# 0. Define Positioning / ICP / Go-to-market / Growth strategy ## Product Positioning [[Product Positioning]] ## 9 Steps to Repeatable, Scalable, & Profitable Growth Machine [[9-step model - PMF - David Skok]] ## Value props ![[Sales - 4 drives of customers.png]] [[Business concepts, Business criteria (Market, Team, Distribution & Product) & Finding ideas]] ## Don't focus on growth, if you don't have customers that love your product yet [[Iterating & Reaching PMF - Strategy - Frameworks]] ## Sell a solution and not a tool - [Go to-market strategy for B2B SaaS companies](https://fr.slideshare.net/GuillaumeLerouge1/go-tomarket-strategy-for-b2b-saas-companies) - Sell a solution and not a tool - Who's your target? - Jason M. Lemkin: - **Understand that you can make 3-20x the revenues on a given enterprise customer with a solution sale vs a tool.** Having been a VP at a Fortune 500 company, I can tell you that getting me as a corporate VP to pay $100k for a web tool was basically impossible. It gets sent to procurement, and by the time you are done, it's hard to get anyone to pay more than $20k for a tool. [...] - But a solution? Solve my problem around billing? Around customer success? - Around CPQ? Well... you can get $20,000,000 if you truly solve a core enterprise business problem. [...] But again, ask me to buy another tool? That's not on the list. So the budget here has to be a rounding error if it's just a tool. $5k ACV is fine. $10-15k maybe. - Salesforce's example - Salesforce pricing: - At the low end of the market, you can buy Salesforce by yourself. At the high end of the market, salespeople and partners are available to help you. - Their pricing goes up faster than your company size: the bigger you are, the more value Salesforce can deliver to your company, the higher they price the software. - Conclusion: align your strategy with your target ## Global approach - Who is the ICP & Go-to-market - [SaaS Masterclass - From $0-$10M ARR with Jason M. Lemkin - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EfNoBLk2TE): good video - [Sales Advice for Technical Founders](https://blog.ycombinator.com/sales-advice-for-technical-founders/) 1. **Identify and prioritize low hanging leads** - Become a thought leader in the space and share your knowledge - Be there at the time of their search - Leverage live chat on your website to be as responsive as possible - Identify and reach out to anonymous visitors on your website. - Be Smart with Your Advertising 2. **Get in front of the right prospects** - Do your research to find a targeted list of prospects to reach out to. - **Talent**: Following the hiring patterns of a prospect company can reveal their needs before they’re even aware of it or you’ll catch them right at the beginning of their search. For example, if a company is hiring their first salespeople, then they might be in the market for a CRM solution, or if they’re expanding their IT department, they might be ready and have the budget for your cybersecurity solution. - **Advertising**: Look for cues in a company’s announcements. Will they be at an event? Grab a ticket! Are they pushing an affiliate partnership program? Maybe they’re in need of your referral and rewards solution. Have they just merged with another company? Maybe it’s not the best time to reach out since they’re going through a transition. - **Product**: Stay on top of changes in a company’s products. Is the company launching a new product or making major improvements to its existing products? Then your customer support solution might be just what they need since they’ll probably get an influx of inquiries. - **Earnings**: Monitor a company’s earnings and revenues because an increase in funding or a good earnings report might indicate growth and expansion. This might be your time to swoop in with your talent management solution. 3. **Master the sales conversation** - [Authentic Growth — Brian Balfour](https://brianbalfour.com/growth-machine/authentic-growth) - **Make Your Growth Meaningful** - When growth is valuable to a user or customer but not the company, it inevitably leads to the company not being sustainable. Many companies will face pricing optimization at some point. Almost any product could grow more just by lowering price. Paying less is definitely valuable to the user, but if the price is so low the company can’t cover costs, then the company can’t stay in business and deliver any value to the user. - **Your growth has to be meaningful to both users and companies** otherwise it isn’t sustainable, which brings us to the second part of authentic growth. - **Make Your Growth Repeatable** - I'm not saying you shouldn't pursue PR, App Store features, or Product Hunt but I find a lot of teams spending an unbelievable amount of energy on these initiatives. - 90%+ of your time should be dedicated to channels and growth mechanisms that drive the engine of your growth machine. These are things that are repeatable. - **ICP & Hypothesis** - [5 Steps to Pivoting Sales for Success in a Down Economy](https://blog.stage2.capital/pivoting-sales-for-success-in-a-recession-the-5-step-playbook-for-venture-backed-startups) - Step 1: Re-invent ICP and CVP - Step 2: Test your hypothesis. - Step 3: Operationalize the Change on the Front-Line. Use film reviews! - Step 4: Reforecast with a Bottoms Up Model - Step 5: Align Goals with Evolved Lens of Future Investors ## Growth ceilings: TAM, channel, product, etc. - [Invisible Asymptotes: SaaS edition -- Point Nine Land -- Medium](https://medium.com/point-nine-news/invisible-asymptotes-saas-edition-46cdecd5d45c) - **From “feature” to “product”** - When they start, most founders initially focus on building a “limited scope” product (in terms of features and what it can do) because they have limited resources. - The “growth ceiling” can appear later, once they have reached the market limit of the particular use case they tackle. Depending on the pain point addressed, it can happen at a few tens of thousands of dollars of revenue or several millions of dollars of revenue. - Adding more feature/building a bigger product. - It’s very hard to integrate new features without breaking an existing product (the “swiss army knife” syndrome), it’s hard to market a different product, it’s hard to keep your existing customer base, and it very often makes you suddenly compete with bigger players (you were the king of your niche, and now you have to face 800 pounds gorillas). - **Adding a sales model** - When a new customer brings you 20$/month and that you are at several millions of dollars of ARR it’s tough to maintain your growth. - Adding a new sales model can also kill a company as it impacts not only product, marketing, and sales, but also the company’s internal culture. - **Distribution channel dependency** - Unfortunately, there’s no silver bullet to create organic growth. It comes back to your product and to having a strong product/market fit (your product answers a real pain point in an efficient way). - [If you can't explain it - Finding & Testing Marketing Channels](https://www.slideshare.net/hiten1/intelligent-growth-finding-testing-your-marketing-channels) - Who is your target customer? - Where do they hang out? - How do you engage them? ## Tracking customer acquisition - [Startup Metrics for Pirates](https://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-metrics-for-pirates-long-version): AARRR - Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue - [How To Track Customer Acquisitions: | by Myk Pono | The Marketing Playbook | Medium](https://medium.com/the-marketing-playbook/how-to-track-customer-acquisition-9d04b903535) ![[Customer Acquisition Framework.png]] ## Choose your sales model (based on customer size) [SaaS: Three Checklists to Choose Your Sales Model](https://medium.com/point-nine-news/saas-three-checklists-to-chose-your-sales-model-17da9680df4b) -- Clément Vouillon ![[Sales - Price & Complexity.png]] - **Self-Serve: hunting flies and mice** - The self-serve sales model requires a frictionless product coupled with a high volume, high velocity and low cost lead generation engine (since Annual Contract Value, ACV, here is typically between $1 and $1k) - It's almost impossible to build such a company, at scale, without a strong viral loop (a "powered by" or outstanding word of mouth). 