Account-Based (Strategy) Marketing: How to Master the Post-Sales Cycle

Any B2B marketer worth their salt understands the power of account-based marketing (ABM). It’s been widely adopted due to its proven success rate throughout the B2B industry. But there’s a movement taking place, as marketers jump on the ABM train due to the expected ROI and pace of excitement. But, any good ABM program has to start with a strategic lens – and end with one. Lately, this seems to be lacking as sales and marketing silo their goals rather than unify them.

A full 87 percent of B2B marketers now agree that ABM delivers higher ROI compared to other marketing efforts. And 92 percent consider ABM “extremely” or “very” important to their marketing efforts.

What is Account-Based (Strategy) Marketing

Account-based marketing is a strategic B2B approach that is concentrated on a set of clearly defined target accounts. These accounts are identified as the most important prospects for a business. Sales leads the conversation – but marketing puts the magic in the program.

So, how does your brand get from strategy to implementation, action and results? Follow the step-by step-guide below so that your marketing team can achieve results with a post-sale, FULL-cycle ABM strategy. You’ll learn what to do even after you’ve closed the deal on your target ABM accounts. As a result, your brand will acquire and retain your ideal customer base, while achieving optimum revenue goals.

Not sure if ABM is right for your B2B company? Before continuing with this step-by-step program, we recommend completing the below checklist:

Step 1: Focusing on the Right Targets

The Rs to Success: Research, ROI and Return on Relationship.

Dare to be specific. Don’t think of hypothetical personas. Do your due diligence. Drill down to get to know the target companies, even the exact individuals who make the purchasing decisions. You can identify target accounts with fit, using predictive marketing (look-a-like and propensity models to identify accounts); intent, looking at in-market activity across the web by topic; and behaviors, by tracking activity such as understanding who is coming to your site or engaging with your brand.

As you develop your ABM strategy, assess what your ideal customer profile looks like and don’t waste effort on prospective accounts that will not give you the biggest bang for your buck.

Additionally, focus on the longevity of your relationship of that targeted account and those that will eventually become advocates for your brand. Building long-term relationships can result in a strong ‘Voice of the Customer’ program, an increase in brand advocates, strong referrals and an overall high RoR (Return on Relationship).

Step 2: Integrating Your Teams

Align. Communicate. Collaborate.

Building that relationship for the long run “takes a village.” Align each of your departments – sales, marketing, customer relations and/or support.

Sales + Marketing + Customer Relations = Brand Advocates

Set your teams up for success by identifying the right roles and resources to get you started.

From a tactical, day-to-day standpoint, your team should have someone that’s going to review and segment historical data; identify customer profiles; review and update account data on a regular basis; and implement CRM tools, updates and processes.

From a more high-level standpoint your team needs someone to strategize, run point between sales and marketing; educate teams on customer awareness, engagement and acceleration; CX; best practices and lessons learned.

However, the most meaningful role – and often the most forgotten – is the one that maintains, monitors and reports on the ABM accounts post-sale. How satisfied is that account? Are they continuing to be nurtured? Given the right content at the right time? Have they been adopting new services or products? This role and resource for your ABM team will be critical to the overall success rate and longevity of this program.

Carrying over the enthusiasm and commitment of the sales cycle into the hard work of managing the client account and providing an exceptional customer experience ignites the power of account-based marketing well beyond the sale.

Find common goals, strategy and metrics across your organization. Making sure everyone is on the same page (and has the same expectations) is critical when taking next steps towards a named account strategy. Step 6 will dig in even further on how to align and define these key metrics and goals between each department. For now, your integrated teams should be focusing on roles and resources needed within your organization, the strategy, how to communicate with each other and at what customer “trigger points” are you passing off in terms of CX, relationship-building and nurturing. Sales pass to marketing, marketing to customer success, back to sales for the upsell (think: land and expand). Any lack of communication in this daisy-chain will throw ABM efforts out the window.

Not sure if your team has the right skill sets available for ABM success? Consider tapping an integrated agency to backfill your in-house efforts. Public relations, content marketing, social media and influencer marketing all play a role in ABM content strategy. If you don’t have all the pieces in place, don’t delay bringing the right talent to the table through outsourcing.

Step 3: Implement an ABM Content Strategy

Personalize. Map Content Pre, During and Post Sales.

The power of ABM is not only targeting those relevant accounts, but also building highly personalized messaging. Your content and engagement strategies are critical. By appealing to the emotional needs of your audience, you can develop highly tailored, actionable and authentic content. Then map that content to account-based stages.

A successful strategy requires an integrated approach. Owned, earned, shared and paid media all work together and support each other – driving one consistent message while effectively aligning resources that drive action and outcomes for your ABM efforts. It’s important to understand the power of integration. People will drive that connection and personalization will fuel the engagements.

Consider the customer journey through the ABM process. A pre-sales social media post targeted a particular organization. A guest blog from a prospect during the pre-sales cycle. A request for a case study from a client after a successful campaign. Use these touchpoints to build relationships.

Pre-Sales ABM Content

47 percent of buyers viewed 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep (Demand Gen Report).

This is your brand’s time to shine. You’re looking to turn the data and information that you’ve previously gathered into helpful and (internally) shareworthy content for that prospect. Your targeted accounts won’t be able to find this type of information elsewhere – setting your brand apart from its competitors. This kind of thoughtful personalization might take time, but the results will take you into the sales cycle of this journey.

During-Sales ABM Content

Now that you’ve made the sale, there’s no time to waste when it comes to building that customer relationship. First impressions will make or break your brand’s reputation and customer experience. On the flipside, don’t overload your new accounts with content. Assess, prioritize and acknowledge their pain points as a first step. This should be information that’s fresh and documented from the sales team. Marketing can leverage that to build out helpful content that guides them towards an easy transition into using your product or service. If you’re not sure what kind of content would be most valuable for your new customers – go back and do your research. Investigate what they’ve been sharing and discussing on their channels, ask questions or simply send a quick survey.

Post-Sales ABM Content

Solid content marketing is imperative here – how do you create a detailed content program that keeps customers engaged, highlights loyalty and brings out customer voices? Foster a long-term customer relationship with a full content experience. Use case studies, customer spotlights, Q&As, and customer reviews. Continuously appeal to customer emotions and roadblocks. It’s a two-way feedback loop – ask your customers how you can improve.

Make your content easily accessible and digestible so that they’ll come back for more. Strive to be that go-to resource and thought leader for your post-sale ABM accounts.

