Growth marketing: Science and art

Hey, it’s Bob here from Cultivate Communications. Growth is in every marketer’s vocabulary. At your business, growth may equate to increasing sales, profits, and customer satisfaction, to name a few examples. How marketing contributes to meeting those objectives is where growth marketing comes into play.

I recently had a conversation about the power of growth marketing compared to traditional marketing with our Agency Director, MaryAnn Long.

Bob: Hi MaryAnn. We’ve been educating our clients about the value of growth marketing for several years now. What is growth marketing? How would you say it differs from traditional marketing?

MaryAnn: Hi Bob. Growth marketing strategies help marketers to ensure that tactics used are effectively moving prospects through the entire buyer journey. Traditional marketing is typically focused on awareness building and attracting hand-raisers.

In a growth marketing initiative, when marketing delivers leads to sales, there are processes in place for marketing and sales to collaborate on guiding prospects to purchase. For example, if leads stall, there are nurture campaigns in place to stay top of mind with key prospects. When prospects re-engage with content that shows intent to buy, sales reps receive prompts to re-engage. That’s one example of the difference.

Bob: What are some of the key principles of growth marketing?

MaryAnn: There are a few key principles of growth marketing that empower businesses to achieve remarkable results.

• Focus on the customer: Growth marketing thrives on understanding the needs of customers. It's about delving into the depths of their motivations and crafting messaging and content that proactively address key questions and even sales objections.
• Use data to drive decisions: Growth marketers wield the power of data like a secret weapon. It fuels their decision-making, transforming insights into game-changing strategies. With every click, every interaction, and every conversion, data becomes the compass guiding growth marketers on their journey.
• Be creative and innovative: Growth marketers embrace innovation, experimenting with fresh approaches and cutting-edge technology. They know that what works today may not work tomorrow, so they experiment, iterating along the way, to achieve the most impact.

Bob: What are some of the most effective growth marketing tools and growth marketing strategies?

MaryAnn: There are a number of effective growth marketing tools and strategies, but some of the most successful include:

• Content marketing: Digital marketing and content creation are a dynamic engine for attracting new customers and building brand awareness. By creating high-quality content that is relevant to your target audience's interests and pain points, you can position your business as an authoritative source of information.
• Inbound marketing: Inbound marketing revolves around the principle of creating a positive and informative experience for every website visitor. By providing valuable content, personalized messaging, and seamless user experiences, you can capture the attention and interest of your target audience.
• Conversion optimization: Conversion optimization is the art of refining the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. By diligently tracking and analyzing your campaign results, you can uncover valuable insights about what works and what doesn't. With this knowledge in hand, you can make data-driven changes to your website, landing pages, and marketing collateral, enhancing the user experience and improving conversion rates.
• Testing: A/B and multivariate testing is a powerful technique that allows you to compare different versions of your marketing campaigns to identify the most effective approach. By creating multiple variations of your headlines, landing pages, email campaigns, or advertisements, you can conduct controlled experiments to measure their performance.
• Account-based marketing: A strategy where marketing and sales collaborate to identify, engage and win business from a select group of target accounts.

Bob: MaryAnn, how commonly is growth marketing strategy leveraged in businesses in 2023?
MaryAnn: According to HubSpot's 2023 State of Marketing Report, growth marketing is gaining traction. The report surveyed over 1,600 marketers from around the world to get their insights on the latest trends and best practices in marketing.

The report shows that 61% of companies use growth marketing. This is a significant increase from the previous year when only 45% of companies reported using growth marketing.
Also, the study found that growth marketing is most commonly used by B2B companies (72%), followed by B2C companies (56%).

Bob: What advice would you give to businesses that are looking to grow their business through growth marketing?

MaryAnn: There are four critical steps:

1. To effectively leverage growth marketing strategies, it's essential to have an in-depth understanding of your target audience. Ask yourself: Who are you trying to reach? What are their needs, wants, and pain points? By delving deep into their demographics, behaviors, and psychographics, you can create highly targeted and personalized marketing campaigns that truly resonate with your audience.
2. Content is king in the world of growth marketing. It's not just about creating any content but producing high-quality, valuable content that speaks directly to the needs and interests of your target throughout the customer experience. Whether it's informative blog articles, engaging videos, or interactive social media content, ensure that your content provides genuine value based on where prospects are in their unique journey to find solutions.
3. Track your results and iterate on your campaigns: Leverage analytics tools, set up KPIs, and closely monitor the metrics that matter most to your business objectives. By examining the data, you can gain valuable insights into what's working and what needs improvement. Then you can iterate on your campaigns to optimize performance and achieve better results.
4. Growth marketers thrive on challenging the status quo. This enables them to think outside the box and uncover innovative ways to reach and engage customers. Embrace this mindset of continuous innovation, always questioning conventional wisdom.

Bob: Thank you MaryAnn! So there, you have it, from our resident growth marketing expert.
These growth marketing strategies are just a glimpse into the vast arsenal of tactics and techniques available. By leveraging the mindset of growth marketing you can supercharge your growth efforts, reach new heights of success, and cultivate a thriving community of loyal customers.

As always, we’d love to hear from you. What is your experience with Growth Marketing? What’s worked for you? What hasn’t?