A reporting service gets plenty of reactions to its posts, yet buyers keep asking which data it supports and what the work costs. The marketer proposes more reach. First, the manager needs to understand whether the content helps someone choose the service and take the next step.
Use the service for small retail chains: a month costs 60,000 ₸, variable delivery costs are 20,000 ₸, and contribution before acquisition and fixed costs is 40,000 ₸. Product, sales and marketing should give the customer the same service terms. The situations and numbers are illustrative. Write your solutions before reading the explanations; the site does not score these notes automatically.
Problem 1: choosing a creator
Creator A has more followers, but it is unclear whether they include managers of the right stores. Creator B has a smaller audience, with discussions about combining sales and assortment data. One employee chooses A for the size of the blog; another considers B the winner already.
What information would help you decide? Write down what you would request from each creator, the content you would propose and the outcome you would measure after the placement. Explain separately what a promo code can tell you.
For the calculation, suppose the chosen placement costs 100,000 ₸. Three new customers were linked to it through a code or source tag, without double counting. Each has completed a fully paid first month, the service has been delivered in full and there are no refunds. The code only links the enquiry to the placement; it provides no discount. Calculate revenue, variable costs, contribution and the amount left after paying for the placement. Can that amount be called incremental profit from the creator?
Problem 2: more questions, hard-to-find answers
The service's community team has increased the number of posts. Members still ask how to prepare a data export, and answers are scattered across threads. The SMM report contains posts, reactions and the total number of comments.
Propose a change that helps members complete the task. Name observations that could assess the result and explain why fewer questions could mislead the team.
Problem 3: three people read the same deck
The customer's IT specialist asks about connecting data. The finance director wants the full cost. The future report user asks what they will need to do each day. Everyone receives the same slides promising convenience and business growth.
What information does each role need? Propose a next step for one question and explain what would have to happen for the deal to progress. The salesperson also requests advertising on a well-known B2B platform. What information is still missing from that channel decision?
Placement explanation: a relevant audience and paid delivery
B's discussions are a reason to investigate its audience. The decision needs audience composition and geography, evidence of real discussions, previous placement results, format, price and overlap with people the service can already reach. Apply those same criteria to A: the larger blog might contain suitable buyers, but the problem has not established that.
The request to a creator should describe the buyer's task, such as combining store sales in a usable report. That makes it possible to discuss the placement's content, confirmed service capabilities and the next step for checking data compatibility. Followers and reactions describe the audience and content; cost per customer is calculated after the agreed payment window.
For the first month of the three customers, the calculation is:
| Item | Calculation | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 3 × 60,000 ₸ | 180,000 ₸ |
| Variable delivery costs | 3 × 20,000 ₸ | 60,000 ₸ |
| Contribution before the placement | 180,000 - 60,000 ₸ | 120,000 ₸ |
| Placement | As specified | 100,000 ₸ |
| Amount left after the placement | 120,000 - 100,000 ₸ | 20,000 ₸ |
The 20,000 ₸ is what remains from the attributed first months before other fixed costs. Salaries, tool subscriptions and other expenses may still be needed to calculate the business's overall result. If an employee's work is already included in a fixed salary, a separate valuation of that time must not be deducted again as new cash spending.
Covering the placement alone takes 100,000 / 40,000 = 2.5 customers, meaning at least three under these assumptions. Two customers would contribute 80,000 ₸, which is 20,000 ₸ short of the placement cost. This threshold helps assess the required volume; it does not predict future customer numbers.
Attribution identifies enquiries linked to a creator. People may pass the code to someone else or use it after already deciding to buy, while some readers may arrive without it. The three attributed customers cannot automatically be counted as three additional customers. Measuring an increase requires a separate evaluation with an appropriate comparison. If the placement added only two customers, their 80,000 ₸ contribution would fail to cover its 100,000 ₸ cost, even though the calculation across all three attributed customers looked positive.
Community explanation: someone can prepare the data
Scattered answers can become one guide to the confirmed process, available where the question arises, with a person responsible for keeping it current. Members need clear inputs, steps and a way to get help when their case differs. The specialist who receives the export should approve its technical instructions.
Useful observations include completed preparation, time to a useful answer and repeat enquiries about the same issue. Comparisons should account for active membership and the number of people who actually need an export. Fewer questions after members leave would not establish that the guide improved.
A small review can observe members working through the task, record difficulties and use them to improve the instructions. This can uncover content problems without supporting a promise of higher sales overall. Reactions to the guide do not replace a completed file.
B2B explanation: each role has a question about the offer
IT needs supported systems, data requirements, limitations and a technical check. Finance needs the full cost breakdown: implementation, licences, support, training and calculation assumptions. Users need a working scenario: what they give the service, what they receive, who fixes errors and where to get help.
A common proposal can have separate appendices for each role. Product capabilities and prices must remain consistent across the materials. An unknown connection timeline becomes a question for the specialist; promised savings need a calculation using the customer's data.
A useful next step resolves an obstacle: an integration session, agreement on total cost or a demonstration of the workflow. The agreement has an owner and an expected result. A downloaded deck records interest in a document; progressing the sale requires identifying which buyer question has been resolved.
Choosing a platform requires evidence about where the relevant participants seek solutions and whether the proposed format can reach them. A B2B platform's name is no substitute for that research. Content that answers a buyer's question and a way to deliver it to the buyer are related but separate pieces of work.
Exercise: prepare material for one role
Take an offer from your own project. Choose one participant in the buying decision and record their question, evidence from the product, a suitable format and a next step. If the evidence is missing, name the person who will supply it instead of filling the gap with a promise.
Then write a short comment on the placement calculation: why the 20,000 ₸ cannot be called campaign profit without qualification, and what information you would request next.
A useful explanation takes an IT question through to a compatibility check, a finance question to a cost breakdown and a user question to a clear action. “Describe the benefits” does not yet specify a result someone can accept.
The placement comment should retain both boundaries: the 20,000 ₸ is before other fixed costs, and three customers were attributed to the creator without establishing an incremental effect. The next work depends on the decision. A business report needs all relevant costs; buying another placement also requires an assessment of which purchases the placement added.