Whether the account is a warm lead or an about-to-be-signed new account, mapping out content journeys for each will continue to move them through the sales funnel towards success.

Use the below checklist so that you can tackle each customer stage of your content mapping journey:

Step 4: Apply Complimentary Content Distribution Techniques

Touchpoints Beyond ABM.

Did you know that earning a new customer is between 5 to 25x more expensive than retaining current ones? And the average customer spends 67 percent more between months 31 and 36 with a business than they do from months 0-6? This makes any extra effort to retain your ABM acquired customers all the more important.

Build longevity by continuing to reach out using personalized, targeted touchpoints.

Include different channels of communication – social media, emails, surveys, invitations to private events, etc. Do whatever it takes to improve the customer experience, differentiate your company from the rest and keep clients from straying.

Monitor, listen and engage with your post-sale ABM customers. Celebrate their successes, engage with them on industry trends, collaborate on campaigns, speaking opportunities and the like – all while keeping their primary objectives and goals at the center of any outreach.

Focusing on the accounts you have in the pipeline is useless if you can’t keep the ones in hand happy.

Only 31 percent of marketers are personalizing campaigns and only 21 percent are focused on customer experience (PAN Communications & Holmes Report).

Step 5: Defining Success Beyond the Sale

Revenue. Retention. Reputation. Referrals.

How do you define success beyond the sale? Ask yourself the following three questions:

Are you retaining those customers?
Are you building brand advocates with a Voice of the Customer program?
Have you mastered the upselling process?

Voice of the Customer

Loyal customers are 5x as likely to repurchase, 5x as likely to forgive, 4x as likely to refer, and 7x as likely to try a new offering.

Retaining and building brand advocates is the goal. Developing a Voice of the Customer (VoC) program to create great customer experiences will move you towards that goal. A VoC program should be embedded within your post-sales cycle ABM strategy and a way for you to determine the success rate of these programs as outlined below.

Your brand’s VoC program should include customers that encapsulate and align with your brand’s core values. These customers are going to be the drivers when it comes to reaching prospects under similar personas, so you’ll want them to be the best brand advocates that you have. Leverage this relationship even further by capturing the tone and preferences of your ABM accounts. It should show them that their feedback and opinions truly matter.

As you continue to build out your VoC program tied alongside your ABM strategy, don’t forget to document everything that you’ve learned. Update your personas and targets to include new communication channels, unresolved customer pain points, disrupting industry stats, lessons learned, customer quotes and testimonials. Your team should have a knowledge bank that will guide and lead your ABM efforts into future success stories.

Remember the 4 R’s for defining the success of a VoC program:

Revenue: Land and expand.
Retention: Making customers feel important and becoming an extension of their team.
Reputation: Word of mouth is key here even if it doesn’t lead to a referral right away. Ask for testimonials and quotes in the interim.
Referrals: Business connections can go a long way, especially if a previous customer has just jumped ship to another company, they’re likely to recommend your agency to that new company.

The 4 Rs should translate into a platform sales, marketing and other key stakeholders can point to for validation. This will help drive new business and revenue for your organization.

Step 6: Measuring ABM Throughout the Customer Journey

What is the coin of the realm in your business?

New business revenue generated
Increasing revenue per account
Upselling existing accounts to a premium product or service
Finding efficiencies to increase net revenue
Superior customer experiences

Before getting started on KPIs, ensure sales and marketing teams agree on specific lead scoring and hand-off rules. ABM KPIs are different than your standard marketing metrics. Track impact and influence, time spent, and quality over quantity. Before someone spends money with you, they’ll spend time with you.

It’s about accounts, not leads. Ensure that you and your teams have the tools they need to manage and track the customer experience. Assess your martech stack and identify what you may be missing when it comes to KPIs and metrics.

Your ABM metrics should ladder up to the rest of your marketing KPIs. Track not just generic measurements but also get to true ROI (Return on Investment — or Return on Impact). Take a dual approach to your analytics. This means aligning those marketing KPIs with topline business goals. Think of measurement as a continuum, starting with your organization’s big picture revenue goals and drilling down to the granular, tactical results.

Conclusion

Success beyond the ABM sale requires bringing VoC, content and integrated teams together so that you end up with loyal, long-term happy customers. Happy customers lead to higher retention rates, a better brand image, and references; all of which fuel the bottom line, growth.

Facebook Messenger Marketing and Chatbots

Facebook Messenger Marketing and Chatbots What It Is, Why You Need It, And How to Win Most marketers know that chatbots are a trendy, much-talked-about marketing tactic. And it’s also fairly obvious that Facebook Messenger marketing has massive potential. But few marketers know the explosive potential of combining the two. And even if they do […]

Facebook Messenger Marketing and Chatbots

What It Is, Why You Need It, And How to Win

Most marketers know that chatbots are a trendy, much-talked-about marketing tactic. And it’s also fairly obvious that Facebook Messenger marketing has massive potential.

But few marketers know the explosive potential of combining the two. And even if they do know about it, they don’t realize just how easy it is.

In this article, I’ll explain what they are, why they’re awesome, what they look like, and how to start using them. (With MobileMonkey, it’s so easy.)

Let’s do this.

Facebook Messenger Marketing and Chatbots Explained

Let’s cover the basics.

Facebook Messenger marketing — what is it?

Chatbots — what are they?

And what happens when they get together and have babies?

Facebook Messenger marketing is simple. It’s using Messenger to connect with your potential customers.

Just like you use Messenger to schedule hamburgers with Krišs, you can use Facebook Messenger to reel in customers.

It’s marketing. On Messenger.

That’s it.

And that’s where chatbots come in.

You see, messaging people onesie-twosie is like having forty-three full-time jobs. There are so many people to message, so many questions to respond to, and so many different tasks that a new marketing channel like Messenger requires.

You can hire the entire population of North Dakota to do all that for you, or you can….

Make a Facebook Messenger chatbot.

And that brings me to the second question — what the heck is a chatbot?

This is breaking news to probably no one, but chatbots have been the trendy darling of marketers for the last, oh, three years or so.

Chatbots are programs that can facilitate conversations with humans, as well as perform tasks like scheduling, downloading files, segmenting users, and a whole bunch of other stuff. (More on that later.)

And what about Facebook Messenger marketing plus chatbots?

That’s where things get really good.

Facebook Messenger chatbots have been gaining ground as the most powerful tools in the chatbot world, because, well, Facebook.

And, because, well, really insanely powerful.

Let’s talk about that enormous marketing power.

