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Work team reviewing business growth statistics
Growth marketers aim to energize their business through tangible results. And while that usually means sales, success can also look like more customers and more qualified leads. These results do not happen by chance. They are the result of precise plans and well-executed strategies.
However, plans and strategies often need to be reviewed and refined. Experimentation is an essential part of any growth marketing strategy, and an experimental mindset is needed to make improvements. You can’t improve your line of attack if you’re not willing to test new ideas and follow the data. If your goal is to dominate your growth marketing strategy and efforts in 2023, here’s how to get there.
Determine where conversions are falling short
All buyers go through a journey related to what is known as the pirate funnel. This funnel has six main stages: Awareness, Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, and Recommendation (AAARRR). Compared to traditional strategies, growth marketing focuses on getting conversions through all stages of the funnel.
It’s not just about getting prospects to become customers once they learn about your business and what it has to offer. Growth marketing strategies aim to move as many prospects and customers as possible from awareness to recommendation. Growth marketers want to build relationships, encourage loyalty, and motivate customers to refer others. But strategies need to do more than target all stages of the buyer’s journey or hacker’s funnel.
Your efforts should examine where prospects and customers are not converting. Or at least they should focus where they are not converting enough. Your strategy could do a great job of taking leads from awareness to activation. The Company’s offers and advertisements are sufficient to generate website traffic and online purchases. But most new customers don’t stay because there aren’t enough incentives to do so. You can test different rewards to see which discourages churn the most.
Build your brand credibility
A brand’s reputation can follow it everywhere. Growth marketers have bigger hurdles to overcome when that reputation is poor or non-existent to begin with. At the same time, inconsistent marketing messages and insufficiently specific strategies can dilute a brand’s reputation. Establishing and building brand credibility is key to winning leads and retaining customers.
Building or repairing brand credibility takes time. It also requires reliability and expertise. If consumers aren’t sure they can trust your brand, they’ll be less likely to convert at any stage of the funnel. Expertise often goes hand in hand with trust. People want to know that companies have the knowledge and the authority to speak up about the topics they discuss.
Creating unique and insightful online content is one way to build credibility for your brand. Content that meets your audience’s needs and search intent demonstrates an understanding of that consumer segment. You begin to build connection and trust. Working with other industry influencers and incorporating customer reviews are additional ways to build brand credibility. However, it’s important to make sure what you’re saying matches what your company offers.
Make data-driven decisions
Effective growth marketing strategies don’t rely on instinct. Data and test results should guide the actions and strategic moves of growth marketers. Owning your industry will not be possible without paying attention to the breadcrumbs that can lead you to that ultimate goal.
These breadcrumbs are often the key performance indicators that you are about to measure. Yet KPIs are not always numerical; they may be more qualitative, such as consumer sentiment. Establishing metrics and goals for each stage of the funnel will help you determine if your strategies are meeting their objectives or need to be refined.
Maybe customer referrals are lower than your desired referral. Data from your Net Promoter Score surveys reveals that sentiment is unenthusiastic due to inconsistent service quality. While some customers will happily recommend your brand to others, your list of passive consumers is growing. Passives are people who can take your offering or leave it. They need more conviction to become loyal brand advocates.
Ignoring this data means you are not following the breadcrumbs. You may want to review your referral program to determine if it is out of step with customer experiences. You may need to work with other services to correct these inconsistencies. Perhaps the rewards for remaining a loyal customer are not enough and require special attention. Listening to how consumers vote with their behaviors will lead to better decisions.
Invest in omnichannel experiences
Knowing how different segments move through the sales funnel helps brands target the right consumer at the right time. It also supports consistency of messages and experiences across multiple marketing channels. The likelihood of prospects and customers interacting with a brand through multiple channels is high. And today’s consumers expect consistent and personalized omnichannel experiences.
Mapping where and how segments interact with your brand can reveal opportunities to refine and extend omnichannel experiences. Suppose your pay-per-click ads and blog posts are the first touchpoints a group of consumers see. These ads and posts raise awareness in the segment, but many people call customer service for more information. They find your online store confusing and the checkout process too long.
Consumers in this segment don’t understand why they can’t ship your products to their doorstep. Since they have to have their order delivered to a local store, it goes against their expectations of online shopping. Why should prospects convert through your website if they have to visit a store anyway? Changing your online checkout process and shipping practices to meet consumer expectations can improve conversions and meet bottom-of-funnel needs.
Dominant growth marketing
Growth marketing strategies are not a one-size-fits-all deal. At the heart of these approaches is the desire to test hypotheses and learn from the results. Growth marketers must constantly reassess their efforts to achieve the end goals of increased revenue and customer retention. Executing a winning strategy is not about confirming that your hunches were correct. It’s about finding out what consumers think your brand did well and correcting what they think you misunderstood.
