šŸŽ„ Got your tree yet? How about your customers?

We can help with #2

November 27, 2024

šŸ‘‹ Whatā€™s growing: menopause. An estimated 47M women will enter menopause each year by 2030, and about 25% of the US working population is affected by menopausal symptoms at any given time.

The cost: $1.8bn in lost work time every year, and $26.6bn in medical expenses.

The opportunity: the global menopausal market is expected to reach $27.6bn by 2033.

šŸ“£ You want more growth, so weā€™re giving you the blueprints. Announcing our new weekly installment:

Get BIG.

Read-and-apply guides to growing your business online.

Hitting your inbox next Monday!

Happy growing

TACTICS

šŸ§  HOW TO BECOME A CUSTOMER ACQUISITION EXPERT BY BRIAN BALFOUR

Many of us donā€™t start as marketers.

You start with an idea. Or maybe a passion, like writing. 

Then you get to work and realizeā€¦ Itā€™s not going to work if you donā€™t attract customers. 

You need to do some marketing.

It looks easy at first - we all know it isnā€™t.

But some people, like Brian Balfour, still manage to go from  ā€œproduct guyā€ with 0 marketing knowledge to CMO growing products to millions of users. 

Hereā€™s his recommended learning plan to become a customer acquisition expert šŸ‘‡ļø 

THE T-SHAPED MARKETER

Your knowledge should be shaped like a T, says Balfour. At the top, a broad layer of base knowledge and marketing foundations. As you move down into channels, you should become more specialized.

THE BASE LAYER

Basic Statistics - All digital marketing runs on numbers - there's no way around it. To make sense of them, Balfour recommends familiarizing yourself with (at minimum) statistical significance, distribution analysis, confidence intervals, regression, and mean/median/mode. 

Programming Fundamentals - Here's the reality of marketing in tech companies - engineering resources are always the bottleneck. The more you can do yourself, the faster you can move. You don't need to become a full-stack developer, but knowing your way around HTML, CSS, JavaScript (and ideally Python or Ruby) will make you significantly more effective.

Product Design & UX Principles- Design is such an integral part of communication now that youā€™d be somewhat handicapped without it. You don't need to be a designer, but understanding how design and marketing interact will level up everything you create.

Analytics- Marketing has become increasingly data-driven over the last five years, and we're just getting started. Understanding how to integrate and use analytics tools like Google Analytics is crucial.

Behavioral Psychology- Sure, analytics will tell you what users are doing, but psychology tells you why. Understanding it better will help find better angles with everything you do in marketing.

Branding/Positioning/Storytelling- Customers donā€™t buy for features. They respond to emotions, which you can tap into with storytelling. Nailing this is how you stand out in crowded markets. 

THE MARKETING FOUNDATION LAYER

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) - CRO is about understanding why users aren't taking action at a certain step, and continually optimizing. It mostly applies to landing pages but the same principles can be used for in-product actions.

Copywriting - Whether you're writing two lines for a Google Ad or a 2,000-word blog post, by hand or with AI, understanding copywriting and the psychology behind it is essential. Writing is still everywhere.

Funnel Marketing - This is your framework for mapping the entire customer journey from awareness to final conversion. Every online marketer needs it. 

A/B Testing - Remember statistics from the base layer? Here's where they become crucial. Proper A/B testing is how you validate your ideas and continuously improve everything from copy to design to entire campaigns.

Basic Design Tools - You'll constantly find yourself needing small design tweaks - to landing pages, ads, calls to action, you name it. You can either wait for a designer every time, or learn enough Canva, Photoshop and wireframing to handle it yourself.

Database Querying - There will always be data you need that isn't available in your analytics tools. Basic SQL knowledge means you can pull insights yourself instead of waiting in the engineering queue every time you need data.

Excel & Modeling - No matter how many fancy tools you have, you'll always end up in Excel at some point. Being able to analyze data, create models, and extract insights from spreadsheets is a skill that never stops being valuable.