1. **Market**: Does your targeted market have enough customers ready to pay your product between $1 and $1k per year? (depending on your targeted ARR) 2. **Team**: Is your founding team strongly product and design oriented? 3. **Product**: Do you have a strong product viral loop? (powered by or product virality) 4. **Product**: Is user onboarding frictionless? 5. **Product**: Can your product be used "out of the box"? (a.k.a does not need custom setup) 6. **Lead generation**: Do you have high volume and low cost lead generation channels available? 7. **Sales**: Is the value proposition easy to perceive by the user? 8. **Sales**: Is conversion from trial to pay seamless? (a.k.a doesn't need a human effort, contract negotiation etc.) 9. **Customer support**: Is your customer support model low-touch too? (highly automated) - **Transactional: hunting rabbits and deers** - The transactional model is an hybrid one as it requires a high volume, high velocity lead generation engine, but you can spend more on acquisition thanks to an higher ACV (typically >$3K), complemented by an inside sales team that will do product demos and close deals 1. **Market**: Does your targeted market have enough customers ready to pay your product more than $3k per year? 2. **Team**: Is your founding team product and marketing / sales oriented? 3. **Product**: Does your product provide enough "quantified value" (time, efficiency or money gain) that can justify a $3K+ a year investment for the customer? 4. **Product**: Does your product need integration with customer's existing stack? 5. **Lead generation**: Do you have high volume lead generation channels available? 6. **Sales**: Do you need product demo and "human" onboarding to convert a customer? 7. **Sales**: Are your customers ready to commit for yearly plan? 8. **Sales**: Does your product have high account revenue expansion potential? 9. **Customer support**: Does your product need dedicated customer support / success / account management teams? - **Enterprise: hunting elephants and whales** - The enterprise model is characterized by very long sales cycles requiring an enterprise grade product, from features to SLAs and security guarantee, and extremely strong (and costly) customer support. The vast majority of SaaS founders won't start with this model and won't even think about it. 1. **Market**: do you have enough customers that can pay your product $100k+ per year? 2. **Team**: Is the founding team enterprise compatible and experienced? 3. **Product**: Is your product "enterprise ready"? 4. **Sales**: Can you attract "enterprise" sales talents? 5. **Support**: Can you build enterprise grade customer support and account management teams? ## Pipedrive story - [How to get from 0 to 10,000 paying customers in SaaS |](http://purde.net/2014/12/how-to-get-from-0-to-10000-paying-customers-in-saas/) - Get your product in the hands of the right people - **Invest more time in copywriting and brand than seems reasonable** - Back at the end of 2010, we had a product that people in our immediate network found increasingly useful. We didn’t have a budget and company founders were running out of friends, clients, and acquaintances to pitch Pipedrive to. We needed to start “marketing” as we were getting ready for a public beta launch. - We also invested more time than is ‘practical’ into onboarding emails which have earned us tweets, email replies, write-ups in blogs and paying customers. - **Find platforms (before others do)** - During 2011 Pipedrive got roughly 1/3 of new signups from Google’s Chrome Webstore. Not bad for the little amount of work required for the marketplace listing back then. - **Treat your marketing budget as an investment portfolio** - Here’s an example of one of Pipedrive’s failed experiments: Sales Calculators has gotten Pipedrive about 2 new paying customers in about 3 years. Sales Pipeline Academy, on the other hand, has worked reasonably well. And we’re still working on finding that web tool or piece of content that returns money 1000x. - **Invest in content and SEO (and email)** - The return on keyword research is massive. Not only you’ll learn about the language you need to be using to drive traffic to your target group, but you’ll also gain valuable insight into whether you have a well-defined target audience at all. You’ll also probably discover some low-hanging fruit for landing pages or blog posts that will get you your first relevant organic search traffic. - **Find out your Life-Time-Value (LTV) per channel to know what to scale** - Pipedrive started experimenting with a 500€ per month Adwords budget as early as there were a spare 500€ available. Despite having to turn off all paid advertising during some turbulent patches, by the time we had secured funding we had enough data to conclude that some keywords groups returned money in 3-4 months. We also learned that others that seemed equally attractive on cost-per-signup basis performed 2-3 times worse due to lower conversion to paid and/or higher churn. - **Decide what you’re NOT going to do** - PR is another example of a channel we tried to get working and while there were some wins, the role of PR and social in getting to first 10000 customers was tiny. Same goes for guest posting, integrations, AB testing, onboarding emails, viral videos, tell-a-friend program optimization, and many other things. - **Localize – and make sure to “light the fuse”** - Pipedrive translated the app and website to Spanish, German, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, French and Estonian pretty early on. While this worked well, it’s worth pointing out that it worked significantly better in some countries. Localization without communicating it locally is like adding gunpowder without lighting the fuse. - **Also, talk to people smarter than yourself** - [How Pipedrive reached 50,000 paying customers |](http://purde.net/2017/05/pipedrive-growth-50000-customers/) - **Where it starts and ends: Pipedrive has a great product.** - One thing that hasn’t changed is that in order to grow you need a great product. A great product solves a problem, is well-designed and runs without glitches. - **We provided great support with a human touch** - **We focused on recommendations and findability, or the Two Hedgehog growth model** - A product with a high NPS score is the key for recommendations. On the marketing side, we’ve been able to add some layers of growth by building a referral program and optimizing triggers that remind users to spread the word. - Us, marketers have more control over findability ie. making sure that as people do their research they find you no matter what words they use and no matter where they click on. Which is relatively straightforward. - **We talked to customers and learned our “jobs”** - Then we stumbled on jobs-to-be-done as a framework to understand people in buying (or not buying) context. Inspired by Intercom, Matt Hodges, Anthony W Ulwick and other resources, and guided by Alan Klement we ran our jobs research and the result was like getting a really good hiking trail map. You can still get hopelessly lost, but if you do, it’s only due to your own stupidity. - **When we had too many ideas, we added ICE** - Dead easy way to weigh Impact and Effort against each other, and add the seemingly insignificant but in reality difference-making Confidence. - **We found platforms (before others did)** - This one is basically a copy-paste from my earlier post, but it’s still super