adam wesolowski "how to start working on growth?"

How to start working on Growth?

Minsk 2017

I’m Adam and I help companies to grow

Goal of this presentation - you come back to your companies and start working on Growth

Why I became interested in the topic?

Because, as a CMO, I couldn’t grow the business!

I used to work like this

Did it work?

I started to question how do marketing teams work...

...and whether they should be responsible for business growth

Working on growth is a multidisciplinary thing...

...that is a mix between the product and distribution!

What is Growth Managementthen (definition)?

Marketing

Marketing + Product Management

Marketing + Product Management +Sales

Marketing + Product Management +Sales + Customer Service

Marketing + Product Management +Sales + Customer Service

Together with Conversion Rate Optimization and Data Analytics

All this while having in mind one thing -Business Growth! More specifically...

...achieving Exponential Growth

Is Growth part of Marketing?

Marketing is a part of Growth. But separate Teams and Goals.

Ok, when to start working of Growth?

When you have your Product Market Fit!

Product Market Fit (aka people want to buy your shit!)

Product Market Fit (aka people want to buy your shit!) –Being on the right market

Product Market Fit (aka people want to buy your shit!) –Being on the right market, with the right product that can satisfy the market’s needs

Product Market Fit (aka people want to buy your shit!) –Being on the right market, with the right product that can satisfy the market’s needs (Mark Anderssen)

Find a product the market

wants (product work +

customer development)

Optimize the product for the

market (growth)

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

What is key in achieving PMF quickly?

Customer Centric Organization!

Why is focusing on the customer crucialfor business’ growth?

Because it quickly allows us to understand what and for whom are we doing, what to fix, what to enforce

“make things people want”

How to check if we have PMF?

Ask your customers/users!

“How would you feel if you could no longer use the product”

If >40% will be very disappointed then we have PMF!

Ok, I have my PMF and want to work on Growth, what’s now?

What are the two key elements in the work on Growth?

Strategy (what do we want to do) and process (how are we doing it), because...

… the most important sentence of the day...

There are no silver bullets!

aka ”Can you tell me 3 growth hacks so that we will grow 3x faster…”

Work on Growth demands consistency, constant analysis, tests and drawing conclusions.

Growth is not accidental and is a sum of many small steps.

Dedicated teams that have a clear focus on Growth.

And the key to Growth is constant testing and analysis.

Proof?

And many more...

Ok, so how to start working on Growth?

Get familiar with the Growth Framework first - Pirate Metrics (AARRR)...

… understand how your users behave...

… and understand what to improve (where the funnel is leaking)!

Pirate Metrics

Users come to your site/product from various sources

Users come to your site/product

from various sources

Users enjoy 1st visit: ‘happy’ user

experience and leave contact info




experience

Users come back, visit the site

multiple times




experience


multiple times

Users conduct some monetization

behavior




experience


multiple times

Users like the product so much they

refer it to others

Users conduct some monetization

behavior

Examples?

You ask your friends to join because

you want to follow what they’re doing

You click on ads in your news feed

You come back to see what are your

friends doing

Add 5 or more friends

PR, Ambassadors at Uni, etc

Facebook

You need more space so you invite

your friends - invites give you both

more space

You need more space, so you buy it

You want to upload more files or use

the ones you’ve uploaded

Set up your account to store and

share files

Friends, press, SEO, referral

Dropbox

You and your friend both get free

codes for the referral

You start paying for rides because

your free codes are gone

You want to use your remaining free

rides / You never want to go back to

regular taxi services

Friends, press, SEO, referral

Your first ride (most likely for free)

Ok, so you know how the user goes down the funnel, what’s next?

Learn to measure everything!

Data does not lie!

Every decision you make should be based on the data.

Without the data you don’t know what to improve!

How this work in practice?

1000 (100%)

100 (10%)

1000 (100%)

50 (5%)

100 (10%)

1000 (100%)

20 (2%)

50 (5%)

100 (10%)

1000 (100%)

5 (0,5%)

20 (2%)

50 (5%)

100 (10%)

1000 (100%)

Test for a Facebook game name by James Currier

‘Thing’ of ‘Place’ - like Battle of Realms

◉ Egypt◉ Xanadu◉ Paris◉ Shangri-La◉ Heaven◉ Atlantis◉ China◉ Planet X◉ Mars

Place

◉ Egypt◉ Xanadu◉ Paris◉ Shangri-La◉ Heaven◉ Atlantis◉ China◉ Planet X◉ Mars

Place $800 later

◉ Amazons◉ Dragons◉ Realms◉ Wars ◉ Battles◉ Trolls◉ Warlocks◉ Wizards

ThingAgain$800 later

Then they came to their senses and used some intelligence and realized people clicked Amazons just to see naked breasts

◉ Amazons◉ Dragons◉ Realms◉ Wars ◉ Battles◉ Trolls◉ Warlocks◉ Wizards

Thing 2nd choice

They launched Dragons of Atlantis 5 months later

Second year brought $120M revenue

Ok, how to be smart in managing growth?

