Interact with your audience – Starschema's Mariann Bartucz

Mariann Bartucz recently joined Carlota Pico to discuss her role as online marketing manager at Starschema, a data organization company based in Budapest, Hungary. After working in marketing for almost a decade, Mariann has a wide range of experiences and a passion for building new projects. In this interview, she shares her expertise on optimizing digital marketing campaigns, creating effective LinkedIn and Facebook strategies, and using automation and community building to maximize success.

You can watch the full conversation in the video above or on YouTube, listen to the podcast on Apple and Spotify, and read our recap below.

Key takeaways

When running paid advertising campaigns, ensure that you have extensive knowledge of the topic at hand. Test things out, explore different text and images, set the tone according to the context, and consider the region—including which channels work there and which don’t.

The type of content for LinkedIn campaigns should vary depending on the market and topic. For example, webinars may allow for more playful text, while white papers require a serious tone.

Always consider the creative aspects of digital marketing campaigns, such as the kinds of images and colors used. In general, images that include human-related elements are more successful—even for highly technical or abstract subject matter.

Many companies think that B2B social media marketing should be limited to LinkedIn, but Facebook is often more effective. The secret to success is actively interacting with people, showing empathy for their problems and providing solutions.

One of the most important elements of B2B marketing today is automation, as it allows you to analyze and optimize the results of your campaigns in depth. Another is community building, which is vital for building trust with your target audience.

In marketing, you have to be interactive and talk to people—don’t just say, “learn more, read more, watch it now.” People have to feel that you care about their problems and that you can provide solutions from your professional experience.

Rapid-fire recs

A source of inspiration or someone you admire?

I really like the content produced by Apple and Nike. They tap into your feelings and you can feel yourself there, within the ad or the text—they make you feel powerful.

My current CMO, Andrew Mueller, is a huge inspiration. He accepts my ideas, but he always asks “why?” It forces me to consider the positive and negative sides of my work. I’m also working with a former colleague who’s a designer, and I’m learning a lot from him about how different aspects of design influence people.

A valuable resource, event or group?

When I was working at a software test automation processing company, I found a community called the Ministry of Testing, which is led by Richard Bradshaw. Richard built up this community from zero, and now there are all kinds of conferences and meetups.