codercraig

As growth continues to evolve from its hacker-roots into a full-blown profession, there is one thing that will always stay constant.

Growth is experiment-driven marketing.

I got a great look into how big companies are building growth teams in one of my episodes of SaaSquatch Radio when I was talking with Brian Balfour, VP of Growth at HubSpot.

We went over the importance of building a growth team and how to create a place for structured and process-driven growth. He’s had previous talks and articles that go in-depth on how he applies the scientific method to their growth initiatives.

Thanks for the clarification. I figured since UberX and Lyft are essentially crowd-sourcing rides that they could be called ride-sharing companies.

Ride-Sharing apps are no strangers to world of referral programs. They’re leading the way in the sharing economy and injecting life into cities across the world. Harnessing the power of word-of-mouth is crucial for the success of these companies. Check out how they approach building their referral programs after the jump.

Content Breakdown

0:30 – Introduction

2:10 – Full Stack Marketing

3:44 – T-Shaped Marketing Funnel

5:30 – Using Twitter Ads and Conference Hashtags to Reach Your Target Market

7:10 – Onboarding Tactics and Leaky Funnel Problems

8:50 – Getting Users to Their ‘Aha’ Moment to Create Word-of-Mouth Virality

9:30 – Creating Human Interaction Inside Your Product

10:20 – How to Target Your Competitors’ Customers

13:25 – Takeaways – Get Out There and Do It!

Essential Quotes

“Get your users to the ‘Aha’ moment right away.”

“Take advantage of marketing channels your competitors’ aren’t using.”

“Find ways to engage with your competitors’ customers.”

Read more: http://www.referralsaasquatch.com/saasquatch-radio-episode-4...

Problems with the current refer-a-friend program

Reward Tier Structure

“..the average player faces a dilemma where attractive rewards like Grey Warwick and Medieval Twitch are prohibitively difficult to obtain..”

“We understand that the current refer-a-friend reward structure isn’t ideal for the average player.”

“We found that the majority of League players refer between one and five friends, and we’ve designed the refer-a-friend update to reward you for bringing those friends into the game.”

Fraudulent Behavior

“…70% of accounts with 10 or more referrals are abusing the Refer-a-Friend program.”

“…99% of accounts with 100 or more referrals are abusing the Refer-a-Friend program”

You can read more here: http://www.referralsaasquatch.com/learn-from-the-league-of-l...

Andrew’s the CEO and Co-Founder of Kuhcoon an ad platform that helps companies manage and optimize their social ads. We talk about the overall trends in the retargeting/native ad industry and the growth strategy for Kuhcoon.

Read more: http://www.referralsaasquatch.com/saasquatch-radio-episode-3...

Referral marketing isn’t easy.

Some companies like to think it’s a solution they can build themselves but the truth is, referral programs are complex.

They take a ton of effort to implement and maintain just like any other marketing platform would need.

At the same time, you know your company needs a referral program. So where do you start?

We’re here to help you out with some best practices that we’ve picked up in our day-to-day so you can start to understand the approach you should take to implement and improve your referral marketing strategy.

Read more: http://www.referralsaasquatch.com/6-ways-create-referral-pro...

No referral program is ever perfect.

There’s always room for improvement just like there is with any other marketing channel.

Do you test different versions of your Landing Pages? Email Campaigns?

Of course you do!

So why do referral programs not get the same attention?

Usually the top two reasons for this is the programs are hard-coded into the system or don’t have analytics built-in.

That’s why one of our core objectives is to teach everyone how to properly think about referral programs. Nothing gets us more fired up than finding a referral program that could be doing better.

So in this post we’re back to doing what we do best. Showing you some examples of referral programs so you can get a better idea of what we’re talking about.

Read more: http://www.referralsaasquatch.com/4-best-examples-customer-r...

Key Insights

Mailchimp – Show your users the value of your product right away. Create a human and memorable product experience.

Basecamp – Pre-fill content to give users your product ‘aha’ moment when they sign up.

Wistia – Onboarding should never stop. Create educational content and show your users how to become power users.

Read more: http://www.referralsaasquatch.com/saasquatchradio-episode-2-...

Why should you think about Customer Marketing?

It’s an essential strategy for company growth and is used by high-growth companies like Airbnb, Uber and Dropbox.