Facebook Messenger Marketing with Chatbots Has Enormous Marketing Power

Okay, let’s get something out of the way.

Maybe you don’t code.

You majored in Ancient Near Eastern Religions, and somehow landed a job in marketing, and are kicking yourself because you can’t tell a Java from a Python.

And that’s totally okay.

You do not need to code in order to make a Facebook Messenger chatbot.

Look at this. Do you see any code on this page?

Not even data = raw_input is there!

That screenshot is the dialogue builder of MobileMonkey. If you can read and click, you can make a Facebook Messenger chatbot dialogue.

So, now that you’ve breathed a sigh of relief, let me tell you a few things about Facebook Messenger chatbots.

First off, chatbots as a whole are on the rise.

The data backs up my prediction that chatbots are the number one growth marketing channel for the next five years, and probably even the next decade.

Look at these gigantic circles.

Look at the light blue circle — Facebook Messenger. It has 1.3 billion monthly active users.

And, lest you think you’re missing out the WhatsApp and Instagram users of the world, don’t despair. All those messaging platforms, owned by Facebook, will be merged by the end of 2019 or early 2020.

In other words, by tapping into Messenger marketing, you have the potential to reach vast numbers of people.

And those numbers are just growing, growing, growing.

But let’s set aside the issue of massive audiences. You’re not trying to reach the world. You’re just trying to reach a reasonable number of interested people.

So, let’s talk about the numbers that really matter shall we?

What kind of numbers? Open rates, clickthroughs, conversions, that kind of stuff.

Compared to boring old Facebook display ads, Facebook Messenger messages convert at least five times better.

Mobile ad conversion rates hover around 1-2%

That kind of sucks.

What about Messenger conversion rates? Let’s just say it demolishes this pitiful level of conversion rates. Most Messenger campaigns have 80%+ open rates and 40%+ response rates in the first sixty minutes.

What about when compared to email marketing? How does Messenger marketing stack up?

It’s no contest.

Please look away if you’re easily embarrassed.

In one study, a simple Messenger broadcast netted an 80% open rate and 13% click rate, absolutely gutting the email control.

If you’re the kind of person who’s always asking how much does it cost? let me show you this:

This screenshot shows you that I spent $4.51 for each lead during one of my recent Facebook ad campaigns.

But this was no ordinary ad campaign. This was a Click to Messenger campaign, using Facebook Messenger as the conversion channel.

With my traditional Facebook ads, I had been throwing away $150 to $250 per lead! When I switched to a Click to Messenger ad, I slashed those numbers to a fraction of the original cost.

My point is this. Facebook Messenger marketing with chatbots will drastically reduce your ad spend.

There’s even better news. Most Facebook Messenger marketing tactics, including many remarketing techniques, are totally free.

Let me give you some more goodies when it comes to Facebook Messenger marketing. All of this stuff is powered by chatbots.

Every new Messenger contact is a lead for life.
You get detailed intel on each lead that you capture.
Chatbots, especially when you use a Facebook Messenger widget on your website, exponentially grow your contact list.
Chatbots run Q&A requests
Messenger chatbots integrate across devices and platforms, and the message thread is permanent (unlike some website chatbots)
Live operators can take over a chat at any time that the customer wants

Leaving aside all this cool and compelling stuff, think about the very nature of Facebook Messenger marketing.

It’s a conversation. An experience. A journey of interactivity.

It’s not the old-fashioned LOOK-HERE-CLICK-THIS-READ-THIS-LIKE-THIS bullhorn marketing methods.

No. Instead, you create conversational flows in Messenger marketing.

Users can ask questions, download stuff, set appointments, check a status, access a menu, and request a live person.

A simple flow like this can drive insane levels of conversions

Want to see a Messenger chatbot in real life?

You can play around with any of these live chatbots. The link opens up Messenger, and you’ll be able to try out the functionality of each one.

All of these chatbots are available as templates in MobileMonkey. You can, of course, easily customized them in MobileMonkey’s chatbot builder. It’s so easy.

Now, Here’s How to Start Using Facebook Messenger Marketing.

(Yes, I even have 3 easy steps!)

Launching a new marketing channel feels intimidating.

What? We’re going to start using chatbots? Hire someone, quick!

Before you go rushing off to HR to hire a chatbot-building specialist, take some time, carve out thirty minutes, and do the following.

1. Make sure you have a Facebook business page.

Surely you have one, right?

This is what MobileMonkey’s Facebook page looks like.

If not, make one. You’re going to need a Facebook business page to do Facebook Messenger marketing.

So far, pretty easy.

2. Next, pick a chatbot builder.

I’ll completely level with you.

Choose MobileMonkey.

Yes, I founded the business, so I have a vested interest in steering you that way.

But listen.

I’ve also spent way too much time studying and outdoing the competition. The product that my rockstar team of developers and engineers have created is peerless in the chatbot platform community.

Here’s why:

It’s free. If you want to upgrade to get advanced features, it’s only $19/month.
It’s really easy to use.
Suitable for one-person businesses to enterprise corporations.
Cloud-based app with a simple drag-and-drop interface.
Ultra-powerful tools like chat blasting, messenger ads, custom landing pages, live chat takeover, and other unicorn methods.
Did I mention it’s free?

Pick MobileMonkey. That is all.

That was easy.

3. Make a chatbot.

Hold up. We’re already here? Like, just build one?

Surely, it’s more complicated than that, Larry!

Like I said, this is so freaking easy!

From your shiny new MobileMonkey account, enter the chatbot builder — a big green happy button in the middle of the screen.

The chatbot builder is where all the magic happens.

On the next screen, you’ll probably want to start by creating a dialogue.

Your first dialogue, most likely a welcome dialogue, is structurally ready for you to customize.

Seriously, within thirty minutes, you can have an up-and-running chatbot on your Facebook Business page.

Keep in mind that you’ll probably want to do a little reading and maybe some training as you go. Growth Marketing Conference sponsored the first ever Facebook Messenger and Chatbot Marketing summit, which is a great place for some intense immersion learning.

But nothing substitutes for in-the-trenches chatbot building. Besides, it’s fun.

6 SEO Growth Levers for Higher SERP Rankings; Growth Marketing Conference Summary

Tom Casano is the founder of Sure Oak, one of the fastest-growing SEO agencies in NYC. They’ve grown clients’ organic traffic by up to 500%. Google conducts 3.5B searches every day — SEO is still one of the strongest long-term growth strategies. Anyone can start here and become an SEO expert. HOW TO: Bring cutting-edge SEO tactics […]

Tom Casano is the founder of Sure Oak, one of the fastest-growing SEO agencies in NYC. They’ve grown clients’ organic traffic by up to 500%.

