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Clarity

Serena De Maio, Luxury & Beauty Marketing Expert

Geneva, Switzerland

Commercial & Marketing Leader in marketing leader Procter & Gamble (Luxury & Premium beauty products), alternating brand management, marketing fundamentals development, advertising campaigns and operational marketing in 40 countries. Managed $20,000,000 budget. Experience in beauty (perfumes, cosmetics, hair care, skin care, male grooming), fashion, restaurants, retail, & entertainment industry.

I have co-founded Grace & Wilde Luxury Shapewear and Wolf Leaders Academy Training organization unleashing the potential of young professionals.

I currently coach 6 startups in different development phases; my specialties being 1. to make their offer irresistible to their target group and 2. to accelerate the growth of existing business.

$4.17/min

29 Calls

17 Reviews

30 minutes
Avg. call

Marketing Lean startup Online Marketing Marketing Communications Marketing Strategy Brand Management Ecommerce Strategy Fashion Marketing Luxury Goods Beauty

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You Have a Business Idea and Now Look for a Roadmap.

You have a great business idea but don't know how to move forward? I can help you defining the steps that will lead you to a Minimum Viable Product. I will support you in the validation of your offer and I will help you bringing to the market your product or service.
Avoid mistakes and be more effective by leveraging years of experience in the largest FMCG company in the world Procter & Gamble, and years of startup management and consulting in beauty, fashion, and tech.

(Picture by Serge Saint)

You Are Already Selling and Would Like to Grow

You are already selling and are assessing ways to further grow your business? Avoid mistakes and be more effective by leveraging years of experience in the largest FMCG company in the world Procter & Gamble, and years of startup management. Leverage also my experience in identifying easy pockets of growth for 10+ small companies in the fields of beauty, fashion, and tech.

(Picture by Serge Saint)

You Have the Idea and the Roadmap. You Now Need Guidance to Implement It.

You are half way there ! You would love some advice on your startup to avoid mistakes, shorten timings and maximize success rate? I can help you on marketing strategy, packaging development, advertising (TV, Print, Digital) and on retail strategy.
I have 10+ years' experience in large corporations and small startups. I have designed and launched 20+ products in Beauty Care (Fragrances, Make-up, Skin care, Grooming), fashion and training industry. This includes the design of James Bond 007 perfumes and the launch of Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci and Hugo Boss fragrances in 40 markets.

(Image: Chris Potter)

Answers 35
Reviews 17

Answers

Serena De Maio, Luxury & Beauty Marketing Expert answered

Any advice on starting up small businesses in two countries at the same time?

Agree with Mijael Feldman Sabah, don't do it. Focus on one country first. Even if you are very rich, and you can cover investments in both countries, the traction will be much faster if you focus on one market. Your resources will also get a better ROI if you can focus.
Selecting one market over the other should depend on your business model and where it has the highest chances to succeed - for that, you might be interested in Customer Seduction, a simple yet proven business model course I've created on serenademaio.com
Good luck!

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Lean startup

Business planning

Entrepreneurship

Serena De Maio, Luxury & Beauty Marketing Expert answered

How has Uber grown so fast?

Simply put: a strong business model, where consumers can't but be seduced by their offer. They solve multiple issues while getting the gob done (move you from A to B) and they make it easy for you to switch from your previous solution to theirs. At the same time, they also solve the issue of drivers who want to have an additional income.
If you are interested in finding up more about strong business models (vs. weak ones which command what I call "booty call clients"), check out serenademaio.com

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Growth Hacking

Entrepreneurship

Growth Strategies

Serena De Maio, Luxury & Beauty Marketing Expert answered

How can I get started as an online e-commerce business consultant?

if you are new to e-commerce and online business, you should not set up a consultant business on online e-commerce business.
End of the answer.

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E-commerce

Marketing Strategy

E-commerce Consulting

Serena De Maio, Luxury & Beauty Marketing Expert answered

How do I make my company name show up when I search it on Google?