PICKING YOUR CHANNEL

Channels are the ways in which you reach your customers - and where you will need to make a choice, says Balfour. There are too many and they are nearly all in constant evolution, making it near-impossible to be an expert in all of them. 

Broadly speaking, there are two types of channels:

  1. Creative-Driven Channels: Content marketing, social media etcā€¦ Heavy on copywriting and idea generation, lighter on the analytics.

  2. Quantitative-Driven Channels: Paid acquisition, viral growthā€¦ Heavier on the modeling and harder to measure to yields of. 

Is there a best channel for your business? Probably. But ultimately, they all work and picking the ones youā€™re suited for will energize you and lead to better results. 

THE FINISHING TOUCH

When youā€™ve chosen your channels, go find a few companies that are performing will with the same ones. Follow their every move, and learn from their strategies using tools like Semrush (click here for their Competitive Research tool). 

šŸ“£ As a closing note: everything in this tactics section was skimmed over superficially, but itā€™s good to get a lay of the land.

Weā€™ll get more detailed with a new weekly installment: Tactic Tuesdays āž”ļø in-depth guides for immediate impact with the Growth Memo team and expert guests. 

Which marketing layer do you most have gaps in?

Help us figure out which ones to cover next

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DATA POINT

WHAT AI OVERVIEWS MEAN FOR RANKING ON GOOGLE

Below, what triggers and appears in AI overviews according to a Semrush study.

Googleā€™s AI overviews are panels that appear above traditional search results and attempt to answer peopleā€™s questions without them having to click anywhere. 

Many have been wondering what this means for those who rank on Google. 

Semrush studied 200,000 AI overviews to find out: here's what they learned.

  • Low Volume Keywords: 82% of desktop and 76% of mobile AIOs occurred for keywords with less than 1,000 monthly searches

  • Primarily Informational Intent: 80% of desktop and 76% of mobile AIOs targeted informational keywords

  • No Ranking Guarantee: Top 10 organic rankings didnā€™t ensure AIO inclusion

  • Low PPC Ad Presence: Only 5% of SERPs with an AIO also featured PPC ads

  • Extensive Linking: Up to 302 links in a single AIO (for the keyword ā€œnetherland two-week itineraryā€)

These findings indicate a number of new opportunities to appear ahead of top ranking websites. 

FREE RESOURCE

Speed.

A slow site means losing customers. 

User experience and closing the education gap come next, but thatā€™s all pointless if they leave before it loads.

If yours is slow, youā€™ll also get steps on how to speed it up. 

Real CRO comes next. 

PRO TIPS

A lot of fake gurus out there. These people arenā€™t those. 

CULTURE

HOW LINA KHAN CHANGED DIGITAL ADVERTISING FOREVER

In her role as FTC Chair, Lina Khan was far more effective than her predecessors at fighting shady advertisement practices. Hereā€™s what she did:

  1. Redefined Basic Ad Tools as "Surveillance" - It used to be normal to track what people did online (pixels) and where they went in real life (location). Not anymore.

  2. Healthcare Data Crackdown - Companies were selling user health data to advertising platforms like Meta. Khan slapped major fines on companies like GoodRx for doing so, letting everyone know itā€™s not ok.

  3. Location Data Protection - Apps could freely collect and sell user location data. Now, the FTC is actively suing companies like Kochava for selling itā€™s users actual movements without permission.

Because she angered many in Big Tech with antitrust cases and the above, Khan will likely be ousted by the Trump administration. Regardless, these changes have already reshaped industry standards.

MEME-Y

Thatā€™s it for this week!

Happy growing šŸ€ ,

The Growth Memo team

PS: Struggling to sell a good product? 

Itā€™s tough to stand out online these days. You know what can really help? Knowing your competitionā€™s every move. 

See your rivalsā€™ (or inspirationsā€™):

Bonus šŸ’• : Get twice the time to test with the Growth Memo exclusive: 2X Extended Semrush Trial

PPS: PRO TIPS

A lot of fake gurus out there. These people arenā€™t those.