Has your startup been badly affected by the COVID-19 (corona) outbreak?

As a heads of growth or CEOs, when it comes to growth marketing, naturally you are always optimizing for budget. The CAC, no matter how much its importance is discussed, we still must look at the number we’re at.  If your startup has been hit harshly by the global pandemic, or infodemic for that matter, and user CAC has been up the roof, here are a few growth marketing tips to ensure your relevancy to users. Then, you can resume when the situation improves.

1. Rescore your backlog and increase focus on product

Go back to your ICE sheet and your backlog of experiments. Take a look at the impact, confidence and ease scores you’ve given. These are all different now. What might have been scored as high impact and ease isn’t relevant now.  [Let’s say you had an experiment whereby you had givaways sent to HR Managers with a free trial for your payroll SaaS. This might not be possible now.  No one is in the office. Therefore, you must re-rank you scoring.]

The question is how can you predict impacts of revenue with a mathematical percentage if you’re not sure what’s coming up? The best Plan B at the moment is to focus on product marketing.

 

2. Kick start your blog and use content to optimize organic growth

Organic growth is the silver bullet for many startups.  Become a key opinion leader in your industry by providing insights and interesting topics for your customers. This can play a role in enhancing your current acquisition strategy, especially if you depended on high ad spend.  If your ad spend is dependent as a percentage from revenue (a paid ad growth loop) and you’re facing a dip in revenues, then consider investing in a medium term acquisition strategy of inbound marketing through a blog.

The marketing team can start drafting up some articles, or otherwise, you can hire a freelancer to complete a dozen. Make sure however, that you double check every single article done by a third party.

Blog 101 tips

 

If you have not started a blog yet, then here is a checklist to start getting it started:

1. Start by integrating Google Search Console into your website (free). It’ll tell you the keywords and pages which are doing well organically though Google Search.
2. Create a blog within your website’s sub-folder. For example: superSaaS.com/blog/ if you are using a little bit more complicated technologies in your stack, ask your CTO to implement a blog on a sub-domain. It’ll be blog.SuperSaaS.com, like we have it here at Startups Galaxy, but always go for sub-folder when possible. (Tip: if it’s a sub domain, make sure you add it to Google Search Console as a separate entity for it to reflect data properly.)
3. Have a thorough keyword analysis on your existing website and 2 – 3 of your main competitors. Look for keywords that have high volume search and low rankings for competitors. That’s your sweet spot content for the blog.
4. Make sure you have a CTA nearby in your blog. Some websites and companies have it in the sidebar as a widget, while others have annoying popups. Have a seamless blog experience. The last thing you want right now is a potential customer intentionally avoiding signing up with your business or installing your mobile app.
5. If you want to take your blog to the next step, consider investing in SemRush tool, which is $99 per month to get you the full breakdown of keyword analysis, domain analytics and market insights. (We’ve got an account at Startups Galaxy and we’re willing to help. Get in touch if you want us to export you data on your website for free.)

 

3. Focus B2C ads on re-marketing to strengthen activation line

This tip is best optimized for B2C companies in industries such as food & ordering,  mobile apps and others. The suggestion is moving away part of your ads spend from  user acquisition to full user activation for new users. You are probably aware of your media buying strategy and your ads budget on a monthly basis.  Have a look at it and change the breakdown from acquisition ads to activation ads.

Re-marketing ads ideas

Here are some re-marketing campaign ideas:

• Target those who have visited your landing page but have not yet installed the app. Reaffirm your basic value proposition since they have not yet taken a major action towards activation
• Segment  users who have signed up and ghosted. Create a campaign with success stories and testimonials to showcase how others have used your product or service
• Create a campaign for users who have requested the product or service but have not yet paid. Remind them with a deadline, a discount or the number of days left before their trial expires. Additionally, showcase the added features of the paid plan.

Tip: If you are a social networking app, then this is the time for acquisition! An increase in online activity could allow you to double up your user base!

4. Create check-ins with users for retention

Have engagement opportunities, and poke fun at certain things. If you are a startup in the tourism and travel sector, you’ve been hit hard. Start retaining your customers heavily by sending them virtual tours, create a community group and ask them to share their “next-up” destination.   Let’s say you are a B2B company and you’re not sure how business will change because of the pandemic. Retain your existing users by having a check-up call in person through Customer Success, if you can do that! You can go a further step and study a gamification strategy to create loyalty for your app or service.

 

TL;DR

You will always have crisis as a company. Sometimes, it’s due to the weather, change in laws, a new competitor, etc. This one is no different and you must react and have a strategy.  Retention is vital during these periods and do not ignore your users “until things get better.” Retain, lower acquisition, and focus more on activation. Create re-marketing campaigns and work on your organic growth through your blog.

 

Hope these were helpful tips! If you’d like to have a chat about growth marketing, get in touch.