GROWTH MARKETING 101: SSM Thoughts Bridge Review (Part 1)

Over the years the concepts of marketing have been evolving at a crazy pace. Marketing is not only about the top of the funnel activities anymore, but also about the entire decision journey by the consumers. While Traditional marketing has the practice to persuade consumers to buy the products where today's digital marketing or growth marketing are persuading business to adapting the product to consumers. To achieve success in business the concept of growth marketing has become very popular. 

Growth Marketing:

Growth Marketing came from a quick aside of growth hacking. Growth hacks are a combination of multiple hacks that are considered as growth hacking. Also, we can state Growth hacking is finding an underutilized strategy for acquiring the objectives (e.g. core metrics, maybe increasing customers, views, clicks, increase email open rates etc.) at an unexpectedly low cost per acquisition.

Whereas, Growth Marketing is a broader concept meaning over a period of time with experimented tactics used in various channels to grow an expected audience and thus delighting these audience for increasing the retention, loyalty and advocacy. Growth marketing concepts have reshaped the marketing perspectives with the help of technology and new strategies for coping up with the changing landscape of consumer behaviors.

If we figure out a target area which needs to be developed further then for developing that area we need strategies and experiments – this entire process for developing that area are considered as growth marketing. 

Growth marketing is all about a holistic approach to entire funnel activities.

Growth marketing is about focusing on individual channels, analysis the data, metrics and work through the entire management of the projects. (E.g. Product managements, teamwork, customers, stakeholders and partner management etc.)

Components of Growth Marketing:

There are 3 main components are growth marketing. Which are mentioned as below:

1. Channel Level Managements of Growth;

2. Analysis with Data;

3. Project Managements; 

Building a Growth Process: 

Let me discuss about how we can build a growth process. There are 3 main phases of growth process we need to understand and work accordingly.

1.     High- Level Strategy;
2.     Quarterly Planning &
3.     In-quarterly Planning; 

1. High-Level Strategy - Is finding about the growth model, mapping customer decision journey, identifying all growth channels.

2. Quarterly Planning – about exploring data, identifying quarterly goals, building the roadmaps to execute, experiments and achieve those goals.

3. In-Quarter Planning – about high tempo growth process. Building Experiments for specific targets, shipping the experiments, analyzing and then either automate, customize/scale if works or scrap if doesn’t work. 

High-Level Strategy Phase

Let’s start with the High-Level Strategy Phase. In this phase, we need to find out the growth model of our business. This is the primary and first objectives. Then properly map the entire customer decision journey analysis, after that figuring out all the growth channels. 

“Growth Model is like setting growth metrics through the context of the stage in user’s lifecyle.”

Well, for almost any company’s growth building process we can use a framework developed by David McClure’s Pirate Metrics for startups called AARRR framework. 

AARRR Framework – includes Acquisitions, Actions, Retentions, Referrals and Revenue. Pirates usually make a noise like AARRR thus it is named Pirate Metrics.

Acquisitions – How to build awareness to customers are the main game here. Doing all the necessary steps for creating awareness to customers will ensure the first step of the framework successfully. How potential leads will get to know about the product is the key to start off. Ensuring all the visibility in 360 channels are better things to do. Absolute content marketing, proper SEO, e-mail marketing, etc. are the inputs here in this stage. The basic questions can be asked to ensure acquisitions are – where customers are seeking solutions to their problem? Are we available in their pain points? Solving customer’s problem will increase the acquisition rates.

• Actions – Once a customer finds us what necessarily they do after that or what we want them to do? Are we providing solutions to their pain points for which they found us? If so, then are actions they are doing what we want them to do? Maybe subscriptions, purchase products or any other actions. Ensuring this process will increase the metrics and let us come down to the second steps the framework.
• Retention - How many people have become our regular customers? Are they coming back to consume content or buy again? These metrics we need to consider to this retention steps of the framework.
• Referrals – How many people are being advocated for the brand or business? Knowing this metric will help to create effects on increasing word-of-mouth activities for customers. By delighting consumers properly will ensure the increase in this metric. This part largely depends on creating loyalty loops. Once that is successfully created, then the consumer can skip the stimulus parts, the zero moments of truth and directly go to first moments of truth. Campaigns, contests, emails & widgets are great inputs.
• Revenue – Are we earning revenues from all these activities? How much we are earning? What are the ways we can earn from the entire process? Figuring out the revenue metrics and models can help the entire revenue process run smoothly. Ads, lead generations, Subscriptions and more are the ways we can generate revenues.

We can establish the framework by following the steps as mentioned above. Identifying growth model and successfully mapping the customer journey and sorting out all growth channels will ensure the quality and success of the high-level strategy phase. 

Quarterly Planning Phase

Secondly comes the Quarterly Planning Phase of our growth process. We need to figure out where basically customers are following? The right growth channels. Sorting out the data, setting right achievable goals and creating the road maps.

•  Exploring data from all growth channels according to the CDJ;
• Understanding the drop points;
•  Analyzing the data;
•  Focusing on all the touch points;
• Conducting surveys and look for opportunities;
• Set OKRs and SMART goals;
•  Creating the right road map;

Explore data, Set Goals

Setting quarterly goals are ideal and having multiple metrics looked after by individual focus teams are necessary. Different metrics handled or maintained by different teams are helpful if the company has a large number of people to work for. Learning about the customers more and more will help to set quarterly goals. So conducting surveys or one-to-one session with customers is absolutely helpful things to do. That will help to build the road maps. Effective brainstorm sessions and prioritizing the work are required to have a better growth. As John McBride Suggested ICE framework to figure out priorities. 

ICE framework for prioritizing, which stands for I= Impact, C = Confidence and E=efforts. Firstly estimating the impact of the work, then knowing about the confidence for the projections we set and lastly how much efforts (e.g. time, energy, and different inputs) are required will help to sort out the work and prioritize. 

In-Quarter Planning Phase

Thirdly, let me discuss about In-Quarter Planning Phase. There are 4 steps can be identified in the process –

• Designing Experiments;
• Shipping Experiments;
• Analyzing the Results;
• Cycling as quickly as possible with the results;

Designing experiments constantly are key to growth. Frequently A/B testing are required. It can be changing of copy, creative or process changing in the campaigns or projects. Then launch the individual experiments and see how does it work or influence in consumer’s decision or on purchase behaviors. If some experiments work, then we need to automate that or if scaling/customize. If does not work then, we need to scrap that and move to the next ones. And create a loop for entire process. 

This article does express my personal understanding and thoughts about growth marketing foundations I learnt while I was a student of CXL Institute. And it sums up the first part of the foundations of Growth Marketing. I will be writing about another part of growth marketing foundations next week where I will be focusing on the details of user-centric marketing approach and identifying individual growth channels.

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Sheikh Shafi Mahmud is an Economics Graduate of Notre Dame, Digital Marketer, Social & Content. Author and Founder of SSM Thoughts Bridge. He is also the Co-Founder, Music Composer & Producer of Apeiruss. Can be reached at sheikhshafimahmud@gmail.com