sej summit 2015: marketing that moves the bottom line: growth hacking by morgan brown

#SEJSummit #Searchmetrics

• 15 year startup growth veteran

• Wrote Startup Growth Engines with Sean Ellis

• My hobby is studying fast growing companies


3TAKEAWAYS

1. Growth hacking complements marketing – not a replacement

2. Use data to find leverage points and double down on those

3. Rapid, continuous experimentation key to growth – no silver

bullets


“Most startups don’t fail at building a product. They fail at acquiring customers.”

Growth is Everything

– Gabriel Weinberg


• McKinsey & Co. studied 3,000 software companies

with different growth rates

• High-growth companies deliver 5x greater returns than

medium growth companies

• Supergrowers (CAGR > 60% at $100m mark) were 8x

more likely to reach $1B

• Increase in growth rates drive 2x the market

capitalization as margin reduction in companies < $4B

• No correlation between cost & growth rates

Growth is Everything


What is growth hacking?

A cool-sounding euphemism for making the doer feel good about using the same old sleazy marketing tricks.

– David Heinemeier Hansen, 37 Signals


What is growth hacking?

A … focus on understanding your users and how

they discover and adopt your products, [so] you

can build features that help you acquire and retain

more users, rather than just spending marketing

dollars.– Josh Elman, Greylock. Frmr. Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn


$0

$20

$40

$60

$80

$100

$120

$140

$160

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

3.5x

US Online Ad Spend

per User

Extreme Competition for Attention


Extreme Competition for Attention

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

WOMEmail

MySpace

Facebook

Craigslist

Twitter

iOS

Android

James Currier


Yet some huge successes…

Little or no traditional marketing…


Use a Growth Hacking Playbook

• Experiment with all available growth levers

• Understand what’s driving growth, test to improve it

• Heavy focus on product and optimization


The Dropbox Growth Story• Freemium reduced allowable CPA

• Natural advantages to grow with collaboration

and sharing

• Catalyze sharing with double sided referral

program

• Optimize conversions on sharing loops

• 300 million users with no traditional

marketing


B2C or B2B

• Growth hacking isn’t just for consumer-focused

companies.

• B2B often requires integration with sales process.


HUBSPOT – FREE TOOLS


Finding Your Own Growth Levers

• Areas of exploration

• Process, team and tools


SOME AREAS OF EXPLORATION

• Platform Integrations

• User-Get-User

• Free Tools


SOME AREAS OF EXPLORATION

• Powered By

• Reverse Engineer Success


Hotel Tonight’s 3G Epiphany

• Discover the why can lead to breakthroughs

in growth

• HotelTonight found poor data connections

drove conversion rates UP.

• WHY?


Success Data: AirBnB’s Pro Photos

• Discovered that listings with high-

quality photos received

2-3x bookings

• Invests in professional photography

• Booking activity explodes as desire

increases


Discover Your Magic Number


#SEJSummit

Twitter’s Follow 30 People

"Once a user follows 30 people, they're more or less active forever.”

– Josh Elman, Greylock


Experimentation Is Key To Success

• Generate many ideas for experiments

• Prioritize by impact, confidence & ease

• Balance high impact & high probability tests


Growth Team Often Needed

• Multi-disciplinary

• Cross functional

• Evangelize experimentation culture

“Growth team” complements existing marketing team


HELPFUL TOOLS

• Analytics — Identify drop-off points and under-performing pages (e.g. Google

Analytics, KISSMetrics)

• Qualitative Insights — Uncover the why behind the numbers (e.g. Qualaroo,

SurveyMonkey)

• A/B Test — Find better performing combinations to drive conversion rate (e.g.

Optimizely, Unbounce)


Relentless Execution of Growth Processes

1. Ideas

2.Prioritize

3.Test4.Analyze

5.Optimize


3TAKEAWAYS1. Growth hacking complements marketing – not a

replacement

2. Use data to find leverage points and double down on

those

3. Rapid, continuous experimentation key to growth – no

silver bullets


Morgan Brown@morganb

GrowthHackers.com


sej summit 2015: marketing that moves the bottom line: growth hacking by morgan brown

Marketing