Thoughts on Growth - April Edition

Here in Lisbon it's been a beautiful April and my cofounder Tom Dewhurst happens to be out here for the next 3 months, so it's been amazing to work closely together.

With the amazing weather, we've been part of 2 lunches hosted by Camille Venot at our office space in the beautiful A Dama Rosa building. With some of Lisbon's best and brightest founders, including:

• Kelsey Bishop , Founder of Candor
• Gregory D'harveng Founder of Shown
• Charlie Baron Founder of @tribe
• Connor Swenson CEO of Make Time
• André Miranda Co-founder of Musiversal
• Lu Li Founder of Seersy
• Evan O'Brien Cofounder at LiveFlow
• Alice Davoine Foudner at Friendly Factories
• Xavier Jameson Co-founder of Musiversal
• Xavier Green Founder of ScorePlay
• ??Caroline Woussen-Franczia?? CEO Uppercut-First
• Maxime Goossens Cofounder at Hotspotty
• Beno?t Simeray Founder of Squadra

It was amazing to meet everyone over these 2 lunches and discuss the ins and outs of running businesses here in Lisbon.

? Growth Division's North Start Metric = 106 Channels Under Management

?? Growth Channel Insight - Customer Engagement

Too often 'customer engagement' is overlooked by startups. A lot of emphasis is put on top-of-the-funnel activities without a light being shone on activating customers.

As founders and growth marketers, we look at this channel as an opportunity to increase interactions with our product or service, particularly through communication channels like email and push notifications.

At the core of customer engagement is a solid customer data strategy, encapsulated by an effective CRM setup.

Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution and it's vital to look at all your options and constantly reflect on your tech stack.

Since day 1, Tristan and I have been involved in setting up marketing tech stacks for clients. I wrote this post a couple of years ago on 'What is a Martech Stack?', which probably needs updating to keep up with AI advancements.

However, we're lucky to have started working with Alissa Dawn Maakal and Jon Farrar within our community, experts in this channel who we can deploy on projects as needed.

?? We're always happy to talk and share our latest views on customer engagement.

Reach out if you want to setup a call.

?? Growth Resource - 12-week programme to build your growth engine

We've been going for over 4 years and worked with 100+ startups, so we thought now is a good time to open up our secrets.

From the 6th of May, we're running our inaugural Growth Squared programme to support founders who are slightly earlier in their growth journey. Tristan and I have spent countless hours already compiling our resources and assets into a structured 6 week 'done-with-you' content programme.

By the end, you'll have a solid go-to-market plan with:

• Clear customer personas
• Value propositions
• A bullseye channel mix
• A martech stack

In the second half of the course, we switch into operational mode where...

• A custom growth experimentation tool has been developed, utilising AI technology.
• The tool aims to eliminate administrative tasks related to writing growth experiments.
• With the tool, users can access a repository of successful experiments for idea generation.
• The tool facilitates the seamless operation of an effective growth process.

The team is eagerly anticipating onboarding the first cohort of startups.

Applications are coming in fast and we're limiting this first cohort to 8 businesses. So please apply asap to make sure you don't miss out.

?? Growth Experiment - Test a soft-touch approach to contact operations managers

Each month we aim to show you a recent channel hypothesis, the experiment we launched off the back of the idea, and - of course - the results (good, bad, or ugly!). Last month...

Hypothesis: Because establishing a soft-touch connection can lead to stronger relationships, we expect an increase in response rate by 15%, we'll measure this by tracking response rates to outreach emails.

Implementation:

1. Identify a target list of operations managers within relevant industries.

2. Craft a personalised outreach email template that highlights the benefits.

3. Consider hiring a freelance copywriter with experience in B2B sales outreach emails to optimise the messaging.

4. Keep track of key metrics such as response rate and open rate to measure the success of the campaign. The data on response rates can be tracked in the email automation tool being used.

5. Analyse the data to determine if the soft-touch approach resulted in a higher response rate compared to standard outreach tactics.

Variable metric: Response rate

Expected outcome: If the soft touch approach generates a response rate that is at least 15% higher than the standard outreach approach, it will be considered the winning tactic.

Baseline: 27%

ICE score: 24

Experiment result: 39%

Result: The soft touch campaign generated a significantly higher response rate. Therefore it will be rolled out for this customer persona and more work will be conducted to nurture the prospects through to a sale.

Catch you next time!

All the best,

Tristan