The more unique your name (low competition), the easier it will be to pop up on the first google page.
Forget about your name, which is such an egocentric approach to google search; focus on owning (i.e. repeating) the terms people will search when they look for a product or service like the one you offer.

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Web Marketing

Serena De Maio, Luxury & Beauty Marketing Expert answered

Should I guest post, advertise, etc. on existing sites where users talk about my competitors or should I find new sites similar to my target audience?

The answer to this question is surprisingly pretty simple and it depends on who your target group is.
If it is a subgroup of your competitors' users, then do engage where they already talk about your competitors.
If your target group is people who don't use the product yet, then go where those people are and engage there.

Defining who is your target group, what is the solution your product offers to their issues and how to engage with them is sometimes complicated. I'm happy to jump on a call to help you clarify all this. It will help you in this specific question you have just raised but also in the future whenever you need to decide what to do: it's always all about your target group and their needs.
Serena

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Marketing Strategy

Online Advertising

Growth Strategies

Serena De Maio, Luxury & Beauty Marketing Expert answered

Why is my landing page not converting after a thousand clicks of my FB ad?

A lot of good advice here:) but the key question here is: what is the url of your page? Once you provide it, I'll be able to give you concrete actions to implement ;)

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Facebook Ads

Early Stage Startup

Lean startup

Serena De Maio, Luxury & Beauty Marketing Expert answered

What are the biggest mistakes startups make?

Hi there,
I had 3 startups until now and here the mistakes I would have loved to avoid in my first startup:

- Hoping all will be 'just fine'.
It simply won't. Statistically you will fail. The sales you hoped would explode will not. So plan for small milestones, small successes on the way to big success. Don't plan to sell 1 000 products, plan for the first 10 and define what are the next steps to get to 1 000 after you sold the first 10.

- Spending big money before qualifying a Minimum Viable Product in front of consumers and the trade.

- Being dependent on long production time or high minimum order quantity. I was dependent on both, they forced me to produce A LOT of stock, which I didn't sold profitably at the end.

- Having high production costs for each product.
This capped the free sampling we could do with key influencers and celebrities.

- Having a high number of SKUs (product's shapes and color combinations). This increased the complexity and put pressure on the level of stock we had to have.

Naturally, even in my first startup we did many things right, like Branding, creating a product people wanted, the PR campaign, building an automatic logistic and shipment platform...

If you have a startup and want to talk more/ would like a mentor, give me a call. I'm currently mentoring 3 startups.
Serena

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Start-ups

Serena De Maio, Luxury & Beauty Marketing Expert answered

How you deal with unpaid invoices for your marking agency?

All what was already said makes sense.
The first solution that came to my mind is:
- Ask people to pay: you personally, call the highest manager you came across and naively asked if they don't pay you because they don't like your work or in general respect the people working in your agency => the chance accountancy is messy vs. dishonest is very high, a top manager can fix this
- externalize this problem to a company whose job is to get invoices paid so you can focus on what you do best. To cover their fees, include in the payment terms that you wiull charge fees in case of late payment.

serena
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Digital Agency

Agency Leadership

Marketing Agency

Serena De Maio, Luxury & Beauty Marketing Expert answered

What are some interesting growth hacks for a South Asian dating app?

In marketing all starts with your target group: who exactly are then (no, South Asian 20-35 is not enough), where do they eat, where do they gather, what is the preferred sport or activity, what are their fears and hopes, ...
How is your product helping your target group, why using you instead of your competitors?

Based on this, you can come up with ideas.

Many startups didn't spend enough time on the above definition and get stuck from the marketing point of view. I'm happy to spend some time with you to put all you have in your head concerning target group on paper and test some growth hacks idea.

Talk to you soon :)
Serena

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Growth Hacking

Growth Strategies

Mobile applications

Serena De Maio, Luxury & Beauty Marketing Expert answered

Would I be able to find a job based on the skills I learned being an "entrepreneur" if my startup doesn't succeed?

