Growth Engine Simplified
We are living in a difficult time now. COVID 19 has not only taken a toll on our daily workflows, it also affected our marketing budgets. Lets look at the brighter side. It certainly poses a challenge like no other. And in this meltdown what if I told you, that you can certainly 30–70% more customers at the same budget? Now I have your attention. Lets Go.
I know what you are thinking. The optimist in you thinks that there is going to be a magic potion to suddenly make your viral loops work, increase your K factor. The pessimist in you thinks this is going to be another “Content is king”,” Work on your product market fit” kind of a rant. Well I am not taking any of those roads. And just to sound like an expert (which I am not), I will tell you about growth engine, how to build one , and its basic steps. Here we go.
Marketing Channels
As marketers we are all aware about the channels present in the market today. However only a few understand the right mix.
Free Channels: Free blogs, content marketing
Mid Channels: PR, Partnerships
Paid Channels: Facebook, google, linkedin
For starters, you might be struggling start or high-flying conglomerate, one should always aim to be frugal. Having an understanding of the scope and capabilities of these channels and how they fit in your scheme of things is of paramount importance. Here is a classic example of 2 funnels :
Think which of the two makes sense to you. The first one takes customer from awareness to acquisition where as 2nd one is more direct in approach. Though the first one may seem cumbersome, it might give you better results, as you have set the context. Again finding the balance is the key here. To re iterate, finding the right conversion funnel the mix of the available marketing channels will invariably give you better results.
Product Story
Think of the Nike Ad that you last saw. Or AirBnB’s customer speaking about how amazing the stay was or even Amazon’s seller stories. People connect to stories. People connect to emotions. Not features. Lets do an arbitrary feature analysis of competitors.
There is no way you can influence a potential client/customer with this level of product differentiation.Product stories do not define a feature. It defines the whys, the hows, the inspirations and the satisfactions .
Now you have a basic idea of product stories . There is another type of storytelling, that is doing the rounds these days. The Anti-story. Well its not officially called that, but I thought what the heck!
So what is an Anti-story then?
Product stories can be imagined as a movie. A movie that connects with you at various level and you imagine life in or with it. An antistory is just the opposite. A product story that makes its target audience imagine a life without it. As one of my very good friend and colleague says ,“Make your product the Vitamin tablet and not the pain killer.”
Product Marketing- Let the product sell itself
The term product marketing is one of the loosely thrown around word these days. Let me bust the myth. Product marketing is not taking your product to the market. And yes, it is indispensable part of the marketing activity.
At the risk of sounding geeky, product marketing starts below the acquisition in the Growth Funnel , it entails taking your user base to their AHA moment and then there is the whole business of viral coefficients, thaking product to a stage of network effect to the ever elusive virality stage.
Just to be clear, they are different stages. The fundamental is simple. Let your product acquire for you. Lets simplify further.
1st stage of Product Marketing
Map your user journey and unravel that one feature, that makes the user stick on to your app/ platform. It can be a feature or an over arching value. Making your user realize that, is the very first step of Product Marketing. You might know that instant as the AHA moment or Activation. I prefer the former. It has zing to it.
The next Step
Make your user use the solution. It might seem I am reiterating the previous point but believe me, the challenges are two completely different animals. Where the first step the user does not log out or uninstall, this step the user is using the app, hence generating interactions with the solution resulting in the user creating his/her LTV.
One of the finest examples of this dilemma is Linkedin. For long, Linkedin has been the platform every professional will have but would not interact on a regular basis.
At this stage focus on building your transactions , test discovery algorithms, manage customizations, gamify solutions etc to get the users using your solution regularly. For a network, it might be social proof, for music streaming services it might be intuitive discovery, for ecommerce it might be stellar suggestions and customizations. You get the point. Find your niche.
The elusive Virality question
This one is every marketer’s dream but also their worst nightmare. Nothing I will say here will solve the problem except for rigorous testing and constant innovation. To give the most obvious examples,
For youtube: You can embed you tube videos any where
For Gmail: Your account is an advertisement in itself
For Facebook: You can share anything on facebook for greater reach
There are a lot of canny and uncanny stories out there. The key is to keep innovating and find your virality story. And if you do, just drop me an email at sudip.chhatui@gmail.com
