon="comment"] 0 Comments

Mary Meeker's 2019 Internet Trends report is out. 

333 pages full of insights around internet users and usage, e-commerce, advertising, work, education, freemium business models and more.

It's pretty detailed and there's so much to learn.

I've gone through the whole report and wanted to share some of the things that stood out to me. 

Before I go into the facts and learnings, I want to share this quote which I believe is very relevant to today's business and consumer reality, and specifically, businesses need to pay serious attention to this because few are living and breathing this: 

The rapid rise of gathered / analyzed digital data is often core to the holistic success of the fastest growing & most successful companies of our time around the world. Context-rich data can help businesses provide consumers with increasingly personalized products & services that can often be obtained at lower prices & delivered more efficiently. This, in turn, can drive higher customer satisfaction. Better data-driven tools can improve the ability for consumers to communicate directly & indirectly with businesses & regulators.

Now onto the learnings.

Read More [fa icon="long-arrow-right"]

5 Key Takeaways for Getting Start-ups Off the Ground

[fa icon="calendar'] 11-Jun-2019 10:00:00 / by Liuda Nebozhak posted in Public Relations, Marketing, Brands and Business

[fa icon="comment"] 0 Comments

This is a guest post by Liuda Nebozhak from Crello.

Every start-up undergoes some trial and error in its first 1-2 years. Those are probably some of the most difficult and crucial learnings of any new business. 

There's a ton start-ups need to figure out, including their own PR and marketing. PR especially plays a key role because as a start-up nobody knows you and you need to get the word out about your existence, your products and the new value that you add in the market. 

Our company Crello - which offers a design tool specifically for marketers and bloggers - has gone through multiple trials and errors but we've learned a lot.

We recently announced and celebrated reaching the major milestone of 1 million users over the course of just 20 months.  However, it took us some time to find our product-market fit and we are continuing to tweak it to this day. Along the way, we are leveraging our product development with the help of PR, brand ambassadors, and market research, amongst others.

Below are my 5 key takeaways for getting your start-up off the ground.

Read More [fa icon="long-arrow-right"]

Getting Started with AI for Marketing and PR Agencies

[fa icon="calendar'] 21-May-2019 12:52:20 / by Iliyana Stareva posted in Public Relations, Marketing, Technology, Inbound PR

[fa icon="comment"] 0 Comments

AI or Artificial Intelligence has definitely become one of the most popular buzzwords in marketing and PR over the last few years. 

Most marketing and PR pros haven't yet figured out the implications of AI in their jobs and there seems to be this misunderstanding that AI will replace the human. 

In fact, according to a recent report automation threatens a quarter of marketing and PR jobs.  

I don't believe this to be true. AI to me is an enabler, just as technology is. You still need a human's brain to discover and analyse problems, identify solutions and connect the dots between the human and the AI work through the best choice of tools. 

AI might diminish the need for certain tasks to be performed by a human but then this frees the human to work on the more important and strategic stuff and should be seen as an opportunity, as a challenge to develop new and better skills. 

These are exciting times for marketing and PR pros and agencies.

I've been reading a lot about AI recently and I want to share with you a compilation of blog posts and videos that apply to marketing and PR agencies. 

Read More [fa icon="long-arrow-right"]

Lights, Camera, Action: How Video Can Boost Your Inbound PR Strategy

[fa icon="calendar'] 14-May-2019 10:00:00 / by Simon Cliffe posted in Marketing, Inbound PR

[fa icon="comment"] 1 Comment

This is a guest post by Simon Cliffe from Branch Road.

Recently my wife tasked me with booking the family summer holiday. I have a 40-minute train journey into work, so a perfect window for doing research.

Typing ‘family summer holiday’ into Google, I was bombarded by zillions of search results recommending holidays from Costa Brava, to Malta, Crete, Mexico and so many more.

After five minutes of flicking through the various web pages, I felt overwhelmed and confused. Then for the rest of the day, I was followed around by an online advert trying to convince me to book a cruise.  

Sound familiar? 

For consumers, the colossal amount of content, PR and marketing messages out there can be quite a turn off. We’re busy people and we don’t have time to sift through it all. For brands, cutting through the data deluge and attracting our attention in a meaningful way, has become a real challenge. So, how do you do it?

The power of video storytelling

Read More [fa icon="long-arrow-right"]

Why The Challenger Sale Approach is the Best Approach to Consulting Too

[fa icon="calendar'] 02-Apr-2019 10:00:00 / by Iliyana Stareva posted in Marketing, Career, Consulting

[fa icon="comment"] 0 Comments

I recently re-read The Challenger Sale

Granted, I don't work in sales but everybody sells - whether it's a product, a service or your personal brand. 

I also believe that sales skills are essential for any consultant because they teach you to think differently when you're trying to provide solutions, are doing presentations and pitches or are simply talking to a customer about a difficult situation.

Especially when it comes to solutions, you need to help your customer get to the solution on their own by probing them with questions and guiding them rather than point-blank dropping the solution onto them because that's not how they'll truly adopt it - they need to come up with it on their own so that it sticks and so that they firmly believe in it. 

Back to the book - it lays out the ideas and strategies behind some of the most successful sales teams and sales reps and how they perform the job in today's world of sophisticated buyers.

Most of the selling approaches used nowadays are no longer effective because buyers are fed up with being interrogated without receiving any value.

There's a better approach to successful selling that the book promotes - the Challenger model.

Why the Challenger Sales Approach Works?

Read More [fa icon="long-arrow-right"]

Subscribe here!

New call-to-action
New call-to-action

Get Social

inbound-pr-winner-new-pr-books
Blog Awards 2018_Winners Silver MPU

Popular Posts

Public Relations Today

Want to talk?

iliyanastareva

I'm always happy to chat about how we can work together. Get in touch with me and start the conversation. I'd love to hear from you.

Contact Me