Barney Tongbtong21@gmail.com

Table of Contents Introduction The Funnel The process to 10x Shopify AARRR – Social Media & Pirates Acquisition Retention Activation, Referral, Revenue Segmentation Qualitative Data Immediate Actions Questions

Introduction

In order to derive possible growth hacking strategies to help Shopify grow 10x, Shopify should continue to place emphasis on social platforms to be a key channel when guiding potential customers throughout the marketing funnel. Social media is a way to generate awareness of Shopify’s brand, provides valuable opportunities to turn followers and fans into loyal brand advocates in order to build a sustainable community of merchants. Furthermore, social media can also be used as a platform for product integration and innovation, blurring the lines between product and marketing.

The Funnel

When it comes to breaking down and analyzing conversion funnels, I love Dave McClure’s simple and powerful Pirate AARRR (acquisition, activation, retention, referral, revenue) model. For this assignment, I will outline my opinion on growing Shopify’s social platforms in reference to the AARRR model.

The 7 step process to 10x Shopify when strategizing and executing strategies

1. Using the Pirate Model, we can breakup and organize the vast amount of possible social media strategies Shopify may deploy when brainstorming (categorize into 5 groups).

Both organic and paid traffic should be covered2. Using Sean Ellis’ ICE (impact, confidence, effort) rating system to prioritize and

rate each brainstormed social media strategy. This will help Shopify allocate and focus its resources effectively. Let’s not waste time and money!

3. Build hypothesis and establish Key Performance Indicators (KPI) of the chosen tactics we plan to deploy

4. Test! Test! Test!5. Monitoring the campaigns will help us gather quantitative data to help us

understand the parts of the funnel that we need to focus on. (the bottlenecks)6. Optimize the tactics and campaigns if it shows promoting results7. Rinse and repeat

AARRR – Social Media & Pirates

Although all parts of the Pirate model can be influenced and be aided with social platforms, I believe that the majority of social media efforts have a direct and greater impact on the “Acquisition” and “Retention” stages of the funnel. That being said, many strategies affect multiple parts of the funnel in an interdependent manner, and does not affect a funnel step exclusively.

I’ll be going over these stages of the model first, followed by the impact on Activation, Referral and Revenue. The following strategies are those that I recommend that Shopify can explore.

Acquisition - Goals

Shopify should set measurable goals, a clear benchmark to evaluate and compare during and at the end of the campaign.

Break down goals into immediate smaller goals (ex. if we want to increase 20,000 visitors a month, we should set a daily goal of acquiring 666.67 visitors/day = 20,000 divided by 30 days For example,

Increase # and % increase of new unique landing pages views from social media channels in X time periodIncrease # and % increase of new signups (14 day free trial) for all services from social media channels in X time period

Acquisition – Strategies to test (1 of 2) Increase the frequency of Linkedin activity 

Find influencers and incentivize blog coverage (automate) Daily interaction, blog updates  Provides B2B environment, great for targeting businesses, especially

enterprises for Shopify Plus Increase Paid Advertising on effective channels and optimize (Linkedin,

Facebook, Twitter) A/B test all ad titles and copies Optimize retargeting efforts on social channels

Put JavaScript tags across whole site Came across 1 retargeted ad throughout my research phase for this assignment

“Just add water” when LTV (lifetime value of customer) > CAC (customer acquisition cost)

Acquisition – Strategies to test (2 of 2) Use established channels such as Facebook and Twitter to target non-e-

commerce websites (blogs, existing company sites, personal sites etc.) Convert influencers into e-commerce gurus! Sell the “Buy Button"

Target Facebook page owners using Dark Posts to help build Facebook Shop (my personal fav.) Brick-and-mortar businesses Can also help businesses promote Facebook Shops by targeting consumers

Social channels can help drive both the supply and the demand side of the marketplace

Use promoted Pins to promote “Buyable Pins” to Pinterest users and curators

Use promoted Tweets to promoted “Buy” button to businesses on Twitter

Acquisition – Platforms to explore (1 of 2)

