Marketing is the lifeblood of any business. 

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How can any company expect to get customers through the door if they’re not rigorously and adamantly, trying to promote their goods and services the best way they can?

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And based on the numbers, the vast majority of brands seem to be caught up with this fact. Over 500,000 new businesses get incorporated in the US every year, and over 200 billion dollars is collectively spent on marketing as well.

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So there’s no denying that, as a business owner, you’re in the business of crafting a message that helps you cut out through the noise. Because truth be told, even in the smallest of markets, it can be hard to stand out from the pack, and prosper. And it’s for this reason that now (more than ever), it’s become essential to have a marketing strategy that not only helps you acquire customers—but retain them for the long haul. And in 2023, there is one marketing framework that helps you accomplish this aim better than any other: growth marketing.

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In this short guide, we’ll be showing what is, how can it help you — and the 5 stages your business must undergo in order to ensure sustained marketing success.

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Let’s start from the beginning.

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What is Growth Marketing, Exactly?

Well, picture it like marketing 2.0. It’s an evolution from the traditional marketing model, in which you would launch campaigns and forget they even occurred.

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Growth marketing takes the concepts of promotion up a notch, by adding layers that optimize the entire customer journey, and maximize each step of the marketing funnel for optimal results.

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Several of these so-called layers can be anything from A/B testing, value-packed blog posts, data-driven email marketing campaigns, SEO optimization, creative ad copy, and technical analysis of every aspect of a user’s experience.

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Growth marketers gather the many insights from these methods to adjust (or double down if need be) and achieve the ultimate goal: viable growth. And that’s the main difference growth marketing holds from the traditional model.

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It’s not looking to simply launch campaigns and “hope” that they work; but to analyze and collect data required to make them work—that and, many of these other notable differences:

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• Traditional marketing is one-off. Growth marketing is continual.

• Traditional marketing is top of the funnel driven. Growth marketing focuses on the entire funnel journey.

• Traditional marketing seeks to acquire customers. Growth marketing seeks to acquire, nurture & sustain these customers.

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And lastly, while on traditional marketing you create the plan, launch it & call it a day, on growth marketing the process never ends. It’s an endless loop of iterations, trying to squeeze as much as it can out of your marketing efforts.

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But alright—now that we’ve covered what growth marketing is in a nutshell, now let’s talk about the 5 stages of a successful growth marketing plan (and all the strategies that underpin it…).

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‍Note: these are all strategies you can start applying today to get more bank for your buck out of your marketing. No stones left unturned.

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The Five Stages of Growth

Ever heard about the AARRR framework?

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It’s one of the most popular systems in the world of growth marketing. And rightfully so, it encapsulates the entire process of taking a prospect from stranger to raving fan. It stands for:

• Acquisition (how your customers find you)

• Activation (how quickly can you get a prospect believe in your message/brand)

• Retention (how many customers are sticking with your brand)

• Referral (how can you turn your customers into advocates)

• Revenue (how do you profit when it’s all said & done)

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What’s so great about this framework, is that it divides your growth strategies into five stages that funnel your prospect all the way through. It follows a logical, step-by-step procedure, and any brand can use it to reach the sustainable growth they desire from their marketing efforts.

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Up next, we’ll be addressing every stage with several strategies that help you make the most out of each one.

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Acquisition

‍This is the stage most businesses are familiar with. Here is where you turn leads into customers. You’re taking people on the path of awareness about your brand, to actually purchasing for you.

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‍Now, obviously, this stage is crucial for any form of business success, since you can’t expect to survive as a company if you don’t acquire new customers on a regular basis. ‍And that’s why customer acquisition costs tend to constantly be on the rise.

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It is therefore, essential that you build a cost-efficient acquisition strategy that involves multiple marketing channels, s‍o you can attack this obstacle from all angles. We’ll be sharing some of the best acquisition strategies below:

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Content marketing

‍Great content is always a nice, organic way to drive leads through the door. Be with eBooks, social media, courses, videos, or any form of digital platform, ‍it’s a great way to inform, educate, and demonstrate your expertise to your target audience.

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All in all, it gets the job done.

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Online Communities

Regardless of how much time you’ve been using the Internet since it first came out, you likely have formed part of an online community at least once in your life.

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We all congregate somewhere, usually around topics we’re passionate about or regarding problems we would like to solve. And there is no better way to build trust & create a sense of camaraderie around your brand than building an online community. It will allow you to communicate authority, help your audience, and funnel prospects into your solutions.

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‍Paid Ads

Not all acquisition strategies are organic—however, there is a strategy to buy-your-way-into-a-customer (and that is by leveraging paid advertising).

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And in 2023, there is both an affordable and effective way to convert leads into customers: and that is with YouTube Ads.

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‍That being said—in a nutshell, the 3 main components to create customer-pulling YouTube Ads are: Strategy - Targeting - Creative

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Get these 3 on point, and you’ll drive more than enough paid traffic to your funnel.

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Now, if you’re interested in leveraging YouTube Ads as one of your main acquisition strategies, we’ve helped create over $30M in revenue for our clients just with YouTube Ads alone. Schedule a free strategy call with one of our experts to see how we can help you grow.

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Anyway—back to the next stage:

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Activation

Here is where the fun begins.

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At this stage your customer is already aware of your product & it's even in the process of using it himself. The activation phase is where your customer realize the true value of your offering. Here your main goal is providing the best customer experience possible and get them to say: “aha, this is exactly what I’ve needed all along”.

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This step is crucial because it’s way easier to sell your product to an existing customer once again, than to acquire a new one. So put a great deal of effort into this phase.

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Here are a couple strategies that can help you get the job done: