Start! Marketing online

“Online marketing is all about meeting specific goals – usually related to sales - in the most cost-effective manner possible. Apart from attracting the customers to the brand or a company and tying them with it, social media activities on Facebook or other networks are primarily aimed to redirect fans to the company’s website, because this is where the sales typically take place”, explains Paweł Ławrowski.

 

Medioo.pl provides its services in a comprehensive manner – it defines strategies in social media, sets up and maintains Tweeter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Google+ accounts, and conducts performance advertising campaigns on Facebook.   It also audits social media profiles kept by companies on their own – Medioo.pl evaluates their status quo, points out what could be done better and tailors action strategies to obtain the desired results.  

 

The company offers training courses in online marketing targeted at social media - so far such courses have been run inter alia for Business Link, Unizeto, PIG and NGO, and directly on the premises of local enterprises. It also co-organizes meetings of marketing specialists: “Small Talk. Big Ideas”, which - among others - are aimed to increase local entrepreneurs’ familiarity with modern and original marketing activities. 

 

Paweł Ławrowski is aware that Polish entities are lacking this kind of knowledge “When companies think about the social media, as a rule what they have in mind is a Facebook profile, because they expect that the numbers of fans and “likes” directly translate into sales volumes, which unfortunately, is not true. Then, to save up, they entrust Facebook profile keeping to one employee and spend their funds elsewhere - on AdWords or advertising on Onet.pl.   In fact however, investing in the help of a specialist and a proper advertising campaign on Facebook may prove far more beneficial”, he points out.

 

Paweł Ławrowski has learned the tricks of the trade through practice. He graduated from West Pomeranian University of Technology, the faculty of Production Engineering Management, specializing in Enterprise Management. He planned to become a recruitment expert, but after graduation he was hired in the sales department of Home.pl where he worked in close cooperation with the marketing dept.    This is where he took to marketing and decided to embark on a professional career in that field.     He gathered experience while working in the advertising division of Media Regionalne, preparing advertising campaigns for his friends on social media and generating various non-commercial profiles.

 

After some time Paweł Ławrowski decided to set up his own business. Medioo.pl was formally established in January 2014 with the help of a EU grant provided by InBIT under the programme called “Young Entrepreneur”.  The company received PLN 25 thousand for the start-up (which was spent on the equipment and software) and additionally, the bridging financial support in the amount of PLN 15.6 thousand (thanks to which there were resources to pay for advertising and social security contributions during the first year).  In the meantime Paweł Ławrowski took training courses on running business activity.  Luckily, he could count on his friends who also operated as independent traders  - for instance his fiancée helped him with the bookkeeping. 

 

During the first year of the company’s operations Paweł Ławrowski worked in cooperation with Michał Kowaliński who was responsible mainly for the graphic design and programing issues.  At present he himself deals with the majority of work , but he commissions certain tasks to graphic and web designers, and sometimes he uses the services of freelancers found through Facebook. In such situations the subcontractor is selected on the basis of the portfolio as well as the way in which he or she presents work in social media.   

 

Being a specialist in online marketing requires constant training and development – that is why Paweł Ławrowski regularly attends different training courses and reads foreign blogs.  Broad contacts are also vital, so he makes sure to develop many. “I operate near the IT Cluster and Technopark , and the location is very beneficial for me, also in terms of professional contacts”, he observes.

 

“Running my own company and soliciting customers proved much easier than expected.  However, I have gone astray a number of times:  For instance, there was a time when I took on too much. To win and keep my customers, I offered services at low prices.  As a result, I had so much work that I was not able to serve my customers properly. I also undertook tasks that I was not really willing to do on my own at first.   I subcontracted them and then sold at low margin under my business name. The results varied , and I have learned that it is much better to tell the customer that I do not provide specific services and recommend a different company.

 

Medioo.pl has a number of regular customers and some customers who return periodically, for instance in order to have their Facebook campaigns arranged. Paweł Ławrowski provides services to small and medium-sized enterprises originating from various industries and he uses post-paid accounting.  He advertises his company on the Internet.

 

The prices depend on the number of social media portals involved, the post frequency and the number of posts prepared, as well as the fact whether the owner of Medioo.pl needs to travel to the customer’s seat. PLN 700 net per month is the minimum. Invariably, a budget for Facebook advertising needs to be added to that amount, because - as he says - "Not much can be done on Facebook without advertising.”

 

Paweł Ławrowski is doing quite well, but he intends to make certain changes in his company profile.   “I am planning to move away from running typical fanpages so as to focus on advanced advertising campaigns on Facebook, Google AdWords, as well as other similar tasks linked with analytics.   I believe this approach to be more effective – if you follow it, you set a goal, you strive to achieve it under a predetermined budget and you can see clearly the results.  What is more, using such methods make it possible to serve more clients", he adds. Paweł Ławrowski also intends to continue with the “Small Talk. Big Ideas” meetings and create a proprietary online marketing support application. 

 

AK