I totally recognize myself in your description. You can read the article I've written on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-5-mistakes-entrepreneur-coming-from-corporate-serena-de-maio

People learn from mistakes + building a company teaches so much that only fools will treat it as a negative on your CV.
And you don't want to work for / with fools, do you ;) ?

Good luck,
Serena

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Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneur

Startups

Serena De Maio, Luxury & Beauty Marketing Expert answered

How do you find an ideal target market or consumerr?

hi, start from the issue you want to solve or need you want to fulfill. Then find a consumer for whom the issue or need is really important and/or urgent. Take Uber, the issue they solve is helping people to go from place A to place B.
This is important for many segments:
- Business people
- People going out at night
- Moms without a car
-...
Each segment has different pain points. Business people might dislike waiting in the street for a taxi, or not being able to know when a taxi will pass by, or paying in cash because this make their expense reporting more complicated. Uber is solving those issues.

In general, list the pain points for each segment your product or service is relevant. Then order by priority the segments by estimating the following:
- Size of the segment: is it large enough to generate enough sales?
- Potential to win with that segment?: is competition high, is your offer differentiate enough?
- Can you reach the segment with your communication in a cost effective way?
- Profitability of the segment

Once you ordered the segments, you can start testing. Your ideal consumer will be the segment that is fulfilling all above questions and buy your product or service. You might think one segment has more potential, but if you can't make them buy, then you might decide that you don't have the right to win with it and move to another segment.

I'm happy to jump on a call to talk more about your offer and how to ensure you define segment that you can target and win with.
Serena

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Marketing Strategy

Customer Acquisition

Customer Development

Reviews

Serena helped me get clear on my message so that I can help draw people into my website. She gave me actionable feedback on how to rework my copy and images. I'm excited to put her suggestions into action and see the difference.

Bethany Hilt Source: Clarity

It was so lovely to speak with Serena. As an owner of a startup business, I was all over the place with so many great ideas and Serena helped me with fine tuning the key message and product that will make my brand stand out.

Lola Dansu Source: Clarity

Serena helped to spot the main issue with my business which was undermining all marketing efforts. Great thing is that i also got ideas to solve it

Artyom Kalinin Source: Clarity

Before speaking with Serena, I thought I needed help on business models, but I discovered that I need to work more on my core message. Serena helped me have clarity on what aspects of my current model need to be tweaked, what solutions I can also generate, and I'm excited to work on them and have confidence that the model will fall into place as well. We did go over time by about 8 minutes so keep your eye on the clock if it's a priority.

Katheryn Gronauer Source: Clarity

Amazing insight and look forward to working together on this project!

Teddy Stanowski Source: Clarity

I'm really happy with the huge insights and action plan I have come away with from just one call with Serena. She has a wealth of knowledge and provided extensive advice and ideas for the research, development, and marketing of my product and business, which has really helped me to clarify and narrow down my focus. She constructively challenged some of my ideas and provided really helpful feedback and suggestions. I look forward to our next call!

Kate Davies Source: Clarity

Today's call with Serena was terrific! Serena helped lay out some very compelling use cases for my app, which brought a more defined angle to discovering the value proposition in solving problems for my potential users and partnerships. Her recommendations on how to monetize the app were stellar as well and the roadmap to go from here was very clear and informative. We will talk again soon, Serena! Thanks!

Felix Cao Source: Clarity

Serena is a great mentor, she provided me with valuable insights about the market & helped me to have a better picture for my target groups, Looking forward to my next call with her.

Ahmed Mohsen Source: Clarity

Great quick help!

Chris Thompson Source: Clarity

Great call! Serena is very knowledgeable and had excellent insight for us. We feel much clearer about what our next steps need to be. Looking forward to our next call with her!

Lucille Splichal Source: Clarity

Serena is the real deal. She took time to understand how and why I started my company. She asked me questions to help flesh out who my consumers are and why they buy my products...at the end of our conversation, I was excited to try out her suggestions. I can't wait to talk to her again. It will be the first of many calls.

Joe Tangney Source: Clarity

Member since July 2015