5 Principles of Growth Marketing You Need to Implement to Maximize Sales

The Principles of Growth Marketing

Rather than throwing out a net and hoping you catch the leads you're looking for, growth marketing is about using the right bait to hook your ideal customer. And after they're caught, you're using the best practices to do it better the next time.

Too often do brands rush for the sale and then hang their customers out to dry. That practice fails every day. The best brands are not only monetizing their new customers, they're remonetizing their current customers, turning them into brand advocates. They focused on building trust through value and unique experiences that keep their audience coming back.

And while that may seem challenging, if you can harness the power of these principles, you'll find your brand meeting the same successes.

1. Understand Your Customers

Your customer personas are the basis of all marketing efforts. They're what drive your messaging, the channels you use, and even the frequency at which you communicate. Personas are what you use to understand your customer, and by knowing their dreams, their pains, and everything else, you can more easily build a mutually beneficial relationship.

We as humans have an ever-present need to trust those we associate with. This primal desire was established as a means of keeping us alive. If your fellow cave-dwellers didn't have your back, it was game over.

But the mind can't differentiate our ancestor's situation from our modern one. With every person we engage with, we're looking to trust whoever is on the other side of the interaction because our DNA is constantly warning us about the danger. We need to know the other side cares about what's best for both of us.

Understanding your customers is what enables you to build this trust.

The customer needs to know you actually have their back and in modern marketing, this is done by providing so much value, they truly believe you're looking out for their best interests. It's why you create specific content that answers their questions. It's the reason you don't push them into a purchase, but nurture them as they progress at their own pace. It's the whole basis behind customer-centric marketing.

If you don't actually understand the problems they face, you're going to miss the target. Your message won't resonate, you won't hit the hot-button issues, and you won't be able to stir their emotions. And if that's the case, your customers won't have a reason to trust you.

Now, if you can build and continually refine your buyer personas, you'll have greater insight into what they need to solve their problem. This lets you deliver the message they need to hear, and it enables you to build a relationship that goes deeper than a single purchase.

2. Understand Your Landscape

Look at your current market. Is it over-saturated with promises to deliver on the customer's pain points? Understanding the competition and market allows you to position your product as the best option.

It starts with your unique value proposition. Customers want to find a brand that clearly speaks to their needs. This means you need to be remarkable to get people to notice your brand. But, if there's too much noise in the market, breaking through will be difficult.

Instead, you can pivot to an untapped market. You see, even though you and a competitor have similar products, your audiences can be entirely different.

Consider Simple and Bank of America. They both provide a spread of banking solutions to consumers.

Bank of America has positioned itself as the second largest bank in the United States. One that's trusted by millions of consumers and businesses to manage the safekeeping of their money.

The book Blue Ocean Strategy recommends positioning your brand in the manner your competitors fail to. So if no one else can provide variety within your industry, that becomes your path to a blue ocean.

3. Identify the Metrics You Need to Measure and Optimize

Without having clear metrics to guide your efforts, there's no way to judge performance.

Consumers will purchase from you as long as your message is relevant to them. If you've built your personas correctly, you have a better chance at landing a bulls-eye, but most of the time there's something to optimize.

With A/B tests, you can see which phrasing or graphics actually resonate with the consumer. But while it's important to continually improve your brand, you have to ask the right questions to do it. "How do I make this better" is too general of a question. Instead, "How do I increase the average watch time for our videos?"

These questions identify the specific metrics you need to be following if you hope to grow. And because you want to provide immense value to your audience, you can determine how well you're performing by studying your conversion rates, customer retention, and the number of qualified leads. If all of these are high, it means you're providing the right content for your audience.

4. Build Your Platform

To successfully enter the realm of growth marketing, you need to have a platform that can sustain your brand. This means expanding your influence onto the channels your customers prefer.

Your website should be a priority. When customers research their questions, that's where they'll find your brand as an answer. Your site gives you more freedom to customize how you interact and engage your audience, allowing you to speak to their needs in a manner they're better prepared to receive.

Through dynamic content, you can more efficiently do this. Customer behavior differs per user, but you can establish individual recommendations based on how they interact with your site. This lets you provide personalized and relevant content to the customer.

On other channels, you're restricted in how much you can manipulate your profile, but it offers a different benefit. Customers on social media are more comfortable interacting with your brand because they're on a level playing field. No one has additional control over the platform, so they can raise concerns or engage with your brand on their own terms. If you're providing a consistent narrative, it also gives them more reason to trust you as your relationship begins to grow.

No matter what channel you choose to market on, if you're putting the customer's needs before you own, you'll find improved results across all your metrics.

5. Build a Team that Takes Initiative

The final principle of growth marketing is building a team that gives you complete buy-in to the process. You want individuals who can take an idea and run with. You give the intent, they take the initiative to make it happen.

If your team is always waiting for guidance on how to move forward with a project, it's because they lack the growth mindset necessary to building your brand. If they continually focus on the "old fashioned way" of doing things, they're holding back your brand. They won't seize new opportunities to develop themselves or your strategy. They won't seek better ways to promote your content. And they won't optimize your marketing efforts to produce more value to your customers.

Instead, they need to be willing to innovate and try new things. Hires should be well-rounded, but capable of diving into a specific area where they have a wealth of knowledge. If you can fill your team with specialists who maintain a working knowledge of everything else, they'll be more likely to establish better ways of marketing within their area of expertise. If your entire team is made of generalists, they won't have enough know-how to find improved solutions to yours and your customers' problem.

Adopting the Growth Marketing Mindset

Growth marketing is your avenue to a brand that attracts customers and keeps them with you because of the specific value you provide. And by continually improving and refining your systems, you'll earn opportunities that weren't possible before.