Google conducts 3.5B searches every day — SEO is still one of the strongest long-term growth strategies. Anyone can start here and become an SEO expert.

HOW TO: Bring cutting-edge SEO tactics to your website to spur more conversions

1. Keyword research: find 2-10K keywords related to your company and divide them into topic “clusters”

Clusters are groups of similar content surrounding the pillars of your business, connected by internal links. Group hundreds of keywords in different clusters to establish authority on each topic.

Find keywords related to your main cluster content →

Google Search Console

And research how competitors are ranking for similar keywords →

SEMrush

2. On-page optimizations: rewrite URL slugs, header tags, and title tags; internally link related articles and check keyword density

Tags carry a lot of weight with Google; ensure they match the content of the page so searchers aren’t misled. Internal linking also helps guide web crawlers, strengthening authority on groups of related keywords.

Check your keyword/phrase frequency to ensure you’re continuously mentioning keywords →

WriteWords

3. Content: create long-form content on evergreen topics — at least one per cluster

Long-form consistently ranks higher than short. Hack: If you have several short articles on the same topic, combine them into one long-form version. Compile the articles on the highest ranking URL and open with a short summary for visitors looking for quick answers.

Find the highest ranking URL to reorganize the article on →

Ahrefs

4. Link building: secure links by creating exciting content and fostering relationships with thought leaders

Links are the most heavily-weighted ranking criteria. Create content that others in your industry care about to land on podcasts or feature in their articles.

Once you have the content, search for link opportunities here →

Moz

5. Satisfy user intent: provide answers to questions with specific keywords so you don’t lose ranking

Google’s goal is to help users answer questions. If they bounce quickly back to the search results page Google knows you didn’t provide the answer, and your future ranking will reflect that.

Learn where you’re losing visitors with click heatmaps and screen recordings →

Hotjar*

6. User experience: small sites should focus on content, larger sites need to start incorporating technical SEO

Larger sites could be losing visitors due to sloppy reroutes and non-existent pages that still rank — time to clean it up.

Conduct a full site audit and find broken links →

Screaming Frog SEO

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8 Steps To Master Pre-Launch User Acquisition; Growth Marketing Conference Summary

Roy Morejon is the president and co-founder of Enventys. Enventys has launched over 800 products, raised $165 million in capital for clients, and even gotten 16 clients onto Shark Tank. Over 30,000 consumer products are launched each year, but 95% of them fail. Pre-launch user acquisition can be the distinguishing factor between a wild success […]

Roy Morejon is the president and co-founder of Enventys. Enventys has launched over 800 products, raised $165 million in capital for clients, and even gotten 16 clients onto Shark Tank.

Over 30,000 consumer products are launched each year, but 95% of them fail. Pre-launch user acquisition can be the distinguishing factor between a wild success and a total flop.

HOW TO: Prepare a successful product launch through user research & acquisition

1. Brainstorm all audiences that could potentially fit your product, then start honing in on targets

You don’t want to waste money on an audience that ultimately won’t convert. In groups of 20-50 audiences, zero in on your ideal demographics (age, gender, location) and personas (lifestyle, likes, and needs).

Set up Facebook Lead Ads to start collecting leads →

Facebook Lead Ads

2. Test 2-3 FB ads per target audience — a generic baseline ad, plus 1-2 ads built for their unique interests

Remember it’s just research, don’t spend more than $5-10 per day per audience. Test discount ads vs. contest ads, as well as different copy, images, and videos. After 72 hours, take the best ad of the 3, create 2 spin-off variations and retest to see if you can drive CPL even lower.

Here’s the step-by-step to making a spin-off creative →

Facebook Ad Creative

If you run out of ideas, go to competitors’ business pages and look at the ads they’re using →

3. Funnel FB leads into an email drip campaign to keep them engaged until the launch

Create a welcome email to follow up with new leads immediately, then send them 1 email per week until launch. The whole point is engagement — center your copy entirely around your CTA.

Automate your drip campaign with an email service — automated emails get 119% higher click rates than regular emails →

Mailchimp

Use this Facebook Lead Ads-Mailchimp integration to move your leads over →

Lead Ads + Mailchimp Zap

4. Link your email CTA to a product landing page to increase the likelihood of lead conversions

Your landing page should have: 1) a compelling headline, 2) a clear, bright, above-the-fold CTA, 3) a mechanism to gather customer data for future remarketing, and 4) copy, photos, or a short video that showcases your product and compels leads to click the CTA.

Build a customized landing page in minutes →

Instapage*

5. Embed a contest app in your landing page CTA to maximize customer engagement and go viral

Enventys collects between 1000-1500 additional emails per product with contest apps, and found contest leads to be 1.6X more valuable than Facebook leads post-launch.

Contest apps incentivize users to share your product and have built-in notifications to keep them engaged →

Woobox*

6. Track critical KPIs throughout the pre-launch so you know what’s working

The key KPIs you’ll want to follow are 1) Customer acquisition costs, 2) Rate of customer acquisition, and 3) Conversion Rate

View your essential marketing KPIs across time on this customizable dashboard →

SimpleKPI Marketing Template*

7. Use FB Messenger chatbots as an additional touchpoint to drive further engagement

Facebook found that 64% of people choose direct messaging over picking up the phone or sending an email, and 53% of people are more likely to shop with a business they can message.

The average chatbot open rate is 94%; use this opportunity to improve the leads’ experience and boost conversions at launch →

MobileMonkey*

8. On the launch date, blast your email & Messenger lists with a buy or pre-order offer and publish your winning ads

Segment out key audiences to target, including interest-based audiences that performed well in pre-launch, customers that bought similar products in the past, and lookalike FB audiences.

Enventys found that segmented customer lists convert 6X better than purely interest-based lists; compile all your customer data in a single place to build out your segments →

Segment*

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Learn more at Global Growth Marketing Conference 2019

Growth Marketing Conference 2019

5 Steps to Achieve Google-Like Growth; Growth Marketing Conference Summary

Ken Rudin is the head of user growth at Google and runs their central growth team. Enough said. Simply building a great product isn’t enough to guarantee success — 80% of new products fail. Google uses the scientific method to ensure that their new products succeed, do you? HOW TO: Use Google’s secret scientific […]

Ken Rudin is the head of user growth at Google and runs their central growth team. Enough said.

