Why you need a Growth Marketing Strategy before hiring your team!

When it comes to growing a business, having a well-defined growth marketing strategy is essential. Without a clear plan and objectives, it’s difficult to measure success and determine the best approach for achieving your desired outcomes. When you’re ready to invest in a growth marketing team, it's important to have a strategy in place so you can ensure your team is focused on the right activities and has the resources they need to succeed. 

Having a growth marketing strategy in place before making your first full time hire is essential. 

Why you ask? Let's get to that in a minute.

What is a growth marketing strategy?

A growth marketing strategy is the plan your team uses to achieve  business growth. It outlines the activities your team will use to achieve specific goals and drive a desired increase in results.

A growth strategy may also be referred to as an “engagement marketing strategy” because the goal is to get customers engaged with your business. A growth marketing strategy is different from a marketing strategy in that it’s focused on increasing immediate results and driving growth. The marketing strategy is more long-term and focuses on the type of company you’re trying to be.

Why is defining a growth marketing strategy important?

As we’ve discussed, a growth marketing strategy is the plan your team uses to grow your business. Every growth team has a different approach to increasing revenue and acquiring new customers, so it’s important to identify and document the activities you will focus on. 

A well-defined growth strategy helps to:

• Identify and prioritize business growth goals
• Align marketing plan with business goals
• Focus on the most effective channels for business growth
• Measure and report on results
• Identify areas for improvement and reinvest the resources where they will have the biggest impact on growth goals

How to define your growth marketing strategy

Before creating your digital marketing or growth strategy, it’s important to do some research and understand your customers needs so you know which problems you’re best positioned to solve. This can help you identify the right channels to use and focus your strategy on activities that will have the biggest impact. 

It’s also important to consider the resources you have available and how they can be allocated to best achieve your goals. 

Here are a few steps to follow when creating your strategy:

• Define the growth goals for your startup
• Identify customer problems and desired outcomes. Suggestion: Give the book Testing Business Ideas by Alexander Osterwalder a try! Very clear and visual step-by-step approach.
• Create a customer persona, often also called buyer persona.
• Review your current digital marketing strategy
• Identify gaps in your current marketing plan as well as missing skills in the marketing team
• Define key metrics you’re focused on improving
• Review your resources and prioritize activities based on expected ROI (return on investment) as well as on likelyhood of success
• Create a list of digital marketing campaigns or growth experiments that will help you to fill in the gaps

It’s important to consider all of these items when creating your strategy so you know which activities to focus on and how to measure your success.

Benefits of having a defined growth marketing strategy

When your team is focused on the right activities, you can expect to see results, positive ROI and an increase in customer engagement. 

Defining your strategy also helps to ensure your team is consistent, which can be important for gaining customer trust. When your customers see the same consistent message from your team across all channels, they’re more likely to trust you and become a customer. Consistent messaging can also help to build a more recognizable brand and drive more traffic to your website. 

Having a strategy in place also helps you stay focused and avoid getting sidetracked by other ideas or suggestions. Growth marketing is a little different from other marketing channels because it requires a combination of tactics to achieve results. It may not be possible to do everything you want to do in a single month, so it’s important to prioritize the growth activities based on the best return on investment.

How to hire the right growth team

When hiring your team, it’s important to have a growth strategy in place so you know what you’re looking for and can ensure you find the right candidate(s). With a strategy in place, you can also use it to screen every growth marketer and have a clear understanding of what you’re looking for.

Here are a few tips for hiring the right team: 

• Define the type of person you’re looking for
• Create a job description
• Use your strategy to help identify the skills and experience you need
• Outline your expectations
• Conduct interviews that include both technical and behavioral questions
• Review each candidate’s experience and skills and decide who is the best fit for your team

The importance of setting clear objectives and metrics

Having clear objectives and metrics in place helps to ensure you are measuring progress and focusing on the right activities. You can also use your metrics to help create new goals and re-evaluate your strategy as needed. 

It’s important to periodically review your metrics and see what they show. You may be doing well in some areas but falling short in others. This can help you to identify areas for improvement and re-allocate resources where they’re needed most. 

When setting objectives and metrics, it’s important to consider how you’ll measure success at the end of each month. You may have certain metrics you want tbo achieve, but if you don’t have a way to track them it may be difficult to know when you’ve actually reached your goal. 

Tips for optimizing your growth marketing strategy

There are a few things you can do to make sure you’re optimizing your strategy and getting the most out of the efforts of your growth marketing team. 

Here are a few tips:

• Review your strategy regularly
• Pay attention to what works
• Be willing to try new tactics
• Be open to changing course if something isn’t working
• Be consistent and avoid changing tactics mid-strategy
• Stay focused on your business growth goals
• Be patient and don’t expect immediate results
• Be prepared to reinvest resources where they’ll have the biggest impact (Based on objective data)

In summary, having a growth marketing strategy in place before hiring allows a startup to understand its target market, set clear and measurable goals for growth, plan for the necessary resources and budget, and align the team with the overall business objectives. This will increase the chances of success and drive sustainable growth for the startup.

A growth marketing strategy can serve as a guide for the startup's overall go-to-market strategy and ensure that the team is aligned with the overall business objectives. This will help the startup avoid missteps and make sure that everyone is working towards the same end goal.