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The search for revenue gold and organizational immortalityBy Kate Osler, Cunningham CollectiveJune 10, 2015

The search for the philosopher’s stone has confounded some of the world’s brightest minds for centuries. Alchemists, from as far back as the 8th-century, have longed for the day when they would be able to mix the right ingredients in the right way to create a stone that would not only turn commonplace metals into gold but would render its owner immortal.

Just like the alchemists of the past, today’s marketers are constantly on the hunt for a recipe of tactics that, when combined in the right order, will create a whirlwind of viral growth that accelerates revenue and generates eternal success.

This idea of using low-cost tactics to achieve expectation-shattering revenue is frequently known as “growth hacking.”

It’s a buzz phrase that will light up a CMO’s eyes. But, while it is easy to understand why a company wants to integrate growth hacking techniques, few leaders truly know exactly what recipe will achieve alchemic-level results.

Because, unlike the practice of alchemy, which predicted that any person could be victorious by using the same recipe, suc-cessful growth hacking is distinctly unique to each and every organization. It can rarely be achieved by reusing the exact formula of another.

So, if there is no universal recipe for achieving viral growth, where do you start in the hunt for revenue gold and organiza-tional immortality?

Whe

re

Meets

Growth Hackingand the Philosopher’s Stone

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Analytics

UX

Product Management

PR

Landing Page OptimizationBehavioral Economics

Email Marketing

Onboarding

SEO

Viral Growth

It turns out, to the dismay of those looking for a quick answer, that the process is almost as laborious as creating a philosopher’s stone.

The good news? It can be done lean. Through continuously ideating, developing and measuring multiple tactics across various channels, it can actually be achieved. And in some cases, propel growth so far beyond expectations that the biggest worry of an organization will become scaling to meet their new demand.

Viral Growth is Only the Tip of the Iceberg

However, it is important to remember that viral growth doesn’t stem from just one area of marketing. An organization needs to explore tactics across a wide range of marketing disciplines, from search engine optimization to email marketing and even public relations. Viral growth doesn’t appear out of thin air, it is built upon creative ideas that span across channels and functions.

In order to simplify the undertaking and ensure success, Cunningham Collectivehas developed a framework for marketersto use in guiding the discovery process.

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their experience and recommending it to their friends? All of these are examples of questions a marketer may want to ask when analyzing their funnel.

A fully developed, measured and understood marketing funnel becomes the foundation and benchmark for growth hacking endeavors. It will be the North Star, something to return to throughout the hunt for viral growth, to determine where to start, which ideas to integrate long-term, which experiments to abandon and what/which area to attack next.

ACQUISITION

ACTIVATION

RETENTION

REFERRAL

REVENUE

It begins by looking at the well-known marketing funnel. It is essential to have a clear and accurate understanding of what a funnel looks like, how each stage of the funnel converts and where the strong and weak points are along the way.

Marketers must critically analyze every step of the funnel and measure the inflection points they care about. What channels are driving the most web traffic? Are people signing up for the email newsletter? Are customers returning to the site for repeat purchases? Are customers happy with

Benchmark with Funnel Analysis

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A Guide Map for the HuntCunningham Collective suggests followinga simple framework for attacking the hunt for viral growth. Each step plays an essential role and helps marketers develop a deeper understanding of their business, their customers and their industry.

GoalsMarketers should begin by using their funnel analysis to identify weak points in the

be created around these areas of potential improvement. Goals align expectations and activities and ensure that all stakeholders are headed in the same direction.

It is important to remember that goals

way to check for this is by ensuring that the tasks assigned to achieve each goal

a to-do list. For example, ‘increase unique daily visitors to the site’ is a broad goal. The

‘increase click-throughs from social media sites by creating compelling content.’

TacticsOnce a goal is set, the ideation phase begins. This is the fun yet challenging stage, where members of the marketing team must brainstorm unique low-cost ways for achieving set goals.

the funnel being targeted. For instance, public relations ideas can drive new users to a website but are rarely as valuable for purchase conversions and retention.

Integrate & Repeat

Execute & OptimizeExperiment

Implement MeasurableAnalytics

Ideate VariousTactics

Create ActionableGoals

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Once a tactic is ideated and selected, but before it is tested in the wild, the marketing team must determine how they will

success. The right metrics are essential in deciding which tactics to adopt and which to abandon.

Marketers need to make sure they are

include ‘Happy Visitors’ as a broad metric with ‘Visiting two plus pages and staying

Lastly, all of the metrics should be tracked in a dashboard to ensure visibility and alignment across all stakeholders and to generate long-term learning for the entire marketing team.

Analytics

An experiment should never be run without a hypothesis. The process of generating a hypothesis will not only create a benchmark to run the test against but will also reveal assumptions that may not have been initially apparent.

Marketers must also remember to have a control group for any test they run. This will help eliminate some of the environmental

Once everything is set, it is time to testthe potion!

Experiment

The last step of the process is to take a cold hard look at the results of the test. Not all tests will be successful in meeting their goals but they are not any less useful to the marketing organization.

While it may seem obvious, only successful tactics should be fully integrated into the long-term marketing plan. Marketers, like everyone, have personal biases and can make the mistake of justifying why a test may not have been successful. This is where the previously mentioned goals and hypothesis play their key role, keeping stakeholders honest about results.

Once successful initiatives are fully integrated it is time to start the process over. Moving towards the next point of improvement in the marketing funnel. By repeating the process and keeping track of results, marketers will eventually be able to optimize the entire funnel. The result, a marketing recipe of tactics and timing that generate revenue gold and organizational immortality!

Integrate & Repeat

If you are interested in learning more about CunninghamCollective or how we may be able to help your organizationbuild a successful growth hacking program, please visitour website www.get2aha.com or email me directly at kate.osler@get2aha.com