Simply building a great product isn’t enough to guarantee success — 80% of new products fail. Google uses the scientific method to ensure that their new products succeed, do you?

HOW TO: Use Google’s secret scientific formula to spur product & user growth

1. Observe: Identify the single “north star” metric that best measures user growth

To know if your efforts are actually working, you need to have ONE metric that tracks how well you’re growing. For example, YouTube’s north star metric is Total Watch Time (the total time spent watching videos).

Your north star needs to deliver value to your users, not just to you. Analyze user behavior to understand what core value you provide. EventNotes recommends →

Amplitude*

2. Hypothesize: Pinpoint the key growth levers that drive users to your product

Growth levers are the components driving user growth — when you pull them, they move your north star metric. Identify the acquisition, onboarding, engagement and retention levers that have the highest impact on your north star metric.

Adapt Google’s growth model to your company. For example, if your north star metric is Daily Active Users, then you might break it down into growth levers like this →

Compile all your user data in one place to find your key growth levers. EventNotes recommends →

DataHero*

3. Experiment: Choose a growth lever you want to move, then run multiple split test experiments to determine the best ways to move that lever and drive growth.

The two primary ways to move your growth levers are sales & marketing tactics, as well as by optimizing the product itself. Say you have a landing page that drives users to your platform — first split test 3 different CTAs, then test 3 headlines, then 3 graphics…test, test, and keep testing until you find the combination that yields the most growth.

Optimize your winning growth strategies through rigorous A/B testing and AI assistance. EventNotes recommends →

Unbounce*

4. Encourage users to act on a growth lever by displaying it as a multi-step process and giving them an end goal to hit

Whether it’s buying, onboarding, or mastering the product, make it a step-by-step process and show users where they are in the journey. The closer people get to a goal, the more motivated they are to reach it.

Google increased the number of advertisers running 3+ ads by more than 20% with this simple visual display →

Monitor visitors in real time to track their progress and see where you need to boost motivation. EventNotes recommends →

Google Analytics*

5. Drive user action by appealing to their emotions, not their logic

Users make decisions based on emotion, then justify them with logic afterwards. To boost growth and retention, find ways to appeal to users’ hearts, not just their heads..

Google split tested an offer to recapture lost Ads users. An appeal to the positive emotion associated with business growth generated 80% more spending than offering them a $100 ad credit →

Find more examples of how to appeal to emotion and win back users in emails. EventNotes recommends →

Reallygoodemails.com*

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6 Product-Led Growth Tactics; Growth Marketing Conference Summary

Ashley Murphy is the director of growth at OpenView Venture Partners, a VC firm that invests solely in B2B expansion-stage software companies. The firm was an early investor in Calendly, Datadog, and Expensify and they believe product-led growth companies are leading the way. B2B companies that focus on user delight are valued at a 2X […]

B2B companies that focus on user delight are valued at a 2X premium compared to other SaaS businesses. Why? Because products that users love attract more attention and sell themselves.

HOW TO: Make product usage the primary driver of user acquisition, retention, and expansion

1. Start by making a product that only does 1 thing, but does it extremely well

Deliver immediate value by solving a common pain point, make it incredibly easy to use, and remove any non-critical bells and whistles that distract users from the key function.

Develop your top buyer personas to identify their pain points →

HubSpot Make My Persona Tool*

2. Offer multiple pricing levels, including a free trial, to collect more user data

Some users may never turn into paying customers but you can still use their data to improve your product and land bigger buyers. A free trial is practically industry standard now anyway.

Take advantage of the data you’re accruing by compiling it into a single location →

Databox*

3. If a free trial isn’t an option, consider a pay-as-you-go version so users can still try your product without a huge commitment

At larger enterprises, executives may not budge on free trials, so you’ll have to get creative. This tactic can generate some revenue while still allowing users to test your product before jumping in.

Test how far behind your company is in product-led growth and learn how to catch up →

ProductLed Growth Maturity Calculator

4. Your product is a marketing channel — engage with a handful of excited users and they’ll share it with others

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge raised $100M in 30 days with this viral tactic. Even if many of your users stick to the free version, they will tell others about it — free WOM advertising!

Calendly gets free users to market to their own networks with this simple CTA →

5. Monitor site visitor behavior, then redesign your site to favor B2B customers

If lots of B2B visitors are leaving your site without a download/purchase, you’re probably not positioning your product correctly — redesign and retest.

Quickly find B2B visitors through their IP address →

Clearbit Reveal*

Watch users interact with your site to spot patterns — pay special attention to where leads are dropping off →

Lucky Orange*

6. Empower self-service, but layer in human sales efforts to accelerate growth

If you notice a drop-off at any stage of the buyer journey, connect them with an expert on the sales team. Not only can sales answer any questions, but they can also begin to upsell.

Chat is a great way to be instantly available. Lucky Orange has a chat feature if you decide to try that tool, or you can use this standalone chat →

Intercom*

Tools with an asterisk are recommended, not sponsored or affiliated, by the EventNotes author. Tools without an asterisk were suggested by the speaker.

View all Growth Marketing Conference EventNotes

Learn more at Global Growth Marketing Conference 2019

Growth Marketing Conference 2019

6 Tips to Grow by Improving Customer Experience; Growth Marketing Conference Summary

Alexandra Shapiro has worked as a senior director at both JP Morgan and Paypal. She is the current CMO at Intercom, a client messaging platform built to maximize user acquisition and retention. While at JP Morgan, Alexandra hired 56 analysts to look over data manually. Today, digital companies are sitting on a goldmine of data […]

Alexandra Shapiro has worked as a senior director at both JP Morgan and Paypal. She is the current CMO at Intercom, a client messaging platform built to maximize user acquisition and retention.

While at JP Morgan, Alexandra hired 56 analysts to look over data manually. Today, digital companies are sitting on a goldmine of data they can put to work in real-time, without the hiring.

HOW TO: Use data to align sales & marketing behind a seamless customer experience

1. Create a centralized calendar that coordinates sales and marketing efforts across the funnel

Alignment is just as important as having a good product. A disjointed team will send mixed signals to some customers and neglect others.

Create a calendar and assign tasks, all within Slack →

Workast Slack Integration*

2. Use real-time data to score leads on potential value, segment them, and assign resources accordingly

Assign workflows to different lead scores so your teams can coordinate on and prioritize top-opportunity leads. (I.e., if a lead reaches X score, retarget with an FB ad then follow up with a sales call.)

