Growth takes time, nurturing, and effort. Yes, a singular moment in time (a eureka moment) gives you an idea. But bringing that idea to fruition is the hard part that can take weeks, months, or even years. Bamboo, one of the fastest-growing plants in the world, needs three to four years until a forest is ready for harvesting.
The beauty of growth is that when you set the right conditions from the start, things take off on their own with little tweaks here and there. Maintaining is not nearly as difficult as building. Prepping the soil, choosing the right plants, and placing the plants in the right area are things you only have to do once. After that, much of the work comes from keeping an eye on your crops, ensuring the conditions foster your plant’s requirements, and then harvesting when the time comes. The things inherent in the soil, sunlight, and rain do the hard work as plants grow.
When you want your company to expand, having a growth marketing mindset is much the same way as cultivating plants. Once you have the foundation for growth, which is the most laborious part, after that you just need to tweak every now and then to see results over time. The ecosystem already in place does much of the heavy lifting once you put the right assets in the right places.
What Is a Growth Marketing Mindset?
Having a growth marketing mindset means having the willingness and commitment to adapt to changes.
Growth marketing uses a holistic approach, across marketing channels and over time, with a continuous improvement model that helps you identify opportunities with your target audience. It can be visualized like a funnel, but not necessarily the traditional way you envision a sales funnel.
The keys to developing a growth marketing mindset are two-fold:
- Putting the right foundations in place for robust and steady growth (roots of your plants can’t grow without suitable soil, amount of water, or sunlight)
- Adapting your strategies over time to nurture your growth (changing strategies to make sure your plants grow correctly, like watering when necessary, removing weeds, and fertilizing the soil)
Growth Marketing Mindset Tips With the Pirate Funnel
AAARRR, mateys! Sail, Ho! A customer is in sight in yer spyglass, and it’s a dreadnought loaded with doubloons! Bring a spring upon ‘er and give chase!
(In other words, you’ve seen your customers. How do you pursue them?)
With a growth marketing mindset, you won’t have to pursue them. You need to attract them. The pirate funnel (using the abbreviation AAARRR) can help you deploy resources to bring your audience to you.
Awareness
Awareness is the top part of the pirate funnel, just like a traditional sales funnel. For growth marketing, awareness means figuring out how to get people to interact with your online presence, no matter where that presence is.
Using analytics tools, you can find out:
- Where my website traffic coming from
- How many people visit my website
- How are people finding my website
- Where do my web pages rank compared to competitors
- What blogs have people resonated with
- How to use ads to point people to my website or call my business
- Which landing pages are best for my ads to show
- How often do ads show
- When and how do people see my social media posts
- How quickly do I respond to social media reactions and posts
- How many people sign up for my app
If you find out that your target audience can’t find your online assets, it’s time to do something about it.
Acquisition
Acquisition refers to turning your target audience into warm leads. If your awareness is set up properly and in an ideal world, everyone who interacts with your online presence will be a warm lead who is at least interested in purchasing your products or services.
Ask yourself:
- Do people look at my website and leave without going to a second page?
- How long do people spend on my website?
- What conversion points are on each page?
- Do people like my products or services?
- Is the information on my website relevant to my target audience?
- Can people reach my staff directly from ads?
- Do my ads resonate with my audience?
- What would make me, as a customer, seek out my products or services?
- How many people call or fill out a form?
- Can people navigate my app efficiently?
Activation
Activating a lead means they’re ready to enter a sales pipeline and are ready to convert. You’ve cast your net and caught a lead. Now it’s time to reel them in all the way.
Here, determine:
- How people contacted your team
- How many people reached out
- What pages these people converted from
- What features of your products or services your target audience needs based on where they converted from
Retention
Retention relies on relevant engagement to keep your current clients or customers with your company. This can be both a short- and long-term strategy based on your business model. For example, B2C customers may need text alerts or emails shortly after buying a product, whereas B2B customers may only need interaction every two to four weeks to keep them as regulars.
To keep your customers interested in your brand, consider:
- Email nurture campaigns customized to your existing customers
- Alerts that tout the benefits of other products or services you offer that your audience might use
- Blogs and video content that highlight your expertise and the benefits of your products or services
- Remarketing campaigns using assets from your existing customers to try to get them to purchase additional items
Revenue
Revenue measures how much money your company generates from your customers. In marketing, you can determine how much money your marketing efforts lead to revenue, giving you an ROI.
With regards to marketing, pay attention to these marketing KPIs:
- Cost Per Lead
- Cost Per Conversion
- Customer Acquisition Cost
- Return on Ad Spend
- Revenue Per Customer (to find opportunities for upselling)
Much of the hard costs from revenue generation activities come from setting up your website, advertising, app, and social media. With the right project management software, you can determine how your labor costs devoted to marketing can generate revenue and an ROI.
Referral
The final stage of the pirate funnel is the referral stage. This is when your customers do your marketing for you. Like other marketing efforts, referrals can have an omnichannel presence:
- Recommendations and likes on social media
- Reviews posted to social media and Google Business Profiles
- Testimonials, written and video, posted to your website
- Case studies posted to your website or your customers’ website
- Influencer marketing
- Direct contact from a current customer with other potential customers
Putting the Pirate Funnel Together for Growth Marketing
The big picture of AAARRR is that this cycle continues. Much like a sales funnel can start over at the top, so does the pirate funnel. When a current customer refers someone to investigate your business, they’ll go through the pirate funnel, starting at the top and going to the bottom.
The more people you can get moving through this funnel, the more your company grows over time.
Partner With the Right People to Help Your Growth Marketing
To have a growth mindset, you must surround yourself with like-minded people. Contact BigPxl or call (417) 799-2233 for a consultation. We’re happy to help in any way we can.