relevant. - There are almost always new emerging platforms you can use to boost growth. In 2012-2013 it was very valuable to be listed on GetApp, for example. While the volume was low it drove highly relevant traffic at high-ROI rates. - **We acknowledged that some of the most effective marketers are not marketers** - Dedicated engineering time for marketing team: Our first step was asking a few engineers to work on the website and tracking most of the time, something that has grown into a full-sized team by now. After raising our A-round and scaling up core product engineering we felt we could afford the luxury of adding another engineering team, this time dedicated to our non-web growth initiatives. - **We localized the app and website (and learned that sometimes this wasn’t enough)** - Localization without promoting it locally is like laying the fuse without lighting it. It seems Trello’s experience is remarkably similar. - **We made Pipedrive talk to other apps** - This one is difficult to measure, but anecdotal evidence suggests it would have been much more difficult to grow to 50,000 customers without having a fully functional open API early on - **We went beyond CAC in paid channel management** - Knowing what the LTV is from different channels and different ad groups has taught us which keywords groups, languages and countries to scale. - **We were creative with efficiency (or efficient with creativity)** - **We learned that ideas are worthless and that it’s all about the people.** ## Growth frameworks - [Indispensable Growth Frameworks from My Years at Facebook, Twitter and Wealthfront | First Round Review](https://review.firstround.com/indispensable-growth-frameworks-from-my-years-at-facebook-twitter-and-wealthfront) - **Know your Basic Growth Equation (from Chamath Palihapitiya)** - **Top of the Funnel** (traffic, conversion, rates) X **Magic Moment** (product creates an emotional response) X **Core Product Value** (solves real problems) = **Sustainable Growth** - **Top of the Funnel**: In looking for a robust top of the funnel, what is being asked is: can the product capture traffic and convert it at an increasingly higher rate into some meaningful type of usage? This is a more tactical variable and the least important parameter in the equation, according to Johns. - **Magic Moment**: This is the user’s emotional response when interacting with the product. Ideally, it strikes early and often in the product experience. - **Core Product Value**: This component involves the size of your market, the legitimacy of the problem you solve and how right you were with your product/market fit hypothesis. For products that get the “magic moment” and “core product value” right, the top of the funnel naturally and rapidly fills. And when you have tremendous top-of-the-funnel growth you don’t have to fight to fill it. You just need to remove friction where it exists. - Amazon - A X B X C X D X E X F = Amazon's Growth - A = Vertical Expansion - B = Product Inventory per Vertical - C = Traffic per Product Page - D = Conversion to Purchase - E = Average Purchase Value - F = Repeat Purchase Behavior - “Then eventually the business gets so sophisticated that they can build mechanisms to drive repeat purchase behavior, such as introducing products like Amazon Prime. You just buy and buy.” - **A Grabbag of Guidance on Growth** - “Frankly, you can’t sustainably grow something that sucks. Nothing replaces an incredible product.” - You don’t need or want a growth hacker to lead. How many growth hackers do you know who have successfully executed on two to four years worth of growth work at Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn or Airbnb?” says Johns. “I don’t know any, but I know a lot of growth hackers that are clever and sophisticated in their own way. They understand tactics expertly and have worked on smaller products, but that’s it. You wouldn’t hire a finance hacker as your CFO, would you? Or a sales hacker as your Head of Sales at a SaaS company, right? Don’t fall sucker to that temptation.” - Your growth lead needs to be a product person. ## Growth tactics - [Growth Marketing Guide: Advanced Tactics and Hacks](https://www.julian.com/guide/growth/intro) - [SaaS - What was your favorite growth tactic? - Quora - Jason Lemkin](https://www.quora.com/What-was-your-favorite-growth-tactic) - I personally was terrible at growth tactics, growing EchoSign. I didn’t know much about anything other than direct sales at the time. I’ve learned a lot since. - However, there were a few things we were early at / good at: - **Integrations.** - If you can get out ahead of the market here, you can get brought into, and win, a lot of deals just because you are the only decent vendor at the table. - **Press and PR.** - By getting out early, this seemed to perform. We weren’t amazing at it, but back in the day, no one except Box in SaaS could get much press anyway. We did a good job getting in TechCrunch and other pubs at the right time to get a boost. - **Being in the Bay Area.** - With hindsight, this helped a lot. Our key competitor ultimately moved to SF, but for a while, it was our backyard. It just makes partnerships and tech customer visits easier. We would drop by Google, Salesforce, Facebook, etc. all the time. It’s hard if your HQ is somewhere else to do that as effectively. It takes time to see the benefit, but it’s real. - **Being Present.** - It took me a long time to realize this mattered. But I tried to be at every important event in our industry. Especially before you have a big brand, this really helps reinforce a “mini-brand”. Get out there. But only go to what matters. Don’t go to second tier conferences, or second-tier anything. But be wherever your key partners, customers, and colleagues are. - **Ease-of-use.** - Everyone says they are easy to use, but for all our faults, we really did have a profoundly easy to use product. This helps a lot with tech-focused customers and early adopters. Later, perhaps it’s less important with large enterprise customers. Our advantage here probably lasted 5–6 years. - **Running the tables in a few verticals.** - Again, a slight accident, but this works. It took us 2 years to close Google, but then we quickly closed Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, and tons of other peers. The same with the insurance vertical, and for a while, telecom. Take that happy reference account and go tell all the others in the space about it. - **Getting very good at inbound sales.** - We optimized a strong team around high-velocity in-bound sales, that could even stretch easily to $ 300k+ deals. - That was our sweet spot up to $ 12m-$ 15m ARR or so. We got very good at it. Maybe less good at other stuff ($1m+ deals), but very good at medium and high velocity inbound sales. - **Making smart bets on the product roadmap.** - We had a small engineering team, so we had to make bets that really would matter. For example, we were 2+ years ahead of the competition on localization, because this turned out to be critical in our market. - **Sticking to our knitting.** - Later, this can be a weakness, but we stuck to the spaces and segments where we were strong. We didn’t spend a lot of time trying to win or expand into segments where we had very little traction, except for small experiments. This dramatically lowered our CAC and made scaling much easier. By $ 10m-$ 20m ARR, you probably need to expand to spaces where you are weaker, though. - **Tenacity.