The 5 most actionable lessons I learned at the Growth Marketing Conference
Most people don’t think of the word “inspiring” when it comes to business conferences. “Boring,” “network-y,” and “hectic” are words that come to mind a little more readily. But last week I attended a conference that made me reconsider.
The Growth Marketing Conference this year in San Jose was 2 days of action-packed learning with enthusiastic fellow growth marketers who flew in from all over the world, hungry to hone their razor sharp business savvy.
While that alone was enough to leave me buzzing with excitement about what I do at Crowdcast, the learnings were also plenty. For a student at heart like me, the biggest complaint I had during the conference was the tyranny of an ever-present FOMO every time I confronted the grueling option to choose between attending Talk 1 or Talk 2 at any given time.
So what did I actually learn? Here are the top 5 things I took away.
1. Test constantly and strategically.
Sean Ellis, growth marketer extraordinaire, was adamant on this one.
Consider this: one of his past companies, LogMeIn (launched to IPO), stopped growing until his team started launching at least 3 tests every single week.
Why test so much? You never know what’s really going to work for you unless you test early & often because despite what all the spammy headlines tell you, there are no one-size-fits-all “growth hacks.”
Another pro tip? Don’t just “try out different things.” Be rigorous, know your key metrics, have your analytics in place, and apply the scientific method so each test is measured against a hypothesis until completion.
2. Focus on one key action for each email and landing page.
Heather R Morgan was there to share her secrets on winning cold emails and Liston Witherill offered his proven strategies on copywriting.
Both emphasized one key lesson: when it comes to rockstar cold emails and conversion optimization, pick one focus for each email and each page for maximum impact. Don’t dilute your writing with several asks or wishy-washy calls-to-action.
3. High growth is a result of high alignment.
If you have a marketing team, a sales team, and a customer success team all focused on their own metrics instead of collaborating around a common objective, chaos will ensue — and it will hurt your growth.
Instead, everyone’s efforts should rally around a twofold question:
- How do we make our customers more successful?
- And how do we increase the number of successful customers?
This rock-solid alignment, says Steli Efti, is how he’s able to run Close.io with one-tenth the team size of his closest competitor and earn the same six-figure revenue.
4. Use your customer’s language to describe your product
Growth is the process of finding the right people and telling them why your product matters. In other words, it’s all about language.
This means the way you describe your product is critical. You can apply all the “growth hacks” you want but unless you find the right language to talk about your product, your efforts will fall flat.
How do you make sure you’re using the right words? Heather R Morgan suggests reading customer reviews of your competitors’ products. Make a doc listing all the words people use to describe their pain points as well as the products they’ve tried using.
Good copy has a multiplier effect that can turn your email marketing, landing pages, and content marketing into a high-converting sales machine.
5. PR isn’t a luxury — it’s possible even when you’re low on resources
Ben Kaplan has been on CNN, Oprah, and Good Morning America. He’s also a best-selling author and runs a Top 100 PR firm. In other words, he knows a thing or two about how to “hack” the news with a good viral story.
How did he become such an expert? Surprisingly, he says it was the lack of resources and a strong network that motivated him in his early entrepreneurial days to become crafty for more powerful results.
The lesson? PR isn’t just a high-cost luxury. It can be a powerful growth channel for early-stage growth if you’re willing to summon some creativity and apply a thoughtful strategy.
Want even more free advice from experts?
Join us for a chat on Tuesday Dec. 13th with Sujan Patel on the top growth strategies for 2017. Ask questions and learn the tactics he used to drive growth & traffic for LinkedIn, Salesforce, WSJ and more.
