CXL Growth Marketing Week 3 Review

I started week 3 with lots of excitement because I’m making progress. Part of my excitement is attributed to the fact that after implementing my takeaways from the User-Centric Marketing Course, I’ve gotten remarkable results. The following paragraphs are a summary of my lessons from the “Identifying and Amplifying Growth Channels” by Sophia Eng.

Major Growth Marketing Channels

There are four majour channels that organizations can leverage on in exploding their business online when it comes to growth marketing. These channels have been and are still the same channels that both large and small scale enterprises use in unlocking growth in their businesses. The channels are search engine marketing, search engine optimization, social and display advertising, email marketing, and content marketing.

Search engine marketing (SEM) is primarily about advertising on search engines using keywords, such as Google AdWords and Bing. Search engine optimization (SEO) looks at improving a website’s visibility for relevant searches. Social and display ads are about advertising on various social media channels. Email marketing is good for retaining and engaging existing clients, while content marketing leverages using content in engaging deeply with customers.

However, marketing research is a prerequisite before using any of the available growth marketing channels. Know where your customers are first, before investing resources. It is also worthy of note that it is rare for a company to be performing well on all platforms. The growth marketer should test and conduct due research to know the platform that their audience is using to focus on the platform.

Unlike traditional marketing, growth marketing channels can be measured and tested, looking at a few analytics. One way of measuring a successful growth marketing campaign is to look at channels with a high ROI that also has the ability to scale. Channels that are not progressing should be allowed to scale; not all campaign scale quickly. Before shutting down a channel, growth marketers should look at the available data and insights.

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social media marketing is primarily about generating demand and driving leads. SMM is a medium of connecting with an audience by creating content that resonates with them. An easy hack to growing a business through SMM is leveraging on topics and trending hashtags. Trending topics presents an amazing opportunity to gain leads and growing the audiences of a brand.

Some social media marketing myths need to be shelved if the growth marketer will work effectively. The myth that SMM is hard to track is not true. Like other digital marketing platforms, SMM can be tracked with real-time insights. And the myth that SMM is just branding is not entirely true. SMM is more than branding; it is a means of triggering growth in an organization. SMM should be goal-oriented and vision-driven if it must deliver in it’s set objectives.

Testing and experimentation is an essential aspect of SMM. To know the effective messaging strategies on social media, the growth marketer needs to test the audience, contents, Call to action (CTA), links, and the offer.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search engine optimization emphasizes on using strategic and relevant contents in improving the rankings of a website. SEO encompasses technical and creative elements required to improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase awareness of the organization on search engines. SEO aims to capture users who are asking questions about the organization’s offering by using relevant keywords.

There are two majour myths on search engine optimization (SEO). The first myth states that the marketer should not focus on SEO; it is automatic. SEO does not come automatically from the moment your website goes live. Google only crawls your website and ranks it based on its domain authority, page authority, popularity ranking, and content postings frequency. The second myth states that SEO is dead. SEO is very much alive and will grow your brand when properly done.

When optimizing for SEO, it is essential to establish the Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) of your brand for effective tracking and measurement. Some popular KPI’s includes session time, goal completion, revenue, and conversion rate.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay per click is a form of advertisement that is based on cost per action. It is highly targeted and works wonders when done rightly. The main downside to PPC is that it is quite expensive for small businesses. The goals of PPC campaigns are high click through’s (CTR) and high conversions.

The main channels for PPC campaigns are Google AdWords, Bing, Display, Facebook, and Remarketing. To create PPC that converts, the growth marketer needs to look at path analysis, trends, and other relevant insights. Also, using ebooks, checklists, and white papers are great ways of capturing leads with a PPC Campaign.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is one of the top channels in growth marketing. Content marketing is about building relationships with your audience, understanding their needs, and offering a solution in your products and services. As other channels, content marketing should be defined with clear goals and objectives. Content marketing works better when optimized for the following KPI’s: traffic and conversions.

One of the popular myths in content marketing is that audiences do not respond well to content marketing. This myth is not true. The truth is that people respond to what interests them, and whenever content marketing interests the audiences, they will respond. This is yet another reason why customer mapping is essential in content marketing.

To track content marketing results, the growth marketer needs to focus on the posts that are bringing in more clicks and conversions, and create other posts in that direction. However, content marketing is not just about writing a blog post; it is about everything that an organization is putting out. Other content marketing channels include: LinkedIn, medium, and SlideShare.

Summary

I’m particularly intrigued about this course; it talks about an area in growth marketing that I’m passionate about. The area is content marketing. I have been helping local businesses through content marketing and will improve significantly after concluding the digital marketing module in CXL Institute Scholarship. This course also exposed me to other growth marketing channels that I have been oblivious to in the past. Can’t wait to explore the other courses.