** - Finally, looking back, tenacity was our best growth tactic. Growth was tough in the early days, and didn’t truly get consistent until $5m-$6m ARR or so. I could finally breathe then. Sticking to the vision, pushing the roadmap ahead, investing in customers even when the deal size seemed small … that made the difference. Looking back, what made this work was for a long time, we had very high NPS and happy customers, even with many challenges. When you have that — double down on your existing customers. It takes time, but eventually, they will bring you many more. - [How Intercom Generates $50 Million Annual Recurring Revenue](https://sumo.com/stories/intercom-marketing) 1. The Biggest Viral Marketing Hack You’ve Never Seen: **“Powered By”** Plus Dynamic Keyword Insertion 2. Competitor Traffic Strategy: Steal Your Competitors' Traffic With **"Alternative" Landing Pages** 3. Simple SEO Growth Strategy: **Focus on Google Keywords** That Will Bring You The Highest Number of Qualified Leads Using “The Core Problem Framework” 4. New, Brand-Building Content Strategy: **Write Original, Thought-Provoking Branded Content** To Get THOUSANDS of Shares Using “The Proven Topic Framework” 5. The Most Unusual Method For Converting Content Into New Product Signups: “The Next Step CTA Method” 6. Follow Intercom’s Simple Offsite Content Strategy To Get All Your Content Seen By A New Audience 7. **Ultra-Granular Paid Search Strategy**: Focus On High Buy Intent Keywords If You Want To Be Successful Without A Big Ad Budget 8. **Advanced Landing Page Strategy**: Convert Your Traffic Into Customers By Matching Your Landing Page With One Of The 5 Levels of Market Awareness 9. The “Starter Kit” Lead Gen Offer That Will Make Your Website Visitors Dribble All Over Their Keyboards 10. **Use The JTBD Framework** To Create A Hockey Stick Growth Go-To-Market Strategy - [Nathan Latka](https://twitter.com/NathanLatka/status/1351581251602321411) - Growth channel + results from 9 SaaS founders: - **Powered by:** - @clickfunnels : makes up $12m/yr - @ConvertKit : drives 14k clicks per week - @loom : $720k in 24 hours at paywall launch - **App Exchanges** - @Supermetrics : Bootstrapped to $35m ARR - @reamaze : gets 1,000 trials/mo - Superlemon: #1 shopify rank, first 100 customers - **Community:** - @finimize : 1.1m email list - Qualified: 1m in community - @lemlist : 11k fb group - [[Ryan Hoover, ProductHunt founder - Tactics to launch PH.PNG]] 1. Target influencers 2. Indulge early adopters & Listen 3. Make it useful without users 4. Create exclusivity, scarcity, urgency 5. Give users tools to evangelize 6. Seed content & Communities # 1. Get leads - Channels ## All the customer acquisition channels ![[Acquisition strategies.jpeg]] - [How to Acquire Customers: 19 "Traction" Channels to Start Testing Today](https://zapier.com/blog/acquire-customers/) 1. Viral Marketing 2. Public Relations 3. Unconventional PR 4. Search Engine Marketing 5. Social & Display Ads 6. Offline Ads 7. Search Engine Optimization 8. Content Marketing 9. Email Marketing 10. Engineering as Marketing 11. Targeting Blogs 12. Business Development 13. Sales 14. Affiliate Programs 15. Existing Platforms 16. Trade Shows 17. Offline Events 18. Speaking Engagements 19. Community Building ## Prioritize acquisition channels based on constraints & impact ![[0. Channel Matrix - Brian Balfour.jpg]] - [5 Steps To Choose Your Customer Acquisition Channel --- Brian Balfour](https://brianbalfour.com/essays/5-steps-to-choose-your-customer-acquisition-channel) - **Step 1: What Are You Optimizing For?** - Learning - Volume - Cost - **Step 2: What are your constraints?** - Time - Money - Target Audience - Legal - **Step 3: Setup Your Channel Matrix** - Step 3.1 - Open your favorite spreadsheet tool (google docs, excel, numbers) - Step 3.2 - List Out All Potential Channels In The Header Column: SEO, SEM, viral, display, social, Facebook ads, mobile ads, affiliates, content Marketing, sales, etc. StumbleUpon, Reddit, Twitter Ads, email sponsorships, podcast sponsorships, blog sponsorships, PR, app stores, etc. - 3.3 List Out Channel Defining Attributes In The Header Row - Targeting : ideally high - Cost : ideally low - Input Time : ideally low - Output Time : ideally low - Control : ideally high - Scale : ideally high - **Step 4: Fill In Values Of Channel Matrix With Low, Med, High** - **Step 5: Choose 1-2 Channels As Hypotheses** - [Just add ICE, or how we at Pipedrive Growth team set priorities](https://medium.com/@aivarots/ice-setting-the-priorities-for-growth-engineering-a3be820dc736) - ICE Framework - For every project/experiment/test think of: - **Impact** - **Confidence** - **Effort** - Every part is rated on 5 point scale, 1 to 5. ## Why Lead Velocity Rate (LVR) Is The Most Important Metric in SaaS - Jason Lemkin >> But there's a better metric, your Key Metric, you should track and score yourself to, and hold your VP Marketing and marketing team to -- **Qualified Lead Velocity Rate (LVR)**, your growth in qualified leads, measure month-over-month, every month.  It's real time, not lagging, and it clearly predicts your future revenues and growth.  - **If you set as a top corporate metric growing your LVR about 10-20% greater than your desired MRR growth --- and you have a consistent sales team --- you'll hit your revenue goals.** - If the leads keep coming in, and sales growth does **not** track your lead growth, you'll know you have one of two problems: - If the sales team has changed, your sales team quality may have declined.  Time for some changes.  You can measure this by revenue/lead for the sales team as a whole, and for each individual rep.  If this is declining, you have a problem, one way or another. - If the sales team hasn't changed much, and your MRR growth isn't keeping up with your LVR --- then you have a problem with your product.  You aren't keeping up with the competition.  Time to make a change. - At EchoSign, we set **LVR growth targets of 10%/month once we hit $1m in ARR**, and then **8%/month once we hit about $3m in ARR**.  The goal of 8%/month was to produce **enough leads to grow the business at least 100% YoY**. ## Predictable Revenue - Seeds, Nets & Spears ### Seeds: many-to-many campaigns - [[Predictable Revenue Guide To Tripling Your Sales - Part 1 - Intro + Customer Success.pdf]] - When you struggle generating enough decent leads for your salespeople, everything else needs to be perfect. - You need perfect salespeople. You need a perfect sales process. You need a perfect product. - A bigger, better lead generation machine (whether from inbound, outbound, whatever) gives you a lot of slack to get a lot of things wrong – and yet still crush your goals. - **3 Types of Lead Generation:** 1. **“Seeds”** are many-to-many campaigns; they’re based on word-of-mouth and relationships. 2. **“Nets**” are one-to-many marketing campaigns, with approaches like ‘inbound marketing’ and ‘growth hacking.’ 3. **“Spears”** are targeted outbound prospecting or business development, ideally by a dedicated prospector(s). - One is not better than another - Customer Success is not about increasing customer satisfaction, but creating revenue growth. - With an executive focus on Customer Success, you will see: - **Lower Churn:** The easiest revenue comes from keeping the customers you have. - **More Revenue (New Business & Upsells):** More referrals to new customers; more willingness to try & buy your other offerings = $. - **Better Marketing:** You can improve everything in lead generation & sales with detailed case studies and testimonials. ### Nets: one-to-many campaigns - [[Predictable Revenue Guide To Tripling Your Sales - Part 2 - Marketing + Nets.pdf]] - Your VP Sales has a quota; why doesn’t your VP Marketing? - If you and the executive team watch only one metric, this is it: **Lead Velocity Rate** - LVR measures your growth in qualified leads & pipeline, measure month-over-month, every month. - LVR is real-time, not lagging, and it clearly predicts your future revenues and growth - and - even better, your growth trend. - So if you created $1 million in new qualified pipeline this month, and created $1.1 million in new qualified pipeline the following month, you are growing LVR at 10% month-over-month. So, your sales should grow 10% as well after a period of an average sales cycle length. - Jason Lemkin - **Once EchoSign hit $1 million in revenue run rate, we set a LVR growth target of 10 %per month**. Once we hit about $3 million in run rate, we dropped it to 8% growth per month. - The goal of 8% per month was to produce enough leads to grow the business at least 100% year-over- year. - **Hit your LVR goal every month and you’re golden.