Automate the ranking process to maximize team efficiency →

Mo Data*

3. Reduce the number of tools you’re using and dive deep into your chosen few

There are probably a lot of features you aren’t using in several of your tools; if you master 1-2 tools, you gain an edge over the competition. (We see the irony of giving you 6 new tools in this summary alone — choose wisely.)

Compile data from all of your tools to see which you use most and should dive deeper into →

Blendo*

4. Build a collaborative sales process from the start or reorganize your existing system to enhance customer experience

It is easy for early-stage businesses to try many different tactics to see what works, but this may confuse customers in the long run. Use data to create consistent strategies that align your sales and marketing ASAP.

Optimize each customer touchpoint through rigorous testing →

Intercom*

5. Use bots to handle inbound questions and free up your team to solve the real problems

Looking at data to find common questions, you can automate responses for 80% of your sales questions. Let your team spend their time handling the tricky cases and boosting client retention.

Customize these chatbot templates to match your unique sales process →

Collect.chat*

Tools with an asterisk are recommended, not sponsored or affiliated, by the EventNotes author. Tools without an asterisk were suggested by the speaker.

View all Growth Marketing Conference EventNotes

Learn more at Global Growth Marketing Conference 2019

Protected: Why AI Is Your New Growth Secret Weapon (Part 2)

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Why AI Is Your New Growth Secret Weapon (Part 1)

Since 2016, the interest for Artificial Intelligence has increased more than twofold worldwide. We can see that in Google trends. There definitely is amplifying buzz around AI although it’s not a new topic. AI has been around for decades but as Ray Kurzwell says “The singularity is near”. How much longer will it take […]

Since 2016, the interest for Artificial Intelligence has increased more than twofold worldwide.

We can see that in Google trends.

There definitely is amplifying buzz around AI although it’s not a new topic. AI has been around for decades but as Ray Kurzwell says “The singularity is near”.

How much longer will it take to reach this singular point where human and artificial intelligence merge?

With a MarTech stack which now includes thousands of growth analytics SaaS solutions, AI for growth is becoming increasingly complex. Yet, growth marketers need to learn how to make new artificial entities part of their growth arsenal and an integral part of their growth team.

Today, as we iterate on growth, a lot of the growth process is still manual. Let’s take one foundational aspect of growth, for example, high-tempo ICE as described in this short video by Dan Martell, most growth marketers use a spreadsheet to align their teams around growth experiments.

Sean Ellis, one of the fathers of growth hacking, and his team at growthhackers.com, recently launched a software called NorthStar to help accelerate and streamline this cross-functional growth process.

What happens in the near future when AI is more deeply integrated into our growth teams to act on all levers of the AARRR framework?

What is AI?

Before sharing real-life AI growth actions I led in my life as a mobile SaaS startup entrepreneur and as a growth marketer, let’s start with getting a clear definition of what AI stands for as of today.

Dr. Raj Ramesh shared a very easy to understand YouTube video that does a great job at explaining what AI is about for now – and the context around many of the currently trending buzz words such as Machine learning, Deep Learning, Natural Language Processing, Convolutional Neural Networks and more.

What is AI – For People In a Hurry!

To keep it simple, there are two main sections of AI.

One that is based on symbols, symbolic learning and one that is based on data, machine learning.

The former has emerged as early as in the 19th century, as explained in this paper by Inman Harvey. A computer at the time was like a clerk employed in an accountancy or insurance office to perform immense and tedious calculations by hand and by following detailed set procedures.

Fast forward to 1997, and Deep Blue is the first form of symbolic AI to defeat chess champion Kasparov.

We can give a lot of credit to symbolic inroads to help raise the overall AI awareness. Yet, such artificial entities focus on crunching systematically through all the possibilities. Think the finite universe.

Today, data sets are becoming larger and more dynamic. Marketers can collect real-time data at each touch point of their customer journeys. Discover patterns that correlate to their north star metrics to ideate and act on an increasingly larger and more and more data-informed set of growth experiments.

The art of growth marketing is now turbocharged with actionable data learning.

Below are some real-life examples you can act on:

Cross-platform web + mobile AI for automated customer segmentation and messaging

In a previous article on mobile app growth, I had touched on how you can leverage mobile engagement analytics to spur growth.

What I find quite fascinating with an AI driven cross-platform analytics solution such as Pyze, is the simplicity of leveraging behavioral analytics to deliver personalized messaging in no time to each behavioral segment.

The first layer of AI in the Pyze experience is auto-segmentation AI.

Just by dragging and dropping segmentation dimensions, in a matter of seconds, you can make deep segmentation actionable for immediate marketing right away.

Pyze Auto-Segmentation via their Intelligence Explorer

The segments in blue, represent the Silver subscribers from the U.K. organized by increasing levels of attrition.

We can act right away on each auto-segment by clicking on it. We are now crafting an in-app message directly in Pyze.

On the left, we have the various elements of the in-app message. We can edit the picture directly in Pyze, enter the title, core message and add deep-linking CTA buttons or even CTA linking to external webpages which can be useful for survey collections as an example.

On the right, in real-time, you see exactly how your in-app message is going to render.

You can do the same if you elect to send a rich push notification. In these advanced push notifications, you can include a full picture and even a video if you want!

The other interesting layer of AI in the Pyze experience happens at scheduling.

Pyze leverages its big data mobile graph to offer the “Best time to reach per user” scheduling functionality. They use machine learning to custom send each in-app message on a per user basis to maximize tap-through rates for both in-app and push messages.

Last but not least, Pyze boasts a solid visual interface for reporting engagement data in a variety of ways in just a few drag-an-drop moves.

App Installs by Day and by Manufacturer via Pyze Data Query Builder.

Social AI for automated B2B and B2C lead qualification, activation and growth

Lead qualification, activation and growth on Instagram

Followadder is an interesting social AI web app for Instagram. It can help you achieve several aspects of social engagement and growth on top of the things that only humans will be able to do. Even in the future, it may help with Instagram Live engagement including split-screen dual broadcasts.

I found it helpful in discovering product-market fit in the early stages of mobile app experiences where the must-have persona has a strong millennial component.

For example, if you go after a niche market, you can target the followers of the instagram influencers in that niche.

Target followers of top Instagram influencers in a niche persona

You can DM a picture automatically to your followers.

The image below demonstrates how I set it up for our app.

Engage Instagram followers with automated Thank You DM including a picture

You can also test hundreds of messages to quickly iterate and focus on those that trigger the most responsiveness from your core market.

The image below is an example of a portion of a test messaging matrix’s that I used some time back to help simplify engagement comments and surface qualified leads faster.