Increase Tumblr presence to sell “Buy Buttons” to Tumblr bloggers Create and increase presence on StackOverflow    

Answer developers’ questions regarding Shopify’s open API and other technicalities     

Forge presence in the developer community     Indirectly helps the “demand” funnel as this strategy would benefit the “supply” side

(3rd party app stores Create and increase Reddit presence   

1200 subscribers on r/shopify as of December 28th, to compare, 7335 subscribers on r/ecommerce, and 166,00+ on r/entrepreneur 

Excellent way to build a merchant community in an informal setting and environment Increase brand awareness and engagement on Pinterest    

21k followers at the moment  Great platform to target the merchants who are design-savvy, sell more themes!

Acquisition – Platforms to explore (2 of 2)

Increase personalized activity on YouTube  Interaction in comments, imitate the excellent job on Twitter and Facebook 

Increase Quora brand awareness and engagement in the community   Large opportunity as many discussions regarding e-commerce      Voice as “the industry expert”, CEO Tobias often a contributor, perhaps it

could be a company-wide activity if tests are successful Periscope/Meerkat    

“how to run a business” broadcasts, live events (Q&A, product launches, fireside chats, conferences) 

Still in its infancy stage, channels are not as saturated as other more mature social platforms

Acquisition - KPI

# of new unique landing page views # of new signups (14 day free trial) for all services from each social

media channel Make sure to also track which services are customers from each channel is

using Conversion rates for new signups for each social media channel

Retention - Goals

Decrease customer churn # and % Increase # of blog subscribers* Increase # of email opt-ins* 

*secondary goals, interesting to learn if there is a direct correlation between blog subscribers and churn rate

Retention – Strategies to test (1 of 2) Use SMS as a new way of communication (AppStore updates,

personalized notifications)  96% of recipients read their text messages

Streamline/automate announcements on social channels     New initiatives - (i.e. Pinterest buy buttons, Amazon FBA partnership,

uberRush) Featured apps in AppStore, case studies using apps in AppStore

Retention – Strategies to test (2 of 2) Streamline/automate new blog content into appropriate social

channels to maximize exposure to the content  Currently, not all the blog content is posted on social platforms

Invite and encourage feedback on social media channels, increase engagement

Loyalty callouts on social platforms, shows customer appreciation, builds relationship “Soap Store has been with us for 1 year! Just want to say you’re awesome,

and THANK YOU!"

Retention – KPI/Analysis

Segmented churn rate (need to know which types of merchants are more likely to churn)

Churn funnel/cohort report Know when, where, and how merchants are leaving Shopify

Frequency and recency

Activation, Referral, Revenue

Although social media may often be associated during the acquisition and retention stage, I believe it can also be an indirect driver in the other stages of the funnel as well.

I view social media as a platform for communication, and customer interaction should occur in all stages of the sales funnel in order to capitalize on improving the relationship with merchants.

Activation, Referral, Revenue - Goals

Increase trial to customer conversion rate and # Create a successful social referral program, viral coefficient > 1 Increase revenues through new growth initiatives

Activation, Referral, Revenue - Strategies to test (1 of 2)

Connect with trial users on social platforms to drive trial-to-customer conversion rate (activation)

Create and test referral program (referral) Automate process by using unique trackable referral codes, could either be

distributed via social platforms or at the end of the on-boarding process Curious as to how responsive and close-knitted the online business

community is for a B2B referral program Sell e-commerce solutions to brick-and-mortar businesses

(retention/revenue) (current POS system customers) (huge potential upside in revenue) Use social media channels to target cross-sell customers

Activation, Referral, Revenue - Strategies to test (2 of 2)

Cross-sell AppStore using recommendation engine (retention/revenue) Use social media channels to get recommendation message across

What other social platforms can Shopify partner up with to distribute the “buy now” button? Instagram! Maybe Reddit? Snapchat (a little out of the box...shoppers have a time limit to decide

whether if they want to purchase the product or not

Activation, Referral, Revenue – KPI/Analysis

Trial to customer conversion rate (activation)