** - When you’re selling-to-friends-of-friends or startups-selling-to- startups, you’re still part of the incestuous 15% club. You haven’t ‘crossed over’ until someone from Iowa buys your stuff. - **Stop Bitching. Start Learning.** - Rather than bemoaning “why don’t they get it?”, start learning how to speak their language and learn how to help them buy. - You’ve found a niche in which customers need your products, and ways to systematically generate qualified leads with both Early Adopters & Regular Buyers. - **When your company is struggling to generate quality leads, first ask yourself if you’ve found a Needy Niche.** ### Spears: outbound sales - [[Predictable Revenue Guide To Tripling Your Sales - Part 3 - Outbound Sales.pdf]] - What you need to succed at Outbound Sales? 1. You have a product to sell (not services) that’s expensive enough. At least $10k in lifetime value (and $20k+ is better). 2. Your value proposition is **very easy for a prospect to understand** 3. **You’re different**: You can’t have 100 competitors selling similar stuff and expect to have easy success with outbound. 4. **You’re not trying to replace other people’s stuff**: If you’re trying to call in and compete with Dropbox, to getting a company to rip them out and replace it with your service, is HARD. You have to have a damn good reason for them to do it; a reason that you’re 10x better. - It’s **MUCH easier to look for opportunities where the buyer doesn’t need to replace or trash an entrenched system that works “well enough”.** Whether you call this whitespace, green fields, blue oceans or magenta flowers, look for that kind of market or way to position yourself. - **Outbound is less competitive than inbound** - More often than not, it will be much less competitive than if they start a project by researching the top 20 options in the space. ## Lead gen tools - Scraping & databases - Growth Manager - Gorgias - Utilisation de signaux : visite du site internet, annonce de recrutement, mauvais avis chez un concurrent, hausse de followers sur les réseaux sociaux, levée de fonds ![[Automatiser 100- de sa Lead Generation ( et closer 4 000+ clients) .pdf]] - **Datatabases - Find leads & Find people email & phone** - **[Pappers](https://www.pappers.fr/)** - A une API - Rassemble le BODDAC, la base SIRENE, etc. - Beaucoup plus accessible et clair que Societe.com - Base SIRENE - Entreprises en France - [L’Annuaire des Entreprises françaises : les informations légales officielles de l’administration](https://annuaire-entreprises.data.gouv.fr/) - [Ocean.io](https://www.ocean.io/) - [Anyleads](https://anyleads.com/) - [ZoomInfo](https://www.zoominfo.com/s/search) - [Clay](https://www.clay.com/) - [Nooks - AI Sales Assistant Platform](https://www.nooks.ai/) (+ coaching, list building, updating CRM) - Intent-based triggers: [Unify](https://www.unifygtm.com/) - Autres services - [Email Checker - Verify Email Address Online](https://email-checker.net/) - [10 Ways to Find Anyone's Email Address in 17 Seconds Flat Guaranteed - Nathan Latka](http://nathanlatka.com/findanyonesemail/) - [GitHub - maldevel/EmailHarvester: Email addresses harvester](https://github.com/maldevel/EmailHarvester) - [Clearbit](https://clearbit.com/) - [Find any email address with Clearbit Connect](https://connect.clearbit.com/) - [Dropcontact](https://www.dropcontact.io/) - **Scraping** - [Data Miner - Extract data from any website with 1 Click](https://data-miner.io/) - [Introduction to web scraping with Python - Data, what now?](https://datawhatnow.com/introduction-web-scraping-python/) - [Scrapy | A Fast and Powerful Scraping and Web Crawling Framework](https://scrapy.org/) - **Scraping LinkedIn** - [Phantombuster](https://phantombuster.com/) - [[Comment automatiser 100- de sa prospection (et doubler la croissance chaque année).pdf]] - **Check if an email exists** - [MailTester.com](http://mailtester.com/) - [Toofr Email Finder | Find Emails Using Toofr](https://www.toofr.com/) - [Email Permutator - Google Sheets](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17URMtNmXfEZEW9oUL_taLpGaqTDcMkA79J8TRw4xnz8/edit#gid=0) ## Paid Advertising - Tools : [Joe Speiser - 10 spy tools I use to beg, borrow and steal my way to saas millions](https://twitter.com/jspeiser/status/1552303668426317829?s=20&t=ewQ8zz87BtsWRtcVP5N16w) - [Google AdWords: Keyword Planner](https://adwords.google.fr/KeywordPlanner) - [215+ Best Facebook Ad Examples (2025 Update)](https://karolakarlson.com/best-facebook-ad-examples/) ## PR & Personal brand - [Stop Asking Me About Your Personal Brand, and Start Doing Some Work. --- Medium](https://medium.com/@garyvee/stop-asking-me-about-your-personal-brand-and-start-doing-some-work-57d67316986a) - There is no substitute for honest hard work. You have to earn the privilege of building a “personal brand”, and the only way to do that is to actually execute. 1. decide if you’re ready to put yourself out there 2. use email marketing to its full advantage 3. make video content (the right way) 4. in fact, create as much content as possible 5. never automate 6. keep scaling your content 7. hustle - [Ads Don’t Work That Way | Melting Asphalt](https://meltingasphalt.com/ads-dont-work-that-way/) - > Cultural imprinting = shallow emotional inception + common knowledge → inception into consensus reality - The cultural imprinting story goes like this: The above ad creates an association between the Nike brand and the idea of athletic excellence. Over time and with enough exposure, the customer will r**ealize that "Nike" is synonymous with "athletic excellence"** out in the broader culture. Later, when he's shopping for shoes, his brain will use this information (intuitively) to predict what his peers will think of him if he shows up on the court wearing Nike shoes (vs. wearing some other brand). At the margin, this will tip him toward buying Nike. - For an ad to work by cultural imprinting, it needs to be placed in a conspicuous location, where viewers will see it and know that others are seeing it too. - LinkedIn content - [Kleo - Discover and create the best LinkedIn content](https://kleo.so/): Chrome extension ## Content marketing - [How Close.io built a killer content marketing machine | The Close.io Blog](http://blog.close.io/b2b-saas-content-marketing) 1. Generate tons of raw material 2. Send that raw material down an assembly line 3. Remix and repurpose content for multiple uses - Slideshare - Ebooks - Infographics - Instagram images - Checklists - Animated explainer videos - Podcasts - Quora answers - Medium posts - Live webinars - LinkedIn articles - Facebook articles - Tweetstorms - AMAs - Reddit posts - Fast-action guides - Twitter lead gen cards - Hackernews discussions - Email courses - Pinterest - Translating our English posts into another language and publishing them on popular startup blogs - [How to Curate Content Quickly: 70+ Places to Find Great Content](https://blog.bufferapp.com/content-curation-sources) - [Reddit Guide](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hDTWgD-VQoBrvwsuLDqDYNMenKhIXVeApKc0L5oaUDQ) - Join subreddits in your niches, commenting on posts (add value, not self-promotion, monitor posts with your keywords with F5bot.com), posting (post on one subreddit only, cross post a few days later) - Videos - TikTok - [CapCut | All-in-one video editor & graphic design tool driven by AI](https://www.capcut.com/) - [Opus Clip - AI-powered Video Repurposing](https://www.opus.pro/) - [Klap | Turn videos into viral shorts](https://klap.app/) - [Revid AI - Ideate, Publish, Go Viral | #1 AI Video Generator](https://www.revid.ai/) ## SEO - [Will Coombe - Twitter](https://twitter.com/willcoombe/status/1572275413329612801) - One of the simplest SEO strategies I know: • Type your direct competitor into SEMRush. • Look at the keywords they're ranking for & with what pages. • Recreate those pages on your site. • Make your content better than them. • Get better links. • Wait. - Listing de toolings - ![[x3 son chiffre d'affaires en 2 ans, sans prospection ni pub.pdf]] - Best tool - [Ahrefs - SEO Tools & Resources To Grow Your Search Traffic](https://ahrefs.com/) - Keyword research - [How to Do Keyword Research - The Complete Guide - Alejandro Rioja](https://alejandrorioja.com/keyword-research/) - SEO Checklists - [The Ultimate Website Launch Checklist: Improve Design, SEO & Speed | Process Street](https://www.process.st/website-launch-checklist/) - [15 SEO Best Practices for Structuring URLs - Moz](https://moz.com/blog/15-seo-best-practices-for-structuring-urls) - [SEO Checklist for Website Owners | SEJ](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-checklist-website-owners-updated-beyond/163767/) - [Backlink Strategy - Link Building Case Study: How I Increased My Search Traffic by 110% in 14 Days](https://backlinko.com/skyscraper-technique) - [La Bible du référencement Google (SEO) : Tout ce qu'une startup doit savoir - La Bible du référencement Google (SEO) : Tout ce qu'une startup doit savoir](https://www.maddyness.com/2020/02/05/bible-referencement-google-seo-startup/) - [SEO Tips 2020: A Complete Guide to Rank First on Google](https://alejandrorioja.com/seo-tips/) - Google Webmasters guidelines - [Google Webmasters -- Support, Learn, Connect & Search Console -- Google](https://www.google.com/webmasters/) - [Extraits optimisés dans les résultats de recherche - Aide Search Console](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6229325?hl=fr) - Search Console & Google Verif - [Valider la propriété de votre site - Aide Search Console](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35179?hl=fr) - Structured Data Markup Helper - [About Structured Data Markup Helper - Search Console Help](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/3069489?hl=en) - [How to use Google's Structured Data Markup Helper | SEJ](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/use-googles-structured-data-markup-helper/110668/) - [Outil de test des données structurées](https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool?hl=fr) - PageSpeed Insights - [PageSpeed Insights](https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?hl=fr) - Sitemap - [Créer et envoyer un sitemap - Aide Search Console](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/183668?hl=fr) - Robots.txt - [The Web Robots Pages](http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html) - [Create a robots.txt file - Search Console Help](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062596?hl=en) - [Robots.txt - Manuel d'implémentation](http://robots-txt.com/) - URL canoniques - [Utiliser des URL canoniques - Aide Search Console](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?hl=fr) ## Channel partners - [From Zero to 10,000 Clients in Two Years Using Channel Partners | First Round Review](https://review.firstround.com/From-Zero-to-10000-clients-in-Two-Years-Using-Channel-Partners) ## Real life example from 0 to $5M ARR profitably: organic short-form content -> influencer marketing -> SEO -> Paid Ads - [David Park - "How to go from 0 to $5M ARR profitably / X](https://x.com/Davidjpark96/status/1789773192435060737) - Organic Short-form content - Influencer Marketing - SEO - Paid Ads ## Billboards - [When and how to run a billboard campaign](https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/when-and-how-to-run-a-billboard-campaign) - In other words, you need either a lot of placements, a killer message, or a mix of both. A single billboard can work, but for it to work, it has to be extremely resonant—so resonant, in fact, that it goes viral. Here are two examples of extremely resonant billboards: - For Michael Burke from Bland, the key to virality was sparking some controversy and then seeding virality with a clever video too: > “To go viral, I’ve found that something has to be new and slightly controversial. Traditionally, billboards often have a phone number—replacing it with an AI number is novel. Asking the question ‘Still hiring humans?’ was concise yet slightly controversial. The billboard was inherently interesting, but our video is what went super-viral. This allowed us to have the billboard as the hook at the start of the video, the CTA at the end, and we could sandwich a demo in between.” - In practice, what that means for us at Stytch is that we - Picked copy that will resonate with our core demographic (software engineers) - Aim for high frequency within a relevant time and space (San Francisco, during peak developer conference season) - Buy a mix of different ads—billboards, bus ads, bus shelters, newsstands—to maximize impressions - Make OOH into a broader marketing moment, with amplification efforts that span physical and digital, organic and paid - At the very least, if you buy a billboard, share it on social media, a lot. # 2. Growth - Get Marketing-Qualified leads ## Reducing friction - Acquisition ### Time to Wow - [Growth Hacking Free Trials: Time to Wow! is the key to success | For Entrepreneurs](https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/time-to-wow/) - How long does it takes to get to Wow!? (Time to Wow!) - Can we shorten the number of steps required to get to Wow! - What is the drop out rate of trial users on their way to Wow!? - Which step in the process has the highest drop out rate? - Why are users failing at that step, and can this be addressed? - Is the Wow! moment clear and strong enough? - What is the Wow! to Work Ratio? - Are different buyers interested in seeing different Wow! moments? (This is often the case in a product that has several modules.) - Are we providing the buyer with clear guidance on how to get to Wow!? ### Free Trial vs Freemium strategies in SaaS [Freemium vs Free Trial: Which is Better for SaaS Startups? | by David Sacks | Craft Ventures | Medium](https://medium.com/craft-ventures/freemium-vs-free-trial-which-is-better-for-saas-startups-97b9ac737597) - Despite Yammer’s success with Freemium, I usually recommend that SaaS companies go with the Free Trial approach because it’s easier to implement in the product and coordinate with sales and marketing efforts. - However, Freemium is better for viral or networked products that want to encourage user-generated content, network effects, or bottom-up adoption. - Because Sales was prospecting into our own free accounts, every lead was “warm.” This was so much more productive than cold-calling that we stopped outbound altogether. - Freemium: Our sales reps often said that their biggest competitor was “Yammer Free.” - Free Trial: Free Trial risks user attrition in a way that Freemium doesn’t, but at least Free Trial forces a decision in a reasonable amount of time. - As in the case of Yammer, the Freemium approach works best when some or all of the following factors are in play: - User adoption is bottom-up and/or viral. - Free users contribute to UGC or network effects. - The product experience would be materially diminished for buyers by kicking out free users. - Free users have low willingness to pay so trying to tax them would be unsuccessful anyway. - The likelihood of a sale increases over time with the growth in free users. - The functionality demanded by buyers is different than that demanded by free users so it’s relatively easy for a functionality-based paywall to distinguish between them. - By contrast, Free Trials tend to make more sense when: - Users are provisioned by an admin. - Lead gen typically occurs through paid marketing. - There’s no reason to believe ex ante that signups for the free trial couldn’t be potential buyers. - A time-based paywall creates urgency for the sales process that might not otherwise exist. - The product experience of paying users doesn’t meaningfully suffer because of the attrition of free users. ## Mailing & Outreach ### Sales email templates - Write great emails to your prospects & customers - [How to write a killer Sales email](https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/how-to-write-a-killer-sales-email.html) -- Geoffrey James - **Sales Email** - **The Opener.