Test: creators, communities and a B2B sale

The Almaty reporting service gets plenty of reactions under its posts, yet at Zhanar's meetings buyers keep asking which data can be connected and what the work costs. Altynai, who runs marketing, proposes more reach. Talgat, the owner, first needs to understand something else: do the posts help a person choose the service and take the next step?

This is the same service for small retail chains as in the marketing P&L: a month of service costs 60,000 ₸, variable fulfilment is 20,000 ₸, and contribution before acquisition and fixed costs is 40,000 ₸. Product, sales and marketing should tell the customer the same service terms. The situations and numbers are illustrative. Write down your decisions before the walkthrough: the site does not grade these notes.

Problem 1: which creator to book

Creator A has more followers, but nobody knows whether they include managers of the right kind of store. Creator B's audience is smaller, but the comments include questions about reconciling sales and product ranges. Altynai picks A for the size of the blog; Zhanar is sure B wins.

What information would help you decide? Write down what you would ask the creators for, what content you would propose and which result you would count after the post. And explain what a promo code can tell you.

For the calculation, assume the chosen post costs 100,000 ₸. Three new customers were linked to it by code or source tag, with no double counting. Each has finished their first paid month, the service was delivered in full, and there were no refunds. The code only links the enquiry to the post; it gives no discount. Calculate revenue, variable costs, contribution and what is left after paying for the post. Can that remainder be called extra profit from the creator?

Problem 2: more questions, answers hard to find

The service's community started publishing more posts. Members still ask how to prepare a data export, and the answers are scattered across different threads. The SMM report shows posts, reactions and the total number of comments.

Propose a change that helps members get the task done. Name what you will watch to judge the result, and explain why fewer questions could mislead the team.

Problem 3: three people read one deck

The client's IT specialist asks about connecting data. The finance director wants to understand the full cost. The future user of the report asks what they will have to do every day. All three were sent the same slides promising convenience and business growth.

What is each role missing? Propose a next step on one of the questions and explain what has to happen for the deal to move forward. Zhanar also asks to buy ads on a well-known B2B platform. What data is she missing to choose the channel?

Placement walkthrough: the right audience and paid work

The discussions under B's posts are a reason to study that audience more closely, not a decision. To choose, you need the readers' make-up and location, examples of real discussions, results of past placements, the format, the price, and how much the audience overlaps with the one the service already reaches. Judge A by the same criteria: a large blog can also contain the right buyers; the problem simply has not established it.

In your request to the creator, describe the buyer's task, for example: pull store sales into a clear report. Then you can discuss with the creator what the post covers, which service capabilities are confirmed, and how a reader can check whether their data will work. Followers and reactions describe the audience and the material, while customer cost is calculated after the agreed payment window.

For the first month of serving three customers, the calculation is:

20,000 ₸ is what remains from the first months of customers linked to the post, before other fixed costs. Salaries, tool subscriptions and other lines still have to be counted for the result of the whole business. But if an employee's work is already covered by a fixed salary, do not subtract their estimated time a second time as a new cash cost.

To cover the post alone takes 100,000 / 40,000 = 2.5 customers, which under these conditions means at least three. Two customers would have contributed 80,000 ₸, 20,000 ₸ short of the post's price. The threshold shows the volume you need, but it does not predict how many customers will come next time.

Attribution answers the question of which enquiries could be linked to the creator. The code may have been passed to a friend, used by people who had already decided to buy, and some readers may have come without it. So three linked customers are not yet three additional ones. Incrementality is tested with a comparison that shows what would have happened without the post. If the post had added only two customers, their 80,000 ₸ of contribution would not have covered the 100,000 ₸ cost, even though the calculation across all three linked customers looks positive. So the 20,000 ₸ cannot be called extra profit from the creator.

Community walkthrough: the person managed to prepare the data

Gather the scattered answers into one guide to the process Yernar has confirmed: he receives the exports and knows which fields are needed. Pin the guide where the question comes up and assign someone to keep it updated, or over time it will drift away from how the work is really done. A member needs clear inputs, steps and a way to get help if their case does not fit the guide.

The result shows in how many people finished preparing the export, how long it took to get the answer they needed, and how often people asked again for the same reason. When comparing, take into account how many members were active at all and how many needed an export. If there are fewer questions because part of the audience left, that says nothing about the guide getting better.

For a small check, watch several members work through the task with the guide, note where they got stuck, and fix those spots. That way you find problems in the text, but such a check gives no grounds to promise sales growth. And reactions under the guide do not replace a prepared file.

B2B walkthrough: each role has its own question about the proposal

The IT specialist needs the supported systems, data requirements, limitations and a way to test the connection. The finance director needs the make-up of the full cost: implementation, licences, support, training and the assumptions behind the calculation. The user needs a working scenario: what they hand to the service, what they get back, who fixes errors and where to ask for help.

Add an appendix for each role to the general version of the proposal. Price and product capabilities must match across all the materials: if IT reads one thing and finance another, the deal goes back to square one. If you do not know the connection timeline, write it down as a question for Yernar, and back any promised savings with a calculation on the client's data.

A good next step removes one of these obstacles: a technical meeting on the connection, agreeing the full cost, or a demo of the working scenario. The agreement has an owner and an expected result. A downloaded deck shows interest in the material, while the deal moves when a buyer's question is closed.

To choose a platform, Zhanar needs to know where the right people look for a solution and whether they can be reached in the chosen format. A well-known B2B platform name does not replace that research. Material that answers the buyer and the way to get it in front of the buyer are connected, but they are two different parts of the job.

Exercise: prepare material for one role

Take your own project's proposal. Choose one person in the decision and write down their question, the evidence from the product, a suitable format and the next step. If there is no evidence yet, name who will provide it, and do not fill the gap with a promise.

Then write a short comment on the post calculation: why 20,000 ₸ cannot be called campaign profit without qualification, and which data you would ask for to continue.

In a good write-up, the IT question ends with a compatibility check, the finance question with a breakdown of costs, and the user question with a clear action. "Talk about the benefits" is not a result: there is nothing in it to accept.

Both caveats must stay in the comment on the post. The 20,000 ₸ was calculated before other fixed costs, and the three customers are linked to the creator, but no additional effect has been shown. What comes next depends on the decision: a business report needs the full cost breakdown, and a repeat booking also needs an estimate of how many purchases the post actually added.