Inflated to 10%, the dollar’s price has everyone worrying – and buying things up before they go up in price. Sadly, this loop of fear is driving prices higher. So how did Volcker end inflation? Much like growth marketing, growth automation takes a holistic view of the customer relationship and helps marketers run campaigns to improve each phase of the customer lifecycle. To understand growth automation terms, we need to first understand growth marketing and growth hacking. Growth marketers practice larger customer lifecycle initiatives and smaller creative tactics to drive exponential results for their company. How to Use Pirate Metrics to Define a Growth Automation Campaign We’re used to thinking of funnels as trickle-down marketing, a slow drop from top to bottom via a steadily narrowing angle of “funnel geometry.” But growth teams know that growth anywhere in the funnel affects the overall growth rate and is a net positive. If you understand each phase of the lifecycle – and the strategies and tactics that are required to make them effective, you can affect growth automation at your organization. If you understand each phase of the lifecycle – and the strategies and tactics that are required to make them effective, you can affect growth automation at your organization. Rather than focusing on vanity metrics like basic acquisition, growth automation pairs with Pirate Metrics to focus upon each and every phase of the customer lifecycle and deliver exponential revenue growth.
Let’s take a quick step back into 1980.
Americans watch helplessly as inflation creeps higher and higher. Purchasing power is going up in flames. Putting food on the table gets harder, those retirement funds are worth less and less. Inflated to 10%, the dollar’s price has everyone worrying – and buying things up before they go up in price. Like squirrels before winter, nervous consumers are packing away stores of goods.
Sadly, this loop of fear is driving prices higher. All-consuming fear feeds into to a rapid, debilitating purchasing cycle. Prices inflate and employees ask the boss for raise. The boss complies but then must raise prices. The result? A self-fulfilling prophecy of inflationary prices.
But Paul Volcker, the newly appointed Federal Reserve Chairman, is intent to fix the economy. His way. Traditionally, inflation halts once you stop printing money. The presses are off, yet things just keep getting worse! Volcker’s iced the economy, but the States are in a recession now too. Volcker’s popularity hits an all-time low.
But he’s dedicated to his principles, cool and collected. Winter is coming, well, it’s already here – but the Fed Chair understands that a frozen economy needs to thaw before financial security springs anew.
So how did Volcker end inflation?
He showed the American people that the problem was all in their heads. He didn’t succumb to convention or pressure and stood firm. This is what allowed the dollar correct itself. And made people stop buying. America had to stop worrying and just accept things as they were for a season.
By the end of 1981, inflation dipped to 9% – then 6% – and finally 4%. Since the 80s, inflation has been effectively non-existent.
Why tell you this?
Because handling growth – whether for your marketing efforts or for a depreciating national currency – requires a long-term perspective. Marketers today are sticking with their customers for the duration and benefiting from their dedication.
Just as Volcker hung true and won big, today’s growth marketers are hanging their hats on customer experience and lifecycle management.
So today we’re introducing the SaaSquatch guide to growth automation. Much like growth marketing, growth automation takes a holistic view of the customer relationship and helps marketers run campaigns to improve each phase of the customer lifecycle.
Whether it’s encouraging customer advocacy, increasing customer purchase frequency or running a churn reduction campaign; growth automation takes a full-funnel approach towards developing and retaining valuable customer relationships.
Because it’s perfectly suited to analyzing and optimizing each stage of the customer journey, we’ll look at Dave McClure’s Pirate Metrics framework as the perfect compliment to this overarching growth mindset.
You don’t have to be Fed Chairman to take control of growth at your organization. Just understand a few key concepts and practice them judiciously and the growth will follow. Read on to find out how.
To understand growth automation terms, we need to first understand growth marketing and growth hacking. As widespread as these terms have become, you may have overlooked them until now.
Growth marketing thinks about the whole funnel. Growth marketers take a holistic approach here, focusing on all aspects of product, marketing, sales, and support throughout the entire customer lifecycle.
The goal? Increasing revenue per customer by optimizing every aspect of the customer experience.
It’s important to remember: growth without retention is not growth. Instead, it becomes a vanity metric that makes us feel good in the short term, only to deflate later.
Growth marketers practice larger customer lifecycle initiatives and smaller creative tactics to drive exponential results for their company.
“My path to learning growth was a happy accident. Before I really focused on growth I spent two years learning to code (albeit poorly), 3 years learning product management, 3 years on user acquisition. Without those diverse experiences there is no way I would understand how the pieces of growth come together and my learning is very far from over.” — Brian Balfour, Head of Growth at Hubspot
For example, Dropbox’s invite-a-friend incentives, Uber’s reciprocal rewards ride program, Udemy’s loading 5,000 classes online like lightning all showcase growth hacking tactics and growth design. Successful campaigns like these ran off the growth chart so hard and to the right that they were practically outside of the box before anyone took notice.
So what’s growth automation then?
Growth automation is any of the full funnel campaigns growth marketers run to achieve their objectives. The growth mindset is all about attracting and keeping valuable customers by engaging current customers with creative campaigns you can turn them into loyal customers.
To be clear:
- Growth marketing is a long-term strategy focusing initiatives that improve the customer experience.
- Growth hacking refers to experiment-driven tactics targeting specific stages of the customer lifecycle.
- Growth automation is any campaign that full funnel marketers use to increase customer lifetime value.
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