** This is what the recipient sees in the inbox. It consists of the Subject and the first 20 or so words of the email. If the opener is intriguing, the email gets opened; if the opener is boring, the email is skipped or deleted. - **The Benefit.** This is the meat of the email. It explains why the customer should be interested in what you've got to offer. If the benefit is clear and understandable, the email gets read; if the benefit is obscure or complicated, the recipient ignores it. - **The Closer.** This is where you tell the recipient what to do next (i.e., the "call to action") along with your contact information. If the closer is simple and easy, you get a response. If it's complicated and onerous, you don't. > **Good Sales Email Example:** Subject: The Atlanta Conference John, You can reduce no-shows up to 50% by keeping attendees informed and involved with our mobile app. If you like, I can send you a brief overview of how the app works. Jane Smith Account Manager, XYZ Inc. 213-555-1212 www.xyz.com - Brex Sales tactic: Looking like it 's someone who asked to contact you - ![[Sales tactic from Brex 1.png]] - ![[Sales tactic from Brex 2.png]] - Email sequences - [[EmailTemplate-AdvisorWebsites.pdf]] - [Opportunity Everywhere: Why and How You Should Cold Email Everyone](http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244911) - [7 Tricks to Write an Effective Cold Email](http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/240454) 1. Only bring people good stuff. 2. Get to the point quickly. 3. Keep it informal. 4. Be confident. 5. Make it personal. 6. Know who you are emailing. 7. Follow up. - [10 Cold Email Formulas and The Science Behind Why They Work - Yesware Blog](https://www.yesware.com/blog/cold-email/) 1. Before-After-Bridge (BAB) 2. Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS) 3. But You Are Free 4. Star-Chain-Hook 5. Attention – Interest – Desire – Action (AIDA) 6. Star-Story-Solution 7. The 8. The 3-B Plan 9. Praise-Picture-Push (3P’s) 10. Awareness-Comprehension-Conviction-Action (ACCA) - [After writing 10,000 cold emails for 550 companies, this CEO shares her strategy for getting higher response rates | Leadfeeder](https://blog.leadfeeder.com/heather-from-salesfolk-on-personalizing-outbound-emails-for-better-results/) - Mistake #1: The email is mistargeted - Mistake #2: The content isn’t personalized enough to resonate - Part 1: Heather’s system for laser-focused buyer profiles - Start with LinkedIn and job listings - Pick just ONE pain point per email prospecting campaign - Part 2: Scalable personalization through customizable templates - Use a virtual assistant to find personalized information at scale - Examples from great companies - [Good Copy - Email copy from great companies](http://www.goodemailcopy.com/) - [Really Good Emails](https://reallygoodemails.com/) - [Good Sales Emails](http://goodsalesemails.com/) - [Get 457% more replies to your sales emails with the 1, 2, 3 hack | The Close.io Blog](http://blog.close.io/get-457-more-replies-to-your-sales-emails-with-the-1-2-3-hack) - 5 Factors That Affect Your Email Response Rate in Sales 1. Subject Line: keep them short and sweet 2. Email Content and Pitch - Cut the fluff - Know your purpose - Structure your message 3. Timing and Frequency - Just send a bunch of emails on different days and at other times. Then see which garner the most responses. Double down on those time frames. 4. Personalization and Relevance 5. The Call to Action - Rigorously Qualify All New Leads - Make it Easy to Respond - Use (REAL) Urgency: "Respond in the next 24 hours to receive your free report" or "Respond for a free consultation—only ten available." - Use Segmentation to Get Super Personal at Scale - Be Obsessive about Email Deliverability - Add Social Proof to Your Emails ### LinkedIn Outreach - Marketing automation sur LinkedIn - [ProspectIn | Linkedin Marketing Automation Software](https://www.prospectin.fr/en/) ### Emailing - Tools - [Instantly.ai](https://instantly.ai/) - [Smartlead.ai](https://www.smartlead.ai/) - [Reply.io](https://reply.io/) - [A Simple Cold Email Outreach Tool & Templates | Mailshake](https://mailshake.com/) - Personalized outreach - [Sendspark | Record and Share Personalized Videos](https://www.sendspark.com/) ### Email signature - [Professional Email Signature Template Generator by WiseStamp](https://www.wisestamp.com/) ## Lead nurturing - [[Jason Lemkin - Never stop marketing to lost deals.JPG]] - [How To Design Lead Nurturing, Lead Scoring, and Drip Email Campaigns](https://medium.com/@myxys/how-to-design-lead-nurturing-lead-scoring-and-drip-email-campaigns-9961024f6605) ## Landing page ### Increase conversion of landing page - How to improve messaging & images - [What I learnt roasting 200 landing pages in 12 months](https://blog.roastmylandingpage.com/landing-page-roasts/) - **The 9 most common (and easily fixed) things that founders miss...** 1. Have one clear CTA 2. A focus on USPs 3. Clear, relevant social proof. Move your social proof up the page, make sure it's concise, compounds your copy, and from a buyer relevant to the visitor. 4. Simple language. Avoid technical terms and acronyms, and write in plain language. 5. Real pain - PAS (pain - agitate - solve) is a common copywriting technique used to increase conversion. Most landing pages touched on the pain they were addressing, but only 1 in 15 agitated or amplified the pain with emotional language and vivid imagery. The ones that did this well created much more powerful landing pages that moved me to explore the solution. - Fix it: Agitate your visitor by painting a vivid picture of the pain using emotional language, stories and visuals. 6. Clear benefits and use cases - Lots of pages talked in-detail about product functions but ignored benefits and use cases. Research consistently shows higher conversion with benefits-based language. - Tell and show them with clear benefits language, and example use cases. 7. Signposted CTAs - Add context to your CTA so the visitor knows what to expect. - How long would it take? What were they agreeing to? How much would it cost? What technical setup was involved? 8. Asking instead of over-thinking - Sign up to GetSiteControl and add an exit intent survey on your landing page. Asking why they're leaving. Address those reasons on your page. 9. Knowing their stats - Setup analytics and events tracking. Uncover a conversion baseline for future experimentation. - **7 (slightly more) advanced ideas for better performing landing pages** 1. Your landing page isn't niche enough - Landing pages targeting multiple personas and use cases almost universally convert at a lower rate. Go more niche, expand later 2. Your ask is too big or too soon - Write a list of what a visitor needs to know before they will sign up. Make sure this critical info is before your first CTA. 3. You're telling people things you can show them - So many pages used large blocks of text to explain something that could be more clearly and powerfully demonstrated in a simple product shot, table, visual, example, demo, illustration or abstraction. 4. You're not addressing doubts - On visiting your landing page, your potential buyer will be forming questions in their head. As these unanswered questions grow, the chances of a conversion decrease. Find out what they are, and address them throughout the copy, or in a FAQs module. 