Messaging test matrix via Instagram AI

Instagram engagement growth through human/AI collaboration – Followers graph in red above

As you combine human social interaction with relevant AI automation, you get to spur social engagement to levels that are stronger than without AI collaboration.

This form of Social AI is symbolic. You input your segmentation, targeting and positioning data for your brand. AI then goes about finding the corresponding “symbols” within the Instagram social graph and automates some of the work that many still do manually.

Yet, there is a lot of room for improvement.

With a tool like that, you can target relevant keywords included in the Instagram usernames, or relevant hashtags, or followers of influencers in your niche and more.

However, you cannot target hashtags. At least I haven’t found a tool that does that yet. Being a developer and having worked on the Instagram API years ago, it wouldn’t be that complicated to create one.

You could really zero in very precisely on must-have personas to validate product-market fit on your first-time user experience.

Here is a quick example with simple figures.

Imagine you only want to target florists who sell orchids.

#florist has 6.5 Million posts on insta.

#orchid has 2.7 Million posts.

If you can only target #florist and #orchid, the odds are that you target people posting about orchids without having nothing to do with being a florist are high. And so are the odds of targeting florists who do not sell orchids.

Now if you target “orchidflorist” as part of the insta username, you get super targeted leads, but you only skim the surface of a much larger addressable pool of orchid florist leads on insta.

See, you only get a few dozens of orchid florists when you search for “orchidflorist” as People.

Even if there are limitations with this type of symbolic social AI, it can clearly move your growth needle by far. We can also understand the power of targeting social graphs and anticipate what will happen as those graphs keep growing.

This will lead to unprecedented levels of targeting possibilities paired with very sharp personalization that will make everybody blink to determine if a human or an artificial entity is actually communicating.

This leads us to personalization API where you can dynamically change your content based on detailed target customer information.

Personalization API to generate B2B leads

Many social APIs are not exposed. Meaning, the social network who hosts the data doesn’t make it available to the developer community to build apps on top of their social graph. Or if they do, they only do it partially.

Nonetheless, there already exists some interesting AI that can help you leverage the “personalization API” angle without actually having to know any coding skills, nor having to use an existing social API.

A very human artificial B2B growth agent

LinkedHelper is a social AI solution for B2B growth.

I find it interesting as it actually mimics human behaviors and automates them. You can pretty much automate anything you would do using a B2B social network such as LinkedIn. This includes writing and sending extremely personalized messages to anyone in your 1st, 2nd or 3rd-degree network.

Here is a tangible example of how you can leverage this AI agent to generate highly targeted B2B leads at a fraction of traditional MQL and SQL costs in B2B settings.

We are going to target the “Real Estate broker” persona in our 2nd-degree network, in a very personal way. We leverage the name(s) of our common connection(s) automatically and put forward our core value proposition to make them a 1st-degree connection first. Then, we can start an automated nurturing strategy to run a demo of our app in their office.

Step 1 – Search for “Real Estate Broker” and activate deep filters

I am using the “All Filters” functionality of LinkedIn Search to make sure to target 2nd-degree connections from my “Real Estate broker” search. I also want to make sure that their current title includes “Real Estate Broker”. That way, you refine the precision of your core persona targeting.

And here we go, we just surfaced 17,926 prospective leads in the exact target persona we are looking to market.

Now we need to assign them to a collection list that we could re-use in the future.

Step 2 – Collect “Real Estate Broker” leads

We simply hit collect:

As the AI starts collecting prospective leads among our 17,926 hyper-targeted prospects, we can start setting up a personalized invite message.

Step 3 – Write personalization invitations

Now it’s time to craft a personalized invite with relevant data from your LinkedIn social graph to boost engagement rate and get a maximum number of qualified leads to connect with you. Time to reel them into your growth funnel!

Click in the body of the message for the pop-up message editor.

Now we start typing a simple invite and include a few personalized data points such as the target connections first name.

To make the invite more personal, relevant and likely to spur a higher response rate, we are going to add the name of a mutual connection. We do this by leveraging the conditional test with a very simple “IF-THEN-ELSE” statement made available by the software.

Just click the conditional statement itself, it will create a new conditional sequence inside the body of your message in the editor. Here, I am displaying the text “including {full name of common connection}”. This should work all the time since I am targeting 2nd-degree connections which by definition have at least one 1st-degree connection in common with me. Yet, just in case a common connections full name is not returned, I populate the ELSE part of the conditional statement with a dot “.” to properly punctuate the sentence and end it in this case.

The image below is what the conditional statement in the message editor looks like.

As you save your invite, you get to preview it if you want with staged data.

It’s almost funny actually!

It’s now time to send our personalized invites to our LinkedIn prospects.

Step 4 – Send your personalized invitations

As we were setting up the personalized invitation in the message editor, the collection AI worked magic. We have already collected 840 highly targeted prospective “Real Estate Broker” leads.

This is more than enough to get started and to get a feel for the response rate on that target persona. It’s best not to send more than 150 invites per day anyway, so we have a few days of prospective leads to contact ahead of us.

It’s time to stop collecting and simply press on the invite button to start sending out our personalized LinkedIn invitations.

The AI starts typing the first invitation at natural human typewriting speed and we can verify that the elements of message personalization are properly populated.

We are now making sure the conditional statements we created, works properly.

And it does!

And the invitation goes out on its own.

Done!

Machine learning in conversational intelligence to increase sales

When I started my marketing career, I marketed the French and Italian subscription of HDTV channels for a leading satellite HDTV network in the U.S.

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How to Hire Your Growth Marketing Team

“Growth hacker” might be overrated as a professional designation, but many businesses are becoming increasingly aware that traditional marketing alone isn’t enough to stay competitive in today’s changing business landscape. As a result, the terms “growth marketing” and “growth team” are being thrown around more and more frequently as business goals – even though many […]

As a result, the terms “growth marketing” and “growth team” are being thrown around more and more frequently as business goals – even though many of the people using them have no idea what a growth team is or how to build one.

In this article, I’ll break down the difference between growth and marketing, as well as describe what growth teams look like and how to plan for one based on your company’s unique needs.

Growth vs. Marketing

Before we get too far into this discussion, it’s important that we define what the difference between growth and marketing is:

Marketing is top-of-the-funnel, and typically involves looking at the impact individual promotional channels have on performance metrics like leads, traffic, email opt-ins and sales.
Growth involves a broader scope, encompassing the product or service itself. Sometimes that means changing the offering to better align with what’s needed for effective marketing. It might also involve adjusting the positioning, onboarding or activation workflows, or business structure at a high level to increase the odds of success.

