Kristen Wiley is Founder/CEO of Statusphere, and an expert in influencer marketing.
Wiley started her marketing career with no technical background, and continued to build a successful marketing agency and influencer platform, despite being non-technical.
This is her story:
Kristen is an inspiration for non-technical people who want to do marketing and people who want to use influencers to market. She gives advice from her own experience starting out in marketing.
Consistency Beats Quick Fixes
Doing marketing over a long time works better than quick fixes. Kristen says trying new things all the time does not work as well. It is more important to keep doing something consistently.
Keep trying it for a long time. See what works well.
Then, keep doing more of that.
Do not give up too fast.
Entrepreneurship is a marathon – there are no “silver bullets”.
The key is to stick with something and keep improving it over time, which has been a key to Statusphere’s success.
Nail Product-Market Fit Before Marketing
Make sure your product solves a real problem before marketing it.
Do not depend on influencers to sell something that does not work well.
First, create a product that fits the market.
Make sure customers want it, and it solves their problem.
Then, influencer marketing can help spread the word.
However, it cannot make a bad product good.
Brands should only market something after they know it is a top seller. That is the product influencers should promote: not something nobody wants.
Leverage Influencers for Social SEO
Use influencers to help people find you on social media sites. Many people search on Instagram and TikTok before Google, so brands should try to show up when people search there.
They can do this by getting influencers to post about their product. If enough influencers use important keywords, the brand can rank higher.
Then, they appear when someone searches those words.
For example, if influencers talk about a brand's curl shampoo, the brand can show up in searches about curly hair products. Brands should use influencers to rank for topics people look for on social sites.
Learn from Those More Advanced Than You
Learn from people who are smarter than you. Kristen Wiley says it is important to find mentors who are more advanced than you.
Spend time with people who are already at the level you want to reach. You can learn more from them than from textbooks.
Entrepreneurs should surround themselves with experts who can teach them new things. Do not just try to learn marketing on your own. Find people who have already succeeded and learn from their experience. This will help you grow faster in your career.
Key Takeaways from Kristen’s Journey
Kristen shows that people without tech skills can succeed in building a technical software product.
She did this by always improving her marketing and by focusing on making good products people want.
She also used influencers to be found on social media, and she kept learning from experts.
Wiley proves that non-technical entrepreneurs can build great marketing careers, and have that be the catapult to success in the SaaS world.
They can do this by testing and improving their influencer marketing over time.
Her story teaches that consistency, product focus, social media SEO, and learning matter. By following her lead, others can succeed in marketing without a technical background.
Learn more about Kristen’s work at Statusphere here.