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Expert
MenuSerena De Maio, Your Tell You Like It Is Marketing Expert Award-winning Marketer, $30M+ in Managed Ad Spend.
Marketing doesn't have to be difficult: the same rules apply to all sizes of businesses and industries. I will bring clarity to your marketing strategy and focus your execution where it matters the most. Quality over quantity is my motto.
Worked in marketing and growth in most industries including: Beauty, Luxury, EdTech, Fashion, Food.

41
Calls |
18
Reviews |
Areas of Expertise
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SD$2.50/min per minute(25)You Have a Business Idea and Now Look for a Launch Roadmap.Serena De Maio, Your Tell You Like It Is Marketing Expert • Berlin, GermanyCreated 10 years agoYou 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 you can launch. 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 get your first sales fast and efficiently (i.e. without throwing money out the window ;) . (Picture by Serge Saint)Serena De Maio, Your Tell You Like It Is Marketing Expert Berlin, Germany(25)
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SD$2.50/min per minute(25)You Have the Idea and the Roadmap. You Now Need Guidance to Implement It.Serena De Maio, Your Tell You Like It Is Marketing Expert • Berlin, GermanyCreated 10 years ago in Product & Design / Product ManagementYou are half way there ! You would love some advice on your startup to start increasing your sales and maximizing your success rate? I can help you with your marketing strategy, packaging development, advertising including digital and distribution channels. 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)Serena De Maio, Your Tell You Like It Is Marketing Expert Berlin, Germany(25)
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SD$2.50/min per minute(25)You Are Already Selling and Would Like to GrowSerena De Maio, Your Tell You Like It Is Marketing Expert • Berlin, GermanyCreated 10 years ago in Sales & Marketing / Growth StrategyYou 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, years of startup management and growth led by digital marketing. Leverage also my experience in identifying easy opportunities of growth for your company. (Picture by Serge Saint)Serena De Maio, Your Tell You Like It Is Marketing Expert Berlin, Germany(25)
- Reviews 18
- Answers 48
She was honest, open and she knows her stuff. I had a great conversation with Serena!
Source: Clarity tanarge Fraser Jun 5, 2021Serena 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.
Source: Clarity Bethany Hilt Jun 26, 2018It 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.
Source: Clarity Lola Dansu Apr 26, 2018Serena 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
Source: Clarity Artyom Kalinin Nov 17, 2017Before 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.
Source: Clarity Katheryn Gronauer Dec 31, 2016Amazing insight and look forward to working together on this project!
Source: Clarity Teddy Stanowski Oct 11, 2016I'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!
Source: Clarity Kate Davies Jun 28, 2016Today'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!
Source: Clarity Felix Cao Jun 7, 2016Serena 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.
Source: Clarity Ahmed Mohsen Mar 31, 2016Great quick help!
Source: Clarity Chris Thompson Mar 25, 2016hi Yazid, I'm sorry to hear but good for you for realizing quickly that this is not working. The resons could be so many: wrong product, wrong pricing, wrong audience, wrong influencers, too high competition... It's worth jumping on a call for this kind of questions, happy to do so (and since this question was asked quite some time ago, happy to jump on a call in case other readers than Yazid might face the same issue).
Sorry to break the dream, but creating a marketplace from scratch is expensive, simply because 1. you have to create awareness and design an offering matching 2 different users (vs. one for an e-commerce platform for example) and 2. you can start with only a couple of users, you need to reach a certain scale to see a marketplace alive.
Also, testing the idea (and most probably iterate it) is going to cost some money and/or time.
Post a daily high quality and on trend video for 30 days.
Or 1 amazing video.
Or 10000 average videos.
And in the 3 cases above: pray, pray, pray.
More seriously, we have no idea about your skills, current number of followers you have and how lucky you are in life. Therefore, in all sincerity, we can't answer.
Start by reading how other people have made money on internet and assume it requires A LOT of work (and generally some initial money to kick start).
I have to agree with Jake -> do it yourself. You can learn how to do the technical part and while you will never be as good as an agency, it will be way sufficient for your first year(s) in the business. And for the non-technical part, i.e. content, you (or somebody in your team) will be the best at creating it. We can jump on a call if you would like some guidance, in particular for the content part.
First of all, well done you for starting a business and taking a risk! Tricky especially with the minimum order quantities that you had probably to submit to....
It is really difficult to answer your question as we don't know if your product is not selling because the product is bad, the price too high, the target group is wrong, the ads are not connecting or the distribution channels are wrong, or all of this or something else :)
In anycase, in general you will most likely sell those products at loss whatever the channel you select. Therefore my suggestion, assuming your product is good (we could spend time defining what "good" is but let's keep this for a future discussion), is to send it as a gift to people that :
- can give you feedback or reviews on the product
- can be your future partners (Social media influencers, journalists, retailers...)
- family and friends .... and anybody who you could ask a favor to in the future ;)
Before you do that, I'm happy to jump on a call to understand what should be fixed in your offering, communication or distribution. It might be only a couple of elements.
Nice answers from many people, but I think that you deserve a fair feedback on your request. While it remains subjective (at the end of the day, it is simply my opinion), my message will give you a different perspective.
Looking at your question and the following paragraph, I really wonder if you do understand what it takes to "earn a lot". It is way more complicated that starting a profile and getting a mentor. I suggest you start by planning to "cover your costs" for a first start up idea. It will already be a great success if you do that.
Second, If you do not have the courage to create a profile (whatever this really means), then I think you should start by being an employee and show some courage in that context so you can grow your self-confidence. You will always have time to work on your start up at night or during the weekends or at a later stage. Good luck!
It's all about the return on investment or time spent. Maybe meeting face to face buyers is more effective than participating to an industry show or magazine where you could present your product.
Have your tried to measure that?
Serena
Fully agree with what was said before - despite what you might think, your idea is most likely not unique, and most likely not the final version of your business model. Moreover: the more you talk about it with people, the more you will be able to finetune your idea and get one step closer to success.
Make sure you have a clearly defined target group (no, "women 20-30 years old, breathing" is not qualifying), who will find your offer irresistible, and that you know how to reach that target with marketing as this will be behind 90% of the reason your company will succeed.
I can help with that :) Happy to jump on a call if you wish.
Serena
Nothing, not even video conferencing will replace face to face exchanges. Make sure you connect regularly face to face to keep the relationship tight and to make sure you are in control or at least aware of what is really happening when you are not present.
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