Luckily for you, we joined forces with Eric Keating and Adam Goyette regarding lead generation. They opened up their growth marketing playbook to help budget constrained marketers feed the funnel at a higher clip.
More About Eric
Eric currently serves as VP of Marketing at Appcues, which helps thousands of businesses like IBM and OpenTable deliver exceptional user experiences at scale. Previously, Eric served as VP of Marketing at Zaius, where his team grew customer count 100x and revenues 35x.
More About Adam
Adam Goyette currently serves as VP of Marketing at Help Scout, which provides 10,000+ businesses like Reddit and AngelList with customer email and live chat with a personal touch. Previously, Adam lead all growth marketing initiatives globally at G2 as VP of Demand Generation.
Key Takeaways
Investing in a Keyword Strategy
- You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Do a little research, what is your competitor doing? What is their messaging?
- If you’re recording sales calls, use these to discover new keywords or validate current keywords. Pay attention when the reps ask how they heard of you and what they’re looking for. Doesn’t get better than firsthand information directly from a prospect!
The Ins and Outs of A/B Testing
- Make sure that if you have an attribution model in place that you can recognize with which version the prospect came through. This process needs to be tracked end to end.
- For early stage startups, test big and bold. Instead of testing button colors (refinement), test different landing pages. Once the results come in, then you can start A/B testing for refinement puposes.
- Keep track of the results and don’t lose track of past tests. Learn from the past!
- A/B testing can feel like an afterthought: “Should we run an A/B test? What should we choose?” Build A/B testing into a process. For instance, create a backlog of tests you’d like to run and involve others beyond the marketing team to source ideas.
- Try running messaging tests with Facebook or LinkedIn ads instead of full landing page tests. Great way to get a feel for whether the message hits home with your targeted audience!
Free Trial Optimization
- Free trials are a easy carrot to dangle but this route only works if your user has a great experience. They must see the value! A strong onboarding experience is a must.
- Ask yourself, what makes a good trial lead? If the users are low quality prospects, it’s not a good fit. If the users are high quality prospects, route to the sales team for prioritization.
- Keep in mind that the work is not done. You must create legitimate interest and continue marketing to lead to a buying conversation.
- KPIs should not be based off of number of leads alone. This leads to inefficient and low quality leads. Consider moving the marketing success measurement from leads to pipeline.
Thought Leadership Using Omni-Channel Publications
- When it comes to thought leadership, optimize to add value instead of lead generation purposes. Ask yourself, who are you targeting? What content are they interested in seeing? It feels inorganic when thought leadership is closely tied to lead generation.
- Your audience care about individuals, not companies. Is there someone in your organization that you can set up as a thought leader? Would they share content on their personal LinkedIn and Twitter accounts?
- Thought leadership takes energy and time. Be mindful when it comes to your content! You either need to crush it with SEO or become a subject matter expert on a specific subject.
Thank you Eric & Adam for taking time out of your day to share your expertise with the greater Venture Lane community!
Interested in our program? Check it out: https://theventurelane.com/programs-events/
