The Growth Newsletter - The Growth Newsletter #059

The Growth Newsletter #059

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

 

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1. Reduce the browse-cart gap

Insight from SaleCycle.

 

Most growth marketers are familiar with the following:

• Say-do gap: when customers say one thing during interviews/surveys, then do another
• Referral gap: when customers say they’d be comfortable giving a referral, but don’t
• Creepiness ditch: the void where personalization starts to feel creepy, resulting in fewer conversions, not more

Here’s another one: the gap between site browsing and adding products to cart. Aka the browse-cart gap.

 

It’s a pretty big deal. Salecycle found that 43.8% of retailer site sessions include product page views, but only 14.5% result in add-to-carts.

 

One way to reduce the gap? Browse-abandonment emails. They’re a form of retargeting that aren’t as common as cart-abandonment emails—even though compared to traditional emails, they have a 50.5% higher click-through rate and 80.9% higher open rate.

• Use browse-abandonment emails to remind site visitors of what they were looking at. Feature product images, and make it easy to get back to browsing with high-contrast CTAs. This is a good space for overcoming objections—you could highlight free shipping or your easy return policy—and sharing social proof, like customer reviews.
• Consider that visitors might have decided against the products they were viewing, so open up the playing field. Showcase other products that might draw them back in. These could include best-sellers or products that are relevant to viewed product pages or past purchase history.

As with all email, you should segment and personalize. You’ll only be able to retarget people who are already on your email list, and while that’s limiting, it does mean stronger brand interest and possibly higher intent. Take advantage of that to close the gap and the sale.

 

2. SEO for visual search

Insight from Brian Dean and Protocol.

 

TikTok got more traffic than Google last year (source: Cloudflare).

 

That sentence has a ton of implications for marketers. Here’s one: Search might start getting much more visual.

 

Imagine a truly multimedia search engine, with visual queries, data, and results. It would align more with our TikTok-Instagram world than hyperlinks and text. We’re not there yet, but Google’s making progress with initiatives like its Multitask Unified Model system, which could one day respond to a photo of hiking boots with feedback on whether they’re suitable for a hike up Mt. Fuji.

 

In the meantime, we already have visual recognition technology like Google Lens and Bing Visual Search. And they’re already advanced. Just snap a pic and get relevant search results.

 

To optimize for a visual-search world:

• Make sure your pages pass Google’s mobile-friendly test. Pretty much all Google Lens searches are done on mobile.
• Add descriptive image file names and alt text wherever they’re missing from your content.
• Visual search is yet another reason to optimize your site content as a whole. High-authority pages and sites are more likely to appear in Google Lens results.
• Keep creating high-quality written content. Brian Dean found that the pages Google Lens pulls image results from have an average 1,631 words of text. That text provides context, helping Google Lens do its job.
• Visual search could increase brand exposure. E.g., someone takes a picture of a competing product → your logo’ed product appears in results. Consider adding branding to items that don’t have it.

 

3. Just starting out with TikTok ads? Try these strategies

Insight from Andrew Foxwell.

 

The last insight highlighted that TikTok was more popular than Google (and Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) in 2021.

 

But marketing on TikTok remains an untamed beast for most businesses. The creative requirements are incredibly steep and specific compared to those of other social ad channels.

 

To get started on the right track, follow these helpful starter strategies:

1. < 1-second thumbstop. TikTok and Instagram Reels have drastically shortened attention spans. You might have a 3-second window to grab someone's attention on Facebook. On TikTok, you only have one second. Design your ads assuming people will only see the first thumbnail. And use catchy headlines and audio to reel them in.
2. Showcase the end-state first. Arrange your creative in reverse chronological order; open your video with the benefit to the customer and showcase the end result. Then show how they got to that end result thanks to your product.
3. Mimic organic product discovery content. Ecommerce products get discovered on TikTok via "digital" word-of-mouth marketing (i.e., everyday people gushing over remarkable product finds, completely organic). To tap into this existing user behavior, design your ecommerce ads to mimic hashtag trends like "TikTok made me buy it" or "things I found on the internet."
4. Authenticity is key. Well-produced, airbrushed content doesn't fly on TikTok. Users value authenticity. Two ways to make your ads more authentic: a) entertain viewers with an earnest performance, like a comedy skit, and integrate your product, seamlessly or b) educate via product demonstration and a believable, emotional reaction of someone experiencing the benefits.
5. Install the TikTok pixel. TikTok needs a lot of data to optimize your ads. Even if you aren't ready to experiment with ads yet, consider installing the pixel now so it'll be ready when you are. This will give you better targeting and ad optimization from day one.
6. Set up an MVP brand profile. Establish an organic brand profile before launching ads to test content types and find your audience. Virality potential is high and feedback, immediate, so if you create quality content, TikTok's algo will find an audience. Once you iterate towards a formula that works, use engagement and video view data for targeting and lookalikes in your ads.
7. Always-on creative testing. Ads fatigue faster on TikTok than any other ads platform. To stay ahead of the curve, set up an always-on creative testing campaign in your ad account. Inject new creatives tests on a weekly basis, and move winners into a dedicated prospecting campaign with your top-performers. Rinse and repeat.
8. Leverage trending audio and video syles. Don't make ads. Make TikToks. Utilize trending audio or video effects in every video you produce. The more organic, the better. Also, use captioning and voice-over to reinforce your core message and help keep viewers engaged.

