The Growth Newsletter - The Growth Newsletter #055

The Growth Newsletter #055

Hey, Julian here. This newsletter curates growth insights from the Demand Curve Slack community. It keeps you up-to-date on growth tactics.

 

If you don't find this valuable, you can permanently unsubscribe at the bottom of this email. If you like it, tell your friends to subscribe here.

Audience Building is back

 

Exciting news: We're running our 3rd cohort of Audience Building with Sahil Bloom. It's a live course designed to help you build a high-leverage audience.

 

Cohort 3 will take place January 18 - January 21, 2022. Sahil grew his audience to over 400,000 people within 18 months. Now he wants to share the tactics that are powering his growth. You can grab your seat before we fill up here.

1. Optimize lagging pages with semantic SEO

Insight from SEO PowerSuite.

 

Most SEO marketers have been in this situation before:

 

You've tried just about everything to get a page to rank, yet nothing is working.

 

The problem might be your "semantic relevance" score. Google uses multiple algorithms to decide who to rank and who to tank. TF-IDF is the “relevance-scoring” algorithm used to measure language patterns and discern whose content does the best job of servicing the target keyword.

 

All things equal, pages with higher semantic relevance scores are rewarded with higher rankings.

 

If you've got pages that aren't ranking, consider these steps:

1. Download WebSite Auditor, which analyzes the semantic relevance of your competitors’ pages and compares them against your own
2. Install, and navigate to Content Analysis > TF-IDF
3. Copy and paste the laggard’s url and accompanying keyword(s)
4. Click “Run Audit”

When complete, you’ll see a full list of every relevant word and phrase missing from your content, along with recommendations for how to include them on the page.

 

Add all missing terms (there will likely be many), re-publish, and you're done.

 

We've seen sites climb to top positions using this simple method.

2. Viral cycle time is as important as viral coefficients

Insight from Nir Eyal and David Skok.

 

Viral cycle time (VCT) is how long it takes a user to invite other users to a product.

 

It's a vital element of growth, even though it's not discussed nearly as often as viral coefficients (how many new users an average user brings in). To experience product-led growth, your VCT needs to compensate for churn.

 

TikTok has a short VCT. A daily user sees a great video > shares it > recipients become new users. Lower-frequency products tend to have longer VCTs. B2B enterprise products, for instance, typically take more time to get into, learn, and recommend.

 

Ignoring VCT is like ignoring your payback period when calculating annual revenue per user (ARPU). If it takes years for your product to make money, you’ll have slower growth than products with quicker earnings. (That’s why you should always factor your payback period into your ARPU:CAC ratio.)

 

VCT has an inverse relationship with engagement: The higher your engagement, the shorter your VCT. Two ways to factor this relationship into your product build:

1. Design your product so its content is meant to be shared on the spot—not bookmarked and saved for later. Examples: Spotify, social media platforms
2. Design your product so users can easily and immediately collaborate or transact with others, and that interaction makes their user experience better. Examples: Slack, Zoom

Note: Nir Eyal discussed VCT at our Growth Summit in November. You can watch his talk here and join the waitlist for the next one.

 

3. Update product descriptions for the holidays

Insight from Search Engine Land.

 

Consumers shop differently around the holidays than they do during other times of the year.

 

Purchasing intent may be more focused on gifting—completely different than how they shop for themselves.

 

Given the difference in intent, consider tailoring your product copy during the holidays. Doing so can make your pitch more persuasive and increase conversions.

 

There are a few ways to go about this:

• Help customers envision how your product will bring joy as a gift. For example, you might include copy like “Show your partner how much you care with this deep-kneading shiatsu massager to soothe her back and neck tension.” The copy connects the dots for users by framing products they might not have even previously considered as potential gifts.
• Address concerns from other audience segments. This is especially effective for products that are more commonly given as gifts during the holiday season, like video games. Since parents and relatives may be more likely to purchase a video game than the actual game player, tackle the product from their perspective. Consider adding answers to questions like: what rating does it have? Why does it have that rating? What do other parents think of the game? The point is to reposition your products from the viewpoint of new consumers (gift givers).

 

4. Add estimated delivery date to your Shopify store

Insight from @beckiecomm.

 

Ambiguous delivery dates are a conversion killer for ecom companies.

 

Shoppers want to know exactly when they'll receive their order before purchasing.

 

So consider this simple tactic to increase conversion: Add estimated delivery dates to your product pages.

 

Estimated delivery dates satisfy shoppers' urge to know when they'll receive their orders, yet they're less often used by marketers.

 

If you have a Shopify site with a 2.0 theme, you can easily add estimated delivery dates to your product pages.

 

Go to Online Store > Themes > in your theme, click Customize. Open Product > Default Product (or a product template if you’re using one). Add a Custom Liquid section to your product page. Then copy this code and paste it into the Custom Liquid box.

 

Your delivery dates will update automatically.

Brand new links

New landing page teardown: We're breaking down the methods used by the highest-converting webpages. We'll help you understand the copywriting decisions behind every section—so you can apply them to your startups and projects. This week, we're breaking down ClickUp.com.

 

In this teardown you'll learn how the team at ClickUp, a project management tool, positions the product (using their landing page) to stand out in a competitive market. Get the teardown here.

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Top growth roles: Our agency, Bell Curve, has some awesome roles that we’re looking to fill. We’ll pay well, give you autonomy, and you’ll work with a great team (all positions are remote).

 

Open roles:

• VP Growth Strategy: We’re looking for a serious growth leader to lead our strategist team and our business. Details here.
• Growth Strategist (Paid Media): We're looking for a paid media expert to create full-funnel growth strategies and work with our expert network to execute them. Details here.
• Account/Project Manager: You'll work alongside the Growth Strategists to push projects forward and build relationships with our clients. Details here.
• Copywriter: You'll work with us as a strategic and tactical copywriter—someone who can write copy that sells. Details here.

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Sell your startup: MicroAcquire is the largest startup acquisition marketplace in the world. Join 100,000+ entrepreneurs buying and selling startups. Big or small, you can get your startup acquired at a competitive price in as little as 30 days.

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Tool recommendation: Shoutout lets you tap into your existing social proof and turn it into a beautiful "Wall of Love." In less than 3 minutes. Shoutout removes the tediousness of sorting through your social feed, and spotlights quality social proof in one place. They support platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, App store, Slack, and Product Hunt.

New marketing jobs

 

If you're looking for a top growth role, check out the opportunities below from our job board. Companies can post jobs here.

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Something fun

Want more growth tactics?

We're giving away our entire back-catalog of tactics to folks who refer two friends to this newsletter. Here's your referral link to share: https://sparklp.co/385a143f. You can track your referrals here. We'll automatically email you the password-protected tactics page once you've referred two people.

 

Do you have a product that would be useful to folks growing a startup?

We're creating a community deals database for our Slack community with discounts on products for startups. If you want to offer a discount on your product for our community, please reply to this email and we'll get you the details.

We read every reply.

 

Who's Demand Curve? We're who startups rely on for professional growth. We dive into your ads, funnels, landing pages and more. Take a look at our Traction and Growth Programs. Or Bell Curve will grow your company for you. We've worked with clients like Microsoft, Segment, and Perfect Keto. Hire us here.

 

You can also apply for our advanced growth marketing Slack community. Come talk with the heads of growth of all major tech companies.
 

If you enjoyed this, please consider sharing with a friend! If this was sent to you by a friend, get the next growth report by signing up here.

 

— Julian, Nick, Grace, Joyce, Dennis, and the DC team.