Introduction to the 9 pillars of our Growth Marketing Blueprint

Hi, and welcome to the Growth Marketing Blueprint (-:

Since you're reading this I'll assume you wish to grow an online asset. Whatever this asset is (eCommerce store, SaaS product, blog, online community, service business, emailing list, social media profile, YouTube following, etc.) this course will sharpen your strategic thinking and help you:

1. Make a sustainable plan for growth
2. Manage your time and prioritize your goals
3. Become more appealing to your target audience
4. Grow your vanity primary metric
5. Keep control of your activity and enjoy the process
6. Systemize your approach and scale your activity

This is a tall order I know. I am not saying any of it is hard per say, but you'll have to put in the work. If you're looking for quick wins or a to-do list readily applicable to your business, look elsewhere (hint: it does not exist).

Executing best practices or copying the competition will only carry you so far (if anywhere at all). The only way forward... is through. You'll have to internalize the process of growth and make it your own. Only then will you be able to maintain the mental fortitude to carry out your long-term strategic plans while constantly shifting your growth tactics to better fit the ever-evolving market.

You also need to accept failure. Because you will fail. A lot. Which is normal. Were you able to ride a bike the first time you tried (and no, training wheel don't count)? Of course not. There is always a learning curve.

I particularly like this quote from Thomas A. Edison:

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.

Because the only way to find the best avenues for growth... is to try them. The only way you can fail is by not trying anyting at all. This course will teach you how to pick growth tactics and measure success at every level.

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.

This quote - this time from Jim Rohn - illustrates the mindset 95% of successful people and businesses share: you have to take risks and keep challenging the status quo to succeed. And it won't be limited to marketing activities.

Indeed I take a very (very) broad approach to growth marketing. Marketing is just what the end customer sees; but it is the result of many choices made in different areas of your business or project. If you're serious about growth you'll need to implement a growth culture throughout the business, not just on the marketing side - or risk limiting yourself in terms of results as well.

This also means implementing consequential change will take considerable work. And for that you'll need to carefully prepare a growth plan that will impact every aspect of your business. Big goals = big plans = big rewards.

Over the years - through client engagements, thorough research and implemention within my own business - I've identified 9 pillars of growth. Each and every one of these pillars represents a different aspect of your business that contributes to growth.

You'll see that every single pillar can be implemented in many different ways. The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the 9 areas for growth and to show you how you can leverage this know-how to create your own path to sustainable growth. There are many ways to succeed, and you'll have to find your own.

I've divided this course into 9 modules (1 module per pillar), plus an extra module dedicated to CRO (conversion rate optimization). CRO is incredibly versatile, and you'll quickly come to realise that applying a culture of continuously measuring, researching and testing is the most reliable path to growth.

Without further adue let me introduce these 9 pillars of growth.

1. Manage yourself

Any growth activity takes time. It can be hard to stay motivated and carry on when you're already overworked. You need to make the process as enjoyable as possible.

• Daily planning: cut your workload into actionable tasks, prioritize, under-schedule
• Time management: use calendar-blocking & execute relentlessly
• Work ethic: stay the course and out-work competition, especially when it's hard
• Focus: remove all distractions, don't multi-task, become lazy
• Learning: never stop learning, expand your skills, find a mentor
• Accountability: weekly sprints, daily adjustments, measure progress at all times

2. Deliver value

Average doesn't win. You need to create value to be able to grow sustainably. This requires a strong and differentiated value proposition.

• Problem: find a problem, offer a solution, be innovative of different (USP)
• Market: analyse the market, bridge the perception gap, find niches (or not)
• Value: ultra-focus, under-promise and over-deliver (the wow effect)

3. Plan for success

Businesses rarely stumble upon success, they thoroughly plan, commit and execute. It all starts with a plan, and your ability to stay on track.

• Definition: define success, prioritize objectives, allow room for change
• Planning: map out long-term plans, set up OKRs, allocate resources
• Measurement: pick relevant KPIs, measure progress, automate reporting
• Contingency: plan for the worse, be flexible to exploit opportunities

4. Build your platform

The platform is the infrastructure (often a website) you'll use to communicate, sell and server customers. Don't settle for good enough, optimize constantly: this is how your audience will perceive and judge your activities.

• Foundations: pick existing assets, build fast, master the basics (speed, mobile)
• Audience: reach target audience (only), create value, shift to match their needs
• Strategy: quality content over quantity, serve your audience, interview visitors
• Optimization: keep challenging the status quo, test, fail and iterate

5. Grow your brand

Buyers rely more and more on their network when making purchase decisions. To sell to them you need to enter their sphere of influence: you need a brand.

• Distribution: pick acquisition channels relevant to your audience and goals, diversify
• Content: branding vs. selling, be consistent, free, shareable, interactive content
• Sales: fine-tune your pitch, hyper-focus on segments, keep testing until it's easy
• Goals: create intermediary goals, build a list, offer a powerful lead magnet
• Tracking: measure conversion funnels, segment again and again, ignore vanity metrics

6. Server customers

While it's true the customer is king you must not let them walk all over you. Striking the right balance can be hard sometimes: you must maintain good customer relationships and develop customer intimacy, while saying no when you must (or want to).

• Delivery: over-communicate, be proactive as well as reactive, go the extra mile
• Satisfaction: increase your net promoter score, track customer success goals
• Data: respect privacy, ask for permission, automation is not always the answer
• Discussion: be personal, record everything, listen to problems (not solutions)
• Retention: reward loyal visitors, ask for referrals, track engagement and chun
• Say no: fire bad customers (Pareto law), stay in your lane, stay focused

7. Create processes

You can't scale your business and deliver consistently without implementing processes. When you reach a certain velocity you'll need to systematise tasks to unlock your growth potential.

• Process: turn every repetitive tasks into a template (sales, operations, marketing, etc.)
• Standard operating procedures: break it down to simple itemized lists
• Access: train your team to constantly refer to and to document the process

8. Hire a team

You can't be everywhere, do everything. You should spend your time where your contribution is most valuable and delegate or outsource everything else.

• Core value: identify where your contribution is critical based onassion & strengths
• Outsourcing: delegate non-critical elements or what others can do better / cheaper
• Assignments: make sure you match skills and assignments and hire missing skills
• Culture: share mission statement and values, socialize, make everyone accountable
• Structure: act as a leader, train your team, incentivize and reward good behavior

9. Monitor revenue

You need to adopt a margin mindset and take the pulse the business (its cash flow, its revenue streams). Any change in this area of the business can make a huge difference but proceed with caution

• Profit: diversify your income streams, reinvest in your business
• Costs: automate & cut overhead, minimize costs, generate a consistent profit margin
• Cash-flow: reward early payments, fire bad customers, anticipate payments
• Optimization: track revenue per product / niche / marketing action, optimize
• Pricing: find the right price points, higher pricing isn't necessarily better

CRO Add-on

Experimention is integral to the growth process. It is a fail-safe preventing you from making bad assumptions and damaging your growth potential. Every change to any area of your business should be systematically tested before being implemented. This meticulous process of measuring, researching, testing will ensure you are always improving.