Forget tips and tricks! The role of marketing in building sustainable growth Hanna Harjula, Business Unit Lead at Advance B2B October 20, 2020 @hharjula

Hi there Hanna Harjula Business Unit Lead, Growth Marketing Services at Advance B2B Twitter: @hharjula LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ hannaharjula/ @hharjula

B2B Growth Marketing Agency 35+ people, located in lovely Malmi, Helsinki SaaS / Subscription / Tech Part of Bravedo Growth Community @hharjula

Here are some of our amazing customers @hharjula

Agenda for today ➔ In the search of the “next big marketing thing” ➔ How to find your ideal customers? ➔ How to do growth marketing in practice? @hharjula

In the search of the “next big marketing thing"

We’re always in search for hacks, tricks, and tips... @hharjula

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You wouldn’t fall for one of these @hharjula

So why on earth would you fall for these? @hharjula

❌ There is no marketing playbook that suits all businesses and products. ❌ There is no sustainable growth without retention. @hharjula

*50 new customers / m, 250€/MRR/m @hharjula

“Churn is a symptom, not a disease” – Lincoln Murphy, Sixteen Ventures @hharjula

Breaking news: ❗❗❗Marketing and sales cause as much churn as the product ❗❗❗ @hharjula

1. Poor-fit signups (wrong use case etc.) 2. False expectations (over-promise, under-deliver) 3. Customer forgotten after sign-up But how? @hharjula

You need to acquire right-fit customers (not just anyone with a heartbeat) @hharjula

Not all customers are created equal Which customer is better for us? 2500 € 1500 € 1200 € 1200 € Value of the first deal Customer acquisition cost Customer acquisition cost Value of the first deal @hharjula

LTV > Direct ROI 2500 € 1500 € 1200 € 1200 € Value of the first deal Customer acquisition cost Customer acquisition cost Value of the first deal 1000 € 1000 € 0 0 1500 € 1500 € 2000 € 2000 € = 3300 € = 7300 € @hharjula

The customer journey doesn’t end where the funnel ends @hharjula

To acquire right-fit customers, you’ll need to reverse-engineer @hharjula Traditional marketing teams Growth Marketing Teams Understand why some customers become your best friends and some won’t

➔ intuitively understand the benefits and see the value of your product ➔ are easy to sell to ➔ don't ask for a lower price ➔ engage with your product actively AND get to the (first) value quickly ➔ don’t burden your customer support ➔ don’t churn easily ➔ are profitable for your company (think relatively low customer acquisition costs, relatively high customer lifetime value, and high growth potential) ➔ often recommend your product/service to their peers — simply because they’re head over heels for it Your ideal customers are those that... @hharjula

Ideal Customer Profile – Example Target Audience Corporate companies Potential Customers Corporate companies that processes at least 100,000 invoices annually and an accounts payable team of 2+ people. Ideal Customer Profile Corporate companies that processes at least 100,000 invoices annually and an accounts payable team of 2+ people. Operates in a complex industry such as leasing or construction and are early adopter CIOs who want to reposition the finance department as a forerunner in driving technological innovation. “Total Market” Your Ideal Customer @hharjula

By understanding who your ideal customers are, you can nail your positioning so that it resonates with your ideal target audiences’ pain points and motivations. @hharjula

An unknown brand and/or wrong positioning are often huge bottlenecks for growth @hharjula

@hharjula

@hharjula

You have done your homework and know your ICP, then what?

Three steps How to do growth marketing in practice? Goals & priorities ➔ What are the biggest growth opportunities? ➔ NB / Retention / Upsell / Cross-sell? ➔ Company growth goals prioritized, per segment / market / product / business Market & customer ➔ Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), i.e. who are our best customers? ➔ What is the problem our best-fit customers are trying to solve with the product / service? ➔ What are the direct and indirect alternatives? Agile marketing ops ➔ Build hypotheses based on learnings from steps 1+2 ➔ Prioritize based on desired impact ➔ Test, Measure, Optimize ➔ Remember to measure also the difficult stuff (like brand and messaging) @hharjula

Think more like a scientist! 1. Create hypothesis i.e. educated guess why something is preventing your growth to the fullest potential. 2. Come up with ideas how to solve it. Prefer tactics that scale and provide you data. 3. Prioritize based on potential business impact, importance and ease of implementation (for example PIE framework). 4. Try out your ideas and follow-up on the hypothesis. Share your learnings within the organization. 5. Measure your outcomes, not outputs. 6. Apply your learnings and create new hypothesis based on them. @hharjula

@hharjula

Growth marketing: prefer tactics that scale and will provide you some data → Customer Marketing → Content Marketing → SEO → Google Ads → Social Media (organic) → Facebook, LinkedIn, Quora Ads → Email Marketing → Marketing Automation → Bots + Conversational Marketing → A/B + MV -tests → In-app messaging → Onboarding → Viral loops … whatever works for your customers! @hharjula

It’s all about outcomes, not outputs ➔ The subscription/SaaS business model provides companies access to all important data (sales, marketing, product, etc.) → Access to real-time customer insights ➔ Use that data to retain and grow your customers ➔ Create new hypothesis when you get more data ➔ Do data-informed decisions: add what works and remove what doesn’t @hharjula

Growth marketing is not a tactical procedure: you can (and should!) as well optimize your messaging and positioning all the time @hharjula

Recap

To grow sustainably, you’ll need to ✅ acquire right-fit customers, ✅ retain those customers and ✅ ultimately grow their lifetime value. @hharjula

Marketing’s job is not to get as many leads as possible. Marketing’s job is to get as many right-fit customers as possible. @hharjula

To succeed, you’ll need to test your ideas, learn from your experiments and repeat. Over and over again. ♻ @hharjula

Additional reading ➔ A step-by-step guide to conduct your customer research (incl. downloadable templates) ➔ Growth Marketing 101: (nearly) everything you need to know ➔ SaaS Lifecycle Marketing: How to maximise your Customer LTV ➔ Customer retention is the new conversion | Inside Intercom ➔ HubSpot's Playbook for Going From Startup to Scale-up @hharjula

Just shoot me a message Need a helping hand for your SaaS business’s growth? ➔ www.advanceb2b.com ➔ Email: hanna@advanceb2b.fi ➔ Phone: +358 50 536 6754 ➔ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannaharjula/ ➔ Twitter: https://twitter.com/hharjula

Thank you!