So you’re not alone if you are considering buying a customer marketing solution in 2014.

You can use customer marketing to build and strengthen your userbase.

Referral programs can drive a repeatable and scalable customer acquisition effort.

An essential strategy to consider as paid efforts like display and retargeting campaigns have steadily rising costs and inefficiencies.

Read more: http://www.referralsaasquatch.com/customer-referral-marketin...

Growth.

Day in and day out.

It’s what we think about.

Asking ourselves, do we have the right people? Do they have the skills? How do we show them the ropes?

Well, if you’re like most teams you don’t necessarily have the exact mix of people to work on Growth. Fair enough, It’s not like these people are easy to come by. They have a rare mix of marketing and product know-how that isn’t taught in the classroom.

Read more: http://www.referralsaasquatch.com/4-skills-needed-work-growt...

You can’t pick up these skills in a classroom or by reading a few blog posts. People who work on growth have an inner hunger to combine data and creativity. They can’t be pinned down and defined by traditional business. They sit at the intersection of your marketing, product and data science teams.

Read more: http://www.referralsaasquatch.com/must-read-tactics-for-cust...

Definitely could use this app!

Content Guide:

0:00 – Intro

0:45 – Favorite aspects of working for a startup

2:15 – What problem is Qualaroo trying to solve?

3:01 – HotelTonight Optimization Example

6:13 – NPS Surveying

11:00 – Importance of Qualitative Testing – Getting feedback from the right people. Sign-up funnel optimization.

14:00 – Morgans’ CRO Stack and why you should tie A/B testing to your ultimate business goals.

18:50 – HubSpot and how free tools are a growing trend in content marketing.

23:09 – Airbnb Case Study on GrowthHackers.com and the Professional Photos Experiment.

28:30 – Problems with growth as an industry and the perception that growth is free.

30:06 – ScoreBig customer referral program optimization example.

40:22 – GrowthHackers.com Conference in London Oct 28 – Speaker Lineup.

Morgan Brown is a growth guy. He’s been working with startups for years and understands how valuable it is to work at the intersection of marketing, product and data. By meshing his creativity and experimentation he’s been able to unlock growth for companies like ScoreBig and Qualaroo among many others.

We all think about growth. We sit at the intersection of our product, our marketing and our data. Thinking about how we can grow.

Growth comes from a creative and scientific skillset that isn’t easily taught. So where do we go to learn? Well luckily, there’s a few places online like GrowthHackers.com.

There was a recent discussion on what the best one-liners are to describe this new industry. We decided to visualize the very best quotes from that discussion and a few others from around the web.

Here’s a quick list of the headlines:

#1. Airbnb Growth Study -

#2. The Importance of Symmetry in Online Marketing -

#3. 5 Hacks for Content Creation -

#4. This is How You Get People to Trust Your Product -

#5. Shorten your time to WOW -

#6. QuickSprout SEMrush Competitor Analysis -

#7. Push Notification Case Study –

#8. 3 Steps to Hook Your Users In -

#9. 7 tips for creating content that drives growth -

#10. How to Track Customer Acquisition Channels -

#11. 10 Conversion Psychology Resources That Will Make You a Smarter Marketer -

#12. Difficult Conversations Will Grow Your Product -

What do the likes of Uber, Airbnb and Dropbox have in common?

Billion-dollar valuations? Check.

Slick Office Space? Check.

Customer Referral Programs? Check.

Wait what was that last one..That’s right.. Customer referral programs. They’re used by all three of these companies.

Now I’m not saying that these programs were the silver bullet, I don’t believe any company grows from a single tactic. These companies grow by using a playbook of different growth tactics and create a culture of innovation where creative and analytical people can thrive.

I thought I’d do the rest of you a favor and compare the options side-by-side so you can pick for yourself. This is by no means an exhaustive list of the advertising options these companies offer, but it’s a great jumping off point for tech media buyers that are looking to throw upwards of $10K into a campaign.

I broke down some of the core features of payment systems and how 13 of them stack up against each-other. Open to feedback :)

TLDR: Whether you are using a powerful platform or multiple tools to manually sort everything out, it’s critical to listen to the signals your customers are sending. Using data and technology for customer success will not only improve the performance of your team, but your customers will also be more engaged, they will stay longer on board and they will invite their friends to use your product.