 

4. Best times to post content on Twitter

Insight from Ariyh.

 

Roughly 50% of Twitter engagement happens within the first hour of posting.

 

This means apart from creating interesting social content, timing is crucial for getting your tweet seen.

 

And according to an analysis of more than 7.6 million Twitter likes and 139,000 follows, you should decide when to post your content based on the type of content you post.

 

In short:

• Post in the morning if your content is educational in nature.
  • This includes how-to guides and business/science news.
  • Example: Much of the New York Times’ tweets
• Post in the evening or late afternoon if your content provides immediate gratification.
  • This includes memes, celebrity gossip, food pics, and promotional offers, like a flash sale.
  • Examples: Entertainment Weekly, McDonald’s

Your Twitter posts are more likely to get higher engagement if you follow this pattern. In fact, this trend even applies on weekends, and to subjects that aren’t relevant to work.

 

Researchers suspect that this is because our self-control declines over the course of the day—making us prefer more immediately gratifying content in the evening.

 

To plan your Twitter posts accordingly:

• Categorize your content into two types: educational and entertaining.
• Schedule educational posts to go live before 4 pm and entertaining posts for after this point.
• If you primarily focus on one category of content, adjust your publishing time accordingly.
• Consider experimenting with the timing of your content on other channels, e.g., Facebook, Instagram, even email.

Brand new links

We’ve published five new articles on the Demand Curve blog. All to help you build an email marketing engine—completely for free.

1. Email marketing examples and strategy. Learn the fundamentals of email marketing strategy. Then study high-impact emails using our simple 4-part framework. Take note of your favorite emails so you can use the same elements in your own campaigns.
2. How to write marketing emails. Follow these steps to write great marketing emails—the kind that connects with subscribers and drives conversions.
3. Create segmented campaigns. Implement simple email segmentation into your campaigns to deliver personalized messages that convert.
4. Grow your email list. Follow a proven 3-step process to grow your email list the right way.
5. Email marketing best practices. Learn the email marketing best practices that are working in 2022.

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Book recommendation: A few weeks ago, we recommended Eli Schwartz’s book, Product-Led SEO. Since then, we've been using some of Eli’s tactics in our own content strategy.

 

Product-Led SEO builds a great product for users first and optimizes for search second. Instead of starting with keyword research like most SEOs, Eli recommends the following process:

1. Determine if a target audience uses search as a part of their buyer's journey
2. Learn from the userbase what they might be looking for on organic search as it relates to your product offering
3. Determine what you might build for your users to acquire the traffic from search—this is your SEO product
4. Layer in SEO best practices in the development of this product

If you’re working on SEO, we recommend you check it out here (he just launched audio).

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Top growth role: Meow is building Web3 Brex, enabling corporates to access meaningful yields from the financial rails of the future. Founded by a team of security engineers from Gemini, Meow is a fully-compliant bridge between traditional finance and decentralized finance. They’re looking for their first growth hire to own growth and marketing.

 

Meow is backed by the best—Lux Capital, Coinbase, Gemini, Jump Capital, and Slow Ventures. They already have plenty of organic, inbound interest. January was a record month and February is on track to be another. Check out the rest of the JD here and email growth@meow.co to apply.

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Newsletter we’re reading: Sparktoro’s Audience Research Newsletter. Twice a month, Rand Fishkin and Amanda Natividad share insights on audience research and marketing. Specifically, they share 3 audience research/marketing tips, 3 articles, and 3 tweets. We open it every time they send. Get the next one here.

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

Brad Frost on Twitter.

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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.

 

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