5. You need to use better images - Work harder to find or create meaningful images for your landing page. 6. You don't know your stats - Setup funnels in Google Analytics or other tools so you can review drop off throughout the funnel, not just on your landing page. 7. You need to implement regular conversion testing - A cycle of constant experimentation increases your learnings about customers and drives more revenue. Keep shipping tests! - Messaging - Greath thread: [Growth Tactics sur Twitter : "Here’s how to double conversion on your startup’s homepage. (From rewriting over 1,000 websites.) A thread 👇" / Twitter](https://twitter.com/growthtactics/status/1347608872295526405?s=21) - Header - To express value, sharpen your value prop: 1. What bad alternative do people resort to when they lack your product? 2. How is your product better than the bad alternative? 3. Now turn the last step into an action statement—that's your value prop - Then add a hook: 1. Either a bold claim: Something highly specific that triggers the thought, "Wow, I didn't know that was possible." (Example on left.) 2. Or address likely objections. - Address your value prop to the right audience. - List out your top 2-3 customer personas. - Rewrite your headers to speak to them—in their language. - Choose the header that best addresses your key audience, or create a landing page for each persona. - Subheader: Your subheader should expand on two things: 1. How does our product work *exactly*? 2. Which of our features make our header's bold claim believable? - Rewrite your subheader to explain how the claim in your header is achieved. - Add the top 2-3 features of your product. - Keep it brief. Lengthy paragraphs kill momentum. - Images - Remove uncertainty by showing the product in action. (Hellosign uses a GIF to show the product.) - If you sell physical goods, 1) show off the various use cases and 2) show close-ups of the build quality (e.g. Allbirds) - CTAs - CTAs should be continuations of the magic teased in the header copy. - It feels natural to click these CTAs because they help the visitor continue the narrative you kicked off. - Another great thread: [Blake Emal - 17 learnings from auditing 500 websites - Twitter](https://twitter.com/heyblake/status/1389725784651309056?s=21) 1. Product GIFs are your best friend: show, don't tell 2. Make the H1 count: Your H1 is the first (and most prominent) element we see right away. That first line of text is the difference between hooking them and losing them. 3. Don’t be clever, be clear: Those great puns you thought about for your headers? They probably won't convert well. Keep it super simple. 4. Inject social proof in your copy. 5. Only use imagery that moves the story along: If your product only needs words to describe it, don't use imagery "just because." Imagery should improve understanding. 6. Increase site speed ASAP. 7. Video social proof wins: Testimonials are good. Video testimonials are next-level. They up your credibility and boost buyer confidence. 8. Make it about the user: Don't talk about the brand. Talk about the user. Make the whole page copy and design cater to them. 9. 1 CTA only (if possible.): Limit CTAs to the bare minimum. The more actions you invite others to take, the fewer actions they will take. 10. Make it interactive: Interactive elements work wonders. Use the features of your app in the design of the page to increase understanding. 11. Keep the home page focused: Your home page is NOT your “everything” page. You shouldn't have all features, blogs, white papers, etc. on the home page. 12. Keep the overall design simple: Extra elements distract from the core purpose. The more you have on a page, the harder it is to maintain focus. 13. No buzzwords, just value props. 14. Create an ideal above the fold (ATF.): Menu, H1, Subheader, Button, and a tiny bit of social proof should all fit above the fold. 15. CTAs should do exactly what they say: Don't get cute or clever with button copy. Don't be vague. Tell people exactly what happens when they click it. 16. Make your pricing easily accessible: Don't hide pricing. Put it on a pricing page or the home page. Don't make people waste their time looking for valuable info. 17. Delight with micro-interactions: Those subtle animations can make the experience of browsing a site more pleasant. It can put the user in a better mood and make them feel happier than before. - [Writing Decisions: Headline tests on the Highrise signup page -- Signal v. Noise](https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1525-writing-decisions-headline-tests-on-the-highrise-signup-page) - Other - [The Essential Landing Page Checklist for Inbound Marketing](https://www.semrush.com/blog/the-essential-landing-page-checklist-for-inbound-marketing/) - Videos - Create social proof on your website - [The 3 Videos Every Business Needs on Its Website](https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244719) 1. A short, highly produced marketing video 2. An “About Us” video 3. Video testimonials ### Tools to do landing pages - WordPress - No-code tools - [Framer](https://www.framer.com/) - [Umso](https://www.umso.com/) - [Dorik](https://dorik.com/) - [Template 6 - Dorik.io](https://template11.dorik.io/) - [Tailwind CSS Page Creator - Tails](https://devdojo.com/tails) - Templates - [One Page Free Templates Websites](https://onepagelove.com/templates/free-templates) - [Landing page components & templates that you can copy & paste](https://pageui.shipixen.com/) ### Inspiration - Nice landing pages & templates - List of good landing pages - [The Best Landing Page Design Inspiration and Examples](https://www.btw.so/marketing/landing-page-examples) - [DesignMunk](https://designmunk.com/) - Analysis of good landing pages - Characteristics - [SaaS landing pages in 2017: Our analysis of 100+ top businesses](https://blog.chartmogul.com/saas-landing-pages-2017-analysis/) - Keep the structure simple - Avoid hard-to-discover menus - Images - Leverage humans - Video is mainstream - Showcase your customers - Good landing pages - [Shopify](https://www.shopify.com/free-trial) - [Aircall](https://aircall.io/fr/) - [Systeme.io ](https://systeme.io/) - [Gorgias](https://gorgias.io/) - [Anyleads](https://anyleads.com/en) - [Qonto](https://qonto.eu/#) ### Illustrations for landing pages [[Design Playbook - UX, UI, Typography, etc.]] ### Inbound - Get customer intent & de-anonymize them - [Warmly | Reveal and Convert Website Visitors, Instantly](https://www.warmly.ai/) - [RB2B - Person-Level Website Visitor Identity](https://www.rb2b.com/) # Other tools ## Create videos, GIF, etc for social media & landing - [Kapwing - Create and Edit Video Online](https://www.kapwing.com/) - [Product Video Maker | Make The Best Product Promo Videos](https://biteable.com/promo/product/) : simple video edition - Mojo ([mojo ─ create animated stories](https://www.mojo-app.com/)) : mobile only, great for making simple videos/images for social media with lots of templates. Not really possible to edit videos on a PC. - [Descript](https://www.descript.com/): Based on the transcription, a really cool promise—it's very clever to be able to edit a video from its transcript - [Explee](https://explee.com/fr/) - Used by streamers: [Open Broadcaster Software | OBS](https://obsproject.com/fr) ## Canva (eBooks & illustrations) - [Canva](https://www.canva.com/) ## Infographies/Diagrams - [Datawrapper: Create charts, maps, and tables](https://www.datawrapper.de/) - [easel.ly | create and share visual ideas online](http://www.easel.ly/) - [Create Easy Infographics, Reports, Presentations | Piktochart](http://piktochart.com/) - [Free Infographic Maker - Venngage](https://venngage.com/) - [Flow Chart Maker & Online Diagram Software | Lucidchart - Faire des diagrammes et organigrammes](https://www.lucidchart.com/)