Growth marketing is all about incorporating repeatable, scalable systems using sustainable strategies that will generate traction, conversions and demand orders of magnitude greater than before, and, as a result, higher revenues.
This is what fires me up each and every day.
In this post, I’ll drop three high-growth techniques that SMBs and sole proprietors can use to create infinitely more trust, drive exponentially higher demand, and amplify the bottom line several times over in 2023.
Ready? Let’s jump right in!
1. Create Custom Videos to Supercharge Your Prospecting
The days of generic prospecting are over.
Not only do obviously templated outreach messages not work, they devalue your brand and instantly turn away prospective customers.
Attention is currency in today’s marketplace. First impressions literally mean everything. Prospecting is a waste of time if it’s not COMPLETELY customized and differentiated.
The stakes have also been raised in this saturated marketplace where most audiences have been highly desensitized to salespeople infringing on their inboxes.
We have to go above and beyond what others are willing to do if we want to grab and keep attention. That means offering an irresistible promise of value with that very first message. Videos are the most intimate way to do that.
Breakthrough the clutter with self-recorded videos
Casual self-recorded videos let you immediately break through the inbox clutter.
They let you personalize your outreach by showing that you’re human, eliciting emotion, and providing legitimate value from the jump.
Prospecting videos should pique the interest of the people you’re reaching out to by using a different approach than everyone else vying for their response.
I usually keep mine concise — one minute for a cold intro video (shot on my iPhone vertically) and no longer than five for a demonstration or strategy reveal (recorded vertically using a tool like Loom) once they give me the OK to share.
For an old coaching program, I’d develop 5-minute Loom videos for individuals outlining the exact step-by-step process they’d be getting tailored to their specific business goals.
Of course, you can’t record videos for every one of your thousands of prospective accounts. There are two solutions to this problem.
– Decrease and consolidate your database. Who are your most valuable prospects? Choose the 20% of your database with the highest upside potential and focus on creating exceptional prospecting experiences for those few rather than mediocre outreach for many.
– Refine your outreach strategy. It’s not about selling, but serving.
As for the initial ask and the actual content of these videos, it’ll depend on your specific business. Overall, the goal is to catch attention by offering to point out something you see about their business (e.g., a hidden opportunity) that they may not be aware of.
In the first DM, don’t pitch your services; share that in the process of researching their company, you’ve discovered a gap or have an easy fix to an existing problem and that you’d like permission to send over this observation with a custom whiteboard breakdown.
For those who reply affirmatively, record their video within 12 hours and send it over.
For those who reply affirmatively, record their video within 12 hours and send it over.
» Super Hack: Looking to scale prospecting videos beyond your individual capabilities? Hire and train a team of fractional reps to handle prospecting and outreach on your behalf with commission for closed deals.
2. Repurpose Content Across Mediums & Channels
Content repurposing is one of the most effective growth hacks I know.
Every piece of content I put out will be or already is reworked from a singular core insight.
To start, focus on: one avatar, one channel, one format. That’s it. Go all in on building a library of content and an established following on a single channel. Only then should you diversify. Once you have several content channels, you can start repurposing content across them.
Repurposing lets you get a 10x lift off of one idea across all your platforms.
You can repurpose almost anything — or at least turn anything into the seedling for a deeper piece of content.
My process works like this:
– Jot down ideas and short inspirations using Notes or my journal (3-5x/day)
– Formulate the best idea into snappy insights and turn them into a tweet (1-2x/day)
– Turn the tweet into an Instagram post and fleshed out LinkedIn post (2-3x/day)
– Compile similar ideas into longer-form content that becomes a thematic article. Publish on my blog. (1x/week)
– Start with a relatively well-thought out topic or idea as a blog article and turn that into a podcast (2x/mo)
– There are almost infinite ways to reuse ideas. Every piece of content could yield a derivative piece.
Credit: nonprofitmarketingguide.com
With time, you’ll start to go deeper and deeper into the topics you cover. It’s that granular perspective that will truly set you apart in the marketplace.
You need quantity & quality
Repurposing is as much about volume and quantity of content as it is developing a rich library full of tangible insights that people can act on.
In 2023, it’s about quantity and quality. Both matter.
If your content is great but you only put out one piece per month, unless that piece goes viral, you won’t have the perpetual top-of-feed visibility needed to grow.
If you put out 25 posts per day but the content is regurgitated, simplistic, or just bad, you’ll do irreversible damage to your brand.
So you need both volume and value. Repurposing your ideas is the only viable path to get there.
» Super Hack: Want to spend more time recording, ideating, and planning content and less time actually making it? Develop a system whereby you can dedicate at least 1-2 days per week solely on content creation. Dump raw video, b-roll, audio, notes, etc into shared folders and empower your team of VAs to run with whatever you provide, incentivizing them on volume produced.
3. Maximize High-Leverage Top-Funnel Mass Nurturing Activities
Lots of marketers — especially at big enterprise brands — are spending tens of thousands of dollars for names in databases and inclusion in pay-to-play analyst reports that realistically do nothing for the bottom line.
Entrepreneurial growth marketers know how to execute much more effective top-funnel activities that create immediate demand in more authentic, high-yield ways.
The way you do this is with what I call waterfall lead gen engines.
Scaling lead gen with low-cost waterfall initiatives
Waterfall lead gen engines are initiatives where you do ‘the thing’ one time but 1,000x the volume of quality leads produced.
These forums, communities, and campaigns let you effectively attract and impact thousands of prospects at the same time with no-barrier-to-entry experiences.
Examples of these economical mass nurturing techniques can include:
– Facebook groups (you can hire a group admin to run)
– Branded online summits/events
– Lead gen webinars
– Weekly e-newsletter (you can hire an email guru to manage)
– Instagram theme page
If executed right, your expertise is self-evident within these spaces.
Due to the number of eyeballs on these events, you can mitigate cost of acquisition in an exponential way. Why pay some analyst firm $100,000 to be included in their corrupt quadrant when you can collect better leads on your own in much more personal, high-value forums?
Mass nurturing engines offer three big benefits compared to outdated lead gen methods of the past:
– All participants/members will opt in — which means that they actually WANT to be there.
– Once they join or subscribe, these people will remain there forever as long as you continue to serve them surpluses of value.
– These spaces cultivate a sense of community. This is your tribe that you’ve earned gathering on your platform.
For all these reasons, waterfall lead gen engines are my favorite method of driving genuine inbound demand that elevates your status in the eyes of your buyers.
» Super Hack: Experiment with several potential “waterfall engine” ideas to discover which one works best for you. Aim for programs that let you serve the maximum number of members for the least amount of labor. Then double down on that single tactic for one year and give away every secret you can.
Conclusion
Growth hacking can be done in a white-hat, heart-centered way. Leveraging tech — and increasingly AI — will be the future of how top entrepreneurs gain an advantage in the market.
By personalizing your prospecting with customized videos, creating multiple derivative pieces of content from your core concepts, and incorporating low-cost mass nurturing tactics top-of-funnel, you’ll be on the way to dominating 2023.
➔ For more on value creation & high-growth frameworks, follow me on Instagram, subscribe to my podcast & check out my interviews on YouTube. Also feel free to schedule a chat with me if you’d like help driving better customer value in your business.
