

At this point, my co-founder and I have helped over a dozen software companies with their product marketing (both as an agency, and freelancers).
We see similar market problems in just about every other product co, so, we decided to compile this handy-dandy guide to "help change that."
Hereβs a tl;dr of what weβre going to cover:
Oh man, if thereβs one thing that grinds my gears, itβs βgrowth hackingβ
Thereβs this misconception that to achieve explosive growth, you need to find this ONE growth hack thatβs going to catapult you from a mere startup to international renown.
After all, thatβs what Airbnb did with CraigsList, right?
Or, what about PayPalβs legendary referral program? Thatβs an amazing growth hack, no?
No.
Just no. If youβre one of those guys still chasing after growth hacksβ¦
Successful companies are built on strong, scalable marketing processes, and not on some one-time hack you came up with while on a vision quest up a mountain.
Back in the 1990s, 2000s, or even early 2010βs, the internet was basically the wild west.Β
You could figure out ways to game social media, Google, and do all sorts of legally questionable, blackhat βgrowth hackyβ stuff.
Want to build a PBN and make millions through SEO? This guy did it.
Build a scraper, harvest peopleβs emails and send them unsolicited pitches? Sure, there was no GDPR back then.
In 2020, though, βgrowth hackingβ is dead.
Thereβs no cure-all hack thatβs going to drive new users with the snap of a finger.
Most growth hack ideas youβre going to find today are actually super impractical gimmicky crap marketers publish online just for the recognition of βoh hey, I did a cool hacky thingie.β
Theyβre trying more to drive leads for their agency/consulting biz than to actually teach you something useful.
If you want to get REAL results, you need to:Β
Simple?
Yeah, but thatβs usually what works.
Unless you already have experience growing a product company to break-even and beyond, hiring the right marketing people can be tough.
A lot of product companies weβve worked with were previously burned out by marketing employees, freelancers, of agencies theyβve worked with in the past.
Here are the most common reasons why that happens:
They hire corporate marketers.
Generally, in the startup world, thatβs a no-go.
See, marketing works completely differently in a corporate environment.Β
Usually, a corporate marketerβs job description revolves around:
Corporate marketers are used to having someone to tell them what to do, and theyβre NOT directly involved with driving traffic or revenue for the company.
Whereas if youβre building a software company, itβs a COMPLETELY different ball game.
Your marketing team has to be as proactive, experimental, and sciencey as possible. Theyβll need to do all sorts of marketing things, including:
Generally, the type of skill-set you develop as a marketer in a corporate environment is different from what youβll need in a tech startup.
What you should do instead is hire a T-shaped marketer as your #1 marketing hire.
What that means is, they need to specialize in one marketing channel, but also have an adequate understanding of the rest of them.
This gives them the know-how they need to establish a foundation for your marketing strategy.
If, on the other hand, youβd hire someone that only knows PPC, theyβd look at your business through ONLY that lens.
This is pretty detrimental for an early-stage product company, as your #1 task is to find channels that work best for your business and not to just focus on this ONE specific channel.
A lot of founders follow the βIβm a startup, so I need to minimize my expenses as much as humanly possibleβ approach.
Which, to be fair, if done on a reasonable level, isnβt too bad of an idea.
The leaner you can go, the better.
A lot of founders, though, really take this to a whole new level. Some of them try to avoid doing any type of βpaid advertisingβ just because itβs paid and theyβre a startup and theyβre all about lean.
These types of founders tend to stick to βfree marketing tactics,β which usually means:
This is a harmful approach for your biz for 2 reasons:
1. βFreeβ is not really free. If you want REAL results for any of those 3 channels, youβll need to put in a lot of man-power. E.g. want to do well with content marketing? Youβll probably need to get real good at writing real fast, or hire a professional (and not an underpaid intern to just churn out articles).
2. Youβre missing out on paid channels that could be getting a LOT more bang for your buck than content or SEO. For example, if you donβt have much competition for search ads, you could be easily getting a 2x return on ad spend.Β
Mind you, though, weβre not talking shit about SEO or Content Marketing. Weβve managed to grow a SaaS from 0 to 200k monthly organic traffic with SEO.
Weβve also used content marketing to drive $25,000+ in revenue without spending a dime.
What we ARE saying is that you really shouldnβt avoid paid ad channels just because theyβre not free.
This oneβs a startup-killer.
A lot of founders created their product on a gut-feeling or a βvisionβ instead of customer feedback and research.
And when that blows up (e.g. you launch the product and youβre failing to get users or you have a high churn rate), you just blame marketing for βnot marketing enoughβ or something.
At best, you realize this early on and pivot on time. At worst, you spend 5-6 figures on marketing before realizing you messed up big time.
So in short, if youβre driving qualified leads to your website, and theyβre not converting or they churn too fast even after experimenting with your landing page, it might just mean that your product, in its current stage, doesnβt work.
9 women canβt make a baby in a month.
The same applies to both your tech and marketing teams.
You might be tempted to go all out with your hiring once you raise that sweet sweet VC money, but we urge you to reconsider.
You should ONLY hire new people to:
Now, hereβs when you should NOT hire new people:
βIf you build it, they will comeβ is total bs.
The sooner you start marketing your product, the better.
Heck, do you know whatβs the best time to start your product marketing? 6 months before launch.
You should already have potential users lined up on your landing page just waiting for when your product is out.
For the optimal use of your time, you should also be doing marketing at the same time. This usually means:
Conclusion sections are overrated.
So instead, here are some of the top growth marketing readings you could check out (in order to avoid all the potential mistakes weβve mentioned above):
99+ free resources on how to learn digital marketing (not growth hacking)
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