An interview with Daryna Lysenko, Head of Performance marketing at Mention-me
We sit down with Daryna Lysenko, Head of Performance Marketing at Mention Me. Mention Me empowers brands to harness the exponential power of fans.
How did you end up at Mention-me and what problem does Mention-me solve for its clients?
I have been with Mention me since October 2022. I joined the company as the mission and vision of the brand really resonated with my passion for implementing a data-driven approach to driving revenue. Mention me has created the world’s first true Customer Advocacy Intelligence Platform, driving the shift to make all brands think advocacy-first. The platform allows CX leaders in the e-commerce space understand who their best customers are and boost the impact of brand advocates on their online revenue. In the market environment where traditional growth channels don't work as well as they used to, this is a solution to a lot of the challenges our audience is facing on a day-to-day basis. I truly believe that leveraging your existing data base and building a seamless flow of customer data into your key acquisition channels is the way to win in the current market, and this applies in both B2B and B2C spaces.
As the Head of Performance marketing, what are your main responsibilities at Mention-me?
As a Performance marketing team at Mention me, our goal is to drive consistent and predictable revenue via the key digital acquisition channels. We have established a full-funnel multi-channel strategy and work across channels like Google, Capterra, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. to ensure a consistent flow of quality leads that convert into valuable opportunities. We work in close collaboration with the other marketing departments (brand, product, partner marketing and brand design) to make sure we communicate the value of our platform to the audience that can benefit from our solution. My main responsibilities range from day-to-day team management to strategic planning, budgeting and key stakeholder management. On the managerial side, I've implemented a range of Agile management tools to the processes within the marketing department at Mention me which have improved the efficiency of our operations (Kanban board, daily stand ups, kick off and retro sessions). I also work on benchmarking the marketing performance and setting goals, and work closely with revenue operations and data teams to establish a clear vision of how our campaigns are performing in the market and optimising the performance of the channels based on the pacing towards the established North star metrics.
How do you lead your team to organize and improve the marketing-sales process to increase sales and enhance the customer experience?
We have been working closely on establishing cohesive alignment processes with the sales team and have now built a range of rituals that allow us to stay on the same page in terms of the key goals and objectives. Some of these rituals include weekly meetings with the inbound SDR function to make sure they understand the lead journey and help establish the most aligned follow up experience. We have also built an enablement portal that outlines the demand generation strategy and showcases the key channels we have presence on, the content the leads have been exposed to and the key touch points they had while engaging with our brand. This has been helpful to refresh the SDR knowledge when we launch campaigns or test new channels to make sure our communication with every lead delivers a great customer experience. We have also seen an uplift in conversion from MQL to SQL and a boost in net-new opportunities, especially in the Enterprise segment. I stay very close to the key inbound deals to make sure the sales team has everything they need to push the deal through the funnel. I have consistent syncs with the sales leadership to make sure we can solve for any common challenges together as soon as they occur.
At ColdFire, when we look at our clients' Marketing and Advertising strategies, they vary greatly. Some have found a single, scalable client acquisition process while others thrive on a mix of top-of-funnel strategies. How would you summarize the overarching revenue-focused strategy of Mention-me, and what key elements does it encompass?
We have established a multi-channel full-funnel approach to acquisition at Mention me which is consistent across our content creation, events and digital acquisition efforts. Our TOFU approach is mainly focused on building quality content and events, as well as driving digital awareness programs such as intent-data driven content syndication. On MOFU, we maximise on remarketing activities, making sure we re-engage the audience that has been exposed to our awareness content with "snackable" content like use cases and videos via paid social channels. We have also established a segmented approach to nurturing our data base with segment- and region-specific nurture streams that have become a consistent revenue driver for our business. Finally, on the BOFU level we leverage PPC platforms like Google and Capterra to monetise on the commercial long-tail keywords. All our activity is driven by data: we're consistently analysing the performance of our channels across the funnel stages based on the key metrics and making changes in an Agile manner. It is worth noting that, as many businesses this year, we have seen a slight decline in paid channels and are now looking to strengthen the performance of our organic traffic with a holistic SEO approach.
What is an efficient marketing technique that you've implemented at Mention-me or previous companies, which you believe is underutilized by most management teams - and why do you think that is?
On the operations side, I've implemented Agile rituals within the marketing team that allow us to prioritise our activity and stay focused. As marketers, we're often asked to do ad-hoc projects and support additional initiatives which are not always aligned with the marketing strategy and wider business priorities, so it's helpful to have a straightforward task-tracking capability and a prioritisation framework. Tactics wise, one approach that I think is overseen is content syndication. A lot of marketers consider it to be "lazy marketing" but it can be really beneficial if implemented with a use of intent data and a multi-touch approach. Our content syndication programs at Mention me have contributed to many closed/won deals.
Has your Marketing team experimented with some kind of cold outbound strategy (like cold email)? If yes what was the general outcome and if no, why not?
We are now looking into implementing a cold outbound strategy in a new region and this would our the first time experimenting with this approach. Will let you know how it goes!
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