Viral coefficient (referral)

Which customers breakeven, which customers won’t? Dig deeper to find difference between two segments (revenue)

New revenues from AppStore generated due to social media targeting (revenue)

# of new e-commerce signups from current POS system customers (revenue)

Successful partnership and sales figures generated on the platform (revenue)

Segmentation

To generate meaningful insights, each KPI for each part of the funnel should be segmented at the very least:

Demographic data Type of content Time Social media channels

Campaign data will help generate insights/answer questions such as: Who are the merchants that are coming and converting? Industry? Business size? Who are the merchants that are leaving Shopify’s platform? What platforms have the most effective acquisition channels?  What types of content should we post to acquire more merchants? When should we post to attract and acquire these merchants? Where and how should we allocate our social media budget and resources?

Qualitative Data

Not just the who, what, when, where, qualitative data helps answer the WHY questions too...which provides further depth into insights. Qualitative data helps reinforce the quantitative data collected during the campaigns. Together, the data forms a whole picture to help make strategic decisions. Let’s kill two birds with one stone. With one survey, we can obtain customer insights/feedback AND generate case studies/testimonials/success stories as marketing material.  

On-site surveys On-boarding and exit

Customer Interviews can be reached out via social channels Customer discovery for new initiatives

Immediate Actions - PrioritiesThe following strategies were chosen after prioritizing based on 3 factors: impact, confidence, ease of effort (time and resources)

Priority Strategies to test AARRR Impact Confidence (ease of) Effort Total Score1 Cross-sell e-commerce solutions to POS customers Retention/Revenue 5 4 3.5 12.52 Target FB page owners using Dark Posts to build FB shop Acquisition 5 3.5 3.5 123 Cross-sell AppStore apps using SM Retention/Revenue 5 3.5 3.5 124 Automate blog content on SM Retention 5 4 2.5 11.55 Loyalty callouts on SM Retention 4 3.5 4 11.56 Increase presence on Pinterest Acquisition 3.5 3.5 3.5 10.57 Automate annoucements on SM Retention 4 4 2.5 10.58 Encourage SM feedback Retention 3.5 3 4 10.59 Increase Linkedin Activity Acquisition 2.5 4 3.5 10

10 Increase Paid Advertising Channels Acquisition 4 4 2 1011 Increase presence on YouTube Acquisition 3 3 4 1012 Connect with trail users on SM Activation 4 3.5 2.5 1013 Create referral program Referral 5 2.5 2.5 1014 Promoted Tweets to promote "Buy" button Acquisition 4 2 3.5 9.515 Increase presence on StackOverflow Acquisition 4 3 2.5 9.516 Target e-commerce websites using SM Acquisition 3 3 3 917 Promoted Pins to promote "Buyable Pins" Acquisition 3.5 2 3.5 918 Increase presence on Quora Acquisition 3 3 3 919 Increase presence on Periscope/Meetkat Acquisition 4 2.5 2.5 920 Instagram "Buy Now" button Revenue 5 3 1 921 SMS communication with current customers Retention 4.5 3 1 8.522 Increase presence on Tumblr Acquisition 2.5 2.5 3 823 Snapchat "Buy Now" button Revenue 5 2 1 824 Increase presence on Reddit Acquisition 2 2 3.5 7.5

*Each factor is rated out of 5

Everything should be tested and optimized!

Questions LinkedIn account is not as active as I would have guessed for a B2B

company, why is that? Out of all the marketing channels, how does social media fare against

the other channels in terms of growth? When and what was Shopify’s tipping point in growth? What

initiatives did the team launch? What insights did the team gather before launching @ShopifyPicks? The nature of the commerce business allows Shopify to be in a unique

position to fully leverage social media, both as a communication tool, AND a platform for the product. How does the team divide the line? Are there separate teams? What is Shopify’s holistic view on social media?