Testing - this is the key to success!

You have to test new solutionsto improve your funnel (AARRR) quickly and cheaply and scalewhat works

Test to discover vs. test to optimize

In order to grow - you must know in which direction, have the proper framework and implement tests in an agile way

Build

TestAnalyse

Approach based on Lean Methodology

Ok, what are the three thingscrucial for growth?

Process TeamSystem

Tell me more about the process!

How to start?

First - set up goals to achieve, metrics, strategy (for M,Q or Y)

◉ Which funnel level are we working on? (like activation)

◉ What are we strong at? (i.e. SEO, SEM)

◉ What budget do we have?◉ What overall company goals to

achieve? (i.e. revenue increase 50% YoY)

◉ What do we measure? What’s growth for us?

Second - build a repeatable and scalable machine, that looks like this

Ideation

Prioritisatio

n

Experiment

s

Analysis

Build a backlog of ideas

Where to find ideas?

◉ Watch the competition

◉ Read, read, read and again - read a lot (growthhackers.com , medium.com, Quora etc.)

◉ Brainstorm

◉ Organize workshops

◉ Use external advisors

◉ Ask the entire company to participate

Important - Every idea should be linked to particular level of a funnel (AARRR)

Important - Each idea has to have a hypothesis and KPIs (metrics)

So you know if it failed or succeeded -based on data

Ideation

Prioritisatio

n

Experiment

s

Analysis

Add scoring to every idea - I suggest the ICE score

Impact

Confidence

Ease

Impact (potential impact)

Confidence (how certain are you that it

will work)

Ease (how easy is to introduce it)

On a scale of 1-10

+ working hours, if needed

+ anything that suits an organisation

Ideation

Prioritisatio

n

Experiment

s

Analysis

Let’s start testing our ideas in

weekly sprints!

Each test must have a

hypothesis, which we are

verifying

For example:

We have X traffic from Facebook a

week (no ads) and we want to

improve it. I think we should increase

the number of posts x2 daily and the

traffic will increase by 50%.

Each test must have an

experiment doc, which says

what we test

Experiment Doc:

1. What is the test?

2. What was the hypothesis?

3. What was the experiment configuration?

4. What were the texts, graphics

5. Did it succeed or not?

6. Why did it (not) work?

7. What can we improve?

8. What have we learned

Crucial– total focus on the sprint tests

Weekly tempo goal (ie. 3 tests a

week) – depending on the team

Ideation

Prioritisatio

n

Experiment

s

Analysis

How to analyze results and draw conclusions?

Did it work, did it not work, we don’t know?

Ok, we know about the process, now

let’s systemize the tests!

Tell me more about the System!

Each test has to be analyzed and

described, keep learning (experiment

doc)!

Weekly growth meeting –

Settling on the priorities and growth

coordination

Growth Meeting agenda:● 15 min: KPI review and update focus arena

● 10 min: Review last week’s testing sprint

● 15 min: Key lessons learned from analyzed

tests

● 15 min: Select tests for this week’s sprint

● 5 min: Check growth of ideas backlog

Don’t forget about

the proper tools!

Ideation

Prioritisation

Experiment

s

Analysis

Idea Backlog

- Excel

- Google Sheets

- Trello

Ideation

Prioritisatio

n

Experiments

Analysis

Trello (Growth Template)

Ideation

Prioritisatio

n

Experiment

s

Analysis

Analytics

Ok, we know the process and the system, but what about the growth team?

How to build a Growth Team?

Use the lean approach!

First figure out the channels with traction (by testing)

Then try using freelancersIf you see that there is a great potential in a given channel then hire for the specific channel

Examples:SEM team:SEO specialist, SEM specialist, Content marketer

Social team:Social specialist, graphic designer, content marketer

Growth Team might consist of 1 - 2 -3 - 4 - ∞

No matter the size, there has to be a growth master (or growth hacker)

To sum up

◉ Working on Growth needs consistency and is a sum of small wins

◉ There are no silver bullets◉ Measure everything◉ Use Pirate Metrics as your framework◉ Test, test, test◉ Master the growth process◉ Remember about the proper system, tools

and people

Any questions ?

Thanks!

Reach me out at:[email protected]