Basically, growth is company-wide and encompasses the full funnel. Marketing is more tactical. As Alex Birkett notes on the ConversionXL blog:

“In the past, marketing teams focused primarily on the very top-of-the-funnel, measuring impressions, mind share, leads, etc. A growth team, however, is largely overlapped with product, engineering, and design as well. A growth team is made up of many different skill sets and can more easily push through ideas and experimentation that crosses traditional silos and boundaries.”

Who’s Who on a Growth Team

Knowing that a growth team should be more cross-departmental in nature than a marketing team gives you some insight into the kinds of roles you’ll find on each. I’ve written about this on the Web Profits blog, but a few of the roles that may be involved in growth teams include:

Growth Lead
Data Analyst
Content Marketer
Social Media & Community Manager
Growth Hacker
Project Manager
Full Stack Developer

Each of these seven roles is discussed in more detail in the original article, but beyond them, your growth team might also involve those in business intelligence, sales, customer service, customer success, design, engineering and UX/UI. Having said that, not all of these roles need to be filled at once – and they don’t necessarily need to be filled by full-time, traditional hires.

One of the things I like to do is work with contractors first. Not only can you let go of contractors more easily if they aren’t working out for you, but there are plenty of situations where contractors can get you faster results (or where long-term employees aren’t really needed).

For example, suppose you’re a Fortune 500 company, and you realize that you need to double-down on your SEO to facilitate growth. You’re going to be doing things like optimizing pages, writing new content and building links. Working with multiple contractors lets you tap into specialized skillsets much faster than you could with traditional employees. And, if you get the channel working eventually, you can always move it in-house.

Another thing I like to do is borrow team members from other departments. If I’m just starting the process of shifting from tactical marketing to broader growth, I might go to my product manager and say, “Hey, can I grab eight hours from you this month?” Or maybe it’s, “Hey designer, I need 10 hours of your time.” This creates a growth mentality internally and gets people to understand and buy into their role in supporting growth (all without adding extra unnecessary cost up front).

One thing you’ll need in all situations is a growth champion. This might be a VP of Growth, a VP of Marketing or even the CEO at a small startup. Regardless of the title, you need someone to lead the team who has more product experience, and who – ideally – has worked with designers and engineers before. You need someone who can explain the intricacies of growth, as well as get ideas actioned.

Once you understand the different roles you may want to consider, as well as your options for filling them, you can plan your specific growth team based on highest impact or biggest bottlenecks.

Finding Your Bottlenecks and Highest Priorities

When it comes to building a team, a lot of people focus on where they want to be. They don’t look at where they are right now, where they want to go, and what kind of people they actually need to get there.

Pierre Lechelle notes that looking at growth may not even be appropriate until you’ve proved that your company has reached product-market fit:

“Being in business is all about focusing on the right thing at the right moment. Before Growth, you should be focusing on understanding the needs of your customers. If you don’t know (yet) if you reached Product / Market Fit, chances are that you need to work a little more on your product before experimenting on Growth.”

So when I’m building a growth team, the first thing I try to understand are the bottlenecks in a business and its funnels. That tells me which growth roles I need to fill first, as well as what it’ll take to create an effective team.

Let me give you an example. At my company Narrow.io, our goal this year is to double growth. Knowing where we want to go, we have a lot of levers we can play with. We have churn, our traffic numbers, our conversion rate, our activation rate and more. Those are all things we’ve been monitoring monthly year after year.

Looking at this data, we realized we don’t really have a conversion problem. Because we don’t offer a free trial and people have to pay to access our tool, our conversion rates have always been pretty high. But what we did discover was that, if new subscribers failed to set up our system correctly within the first 90 days, they were going to churn. And since word of mouth is such a big channel for us, any churn also means a corresponding decrease in referrals.

To figure out where we could make changes, our team started looking at support logs and talking to customers. We offered to look at hundreds of their campaigns for free, which took us about 20 minutes each. But we quickly found a few weaknesses, like a toggle button subscribers were missing or mistakes in the way they were entering search criteria. Changing our onboarding and activation workflows had an immediate impact on churn and referrals.

But let’s say you don’t have this kind of data. Let’s say you’re just starting out, and you need more traffic before you can do anything else. Maybe, where we needed to focus on filling more of a customer success role at Narrow.io, you need to hire a traditional marketing team. You might want to hire a PPC person, an SEO specialist, a social media manager or a marketing generalist.

Once you get more traffic, you’ll discover the other problems you need to solve with new members of your growth team.

Using Experimental Frameworks to Prioritize Your Bottlenecks

In a perfect world, your company’s bottlenecks – as well as their solutions – would be obvious. You’d crunch some numbers, spot the challenges immediately, and either pull internal resources or hire out to resolve them.

Actually prioritizing your bottlenecks and taking action on them is rarely that straightforward in the real world. Instead, you’re likely to face:

Multiple bottlenecks, without a clear understanding of what should be resolved first
Limited resources to put into product development or new hires
Internal team members who are already overburdened and unable to take on new growth responsibilities

Deciding how to move forward can be made easier with an experimental framework like “ICE” (which stands for impact, confidence, ease). I generally focus on achieving the highest impact with the least amount of work, which often means making non-technical changes.

In the case of Narrow.io, after listening to feedback from our customers, we asked ourselves, “What’s the minimal engineering involved?” If customers are stuck in activation, for example, we could have solved it by either reworking the UX to be clearer or investing in better process documentation and support. But one of those options was a lot less expensive and required less time, resources and specialized knowledge to achieve – so we went with better training.

Crunch the numbers to the extent you’re able to. Estimate what the impact on your business metrics will be for each proposed solution to your bottlenecks, as well as what the full costs will be to implement each. Your estimates won’t always be right, but as you gather performance data, you’ll be able to iterate continually by revisiting your experimental framework.

Putting It All Together

Ultimately, building a growth team comes down to understanding where your company is strong, where it’s weak, and which of these disconnects must be overcome in order to facilitate sustained growth.

It’s not about doing as many experiments as you can or filling spots on a team because some guy on the internet said you should. It’s about talking to customers, figuring out your bottlenecks, and understanding what it’ll take to fix them. It’s about making the biggest impact possible with the fewest resources possible, tapping into internal or external talent as needed to achieve your goals.

Once you begin operating from that mindset, the ideal structure for your growth team will become obvious.

Have you built a growth team before? If so, what other tips would you add to mine? Leave me a comment below with your thoughts: