what i learned about software marketing and growth after 2 years in venture capital

What I Learned After 2 Years in Venture Capital

Kyle Lacy / @kyleplacy

@KYLEPLACY@KYLEPLACY

LINKSGet the deck > http://bit.ly/HighAlpha17Get the content > http://labs.openviewpartners.com

My job…

I learned that there are 4 Ps to building sustainable growth in any software company…


PROGRAMS

PEOPLE

PROCESS

PERFORMANCE


Do you have the right people? Hire for aptitude, attitude and agility.

PEOPLE


Is your team organized to win in the digital environment?

Acquisition Conversion Brand

The Modern Marketing Org

Acquisition Conversion Brand

The Modern Marketing Org

Public RelationsBrand Enablement

CreativeEvents

AdvertisingMarketing OpsField Managers

Content / SearchAutomation

Sales EnablementCustomer Success Product Marketing

Customer Retention


The marketing team of the future…


…controls every aspect of the customer experience.


How does your team operate and optimize for the customer journey?

PROCESS


Obsess over your personas and experiences

PROCESS TIP #1


Quantitative Qualitative+


Quantitative Qualitative+• Churn Analysis• Sales & Marketing KPIs

• Win/Loss Reviews• Customer Surveys• Product Usage

@KYLEPLACY

Marketing Persona DevelopmentName

Job Title

• Age• Gender• Salary• Location

Goals & Challenges

Values & FearsDemographics

• How do you help achieve their goals?• How do you help solve their problems?

• Why wouldn’t they buy? • How do you help alleviate their fears?• How do you support their values?

• Education• Family


Experiences first.Tactics second.

We have the tendency to start with channels and tactics. It’s the wrong way.

1. Pick your most important target persona first.

Experiences first.

1. Pick your most important target persona first.2. Build your target persona journey stages.

Experiences first.

AWARENESS CONSIDERATION PURCHASE USAGE REPURCHASE

1. Pick your most important target persona first.2. Build your target persona journey stages.3. List all experiences within each stage.

Experiences first.

The CEO gains social proof by being referred to ABC’scontent or website by someone they trust.

1. Pick your most important target persona first.2. Build your target persona journey stages.3. List all experiences within each stage.4. Pick the top 3-4 experiences for each stage.

Experiences first.

1. Pick your most important target persona first.2. Build your target persona journey stages.3. List all experiences within each stage.4. Pick the top 3-4 experiences for each stage.5. Apply tactics to each of the experiences.6. Apply KPIs to each of the tactics.

Experiences first.

STAGE EXPERIENCE TACTIC KPIs

Awareness Gains social proof – is referred to content or website by someone they trust

Influencer Marketing

X times featured on influencer blog

X times features in top SaaS resource

Reads and finds value from tactical content Website X new users

X conversion rate

X net new leads

Experiences first.


PROGRAMS

How do you create leverage that uncovers new sources of revenue growth and increases marketing production efficiency at scale?


It’s not content marketingIt’s thought leadership

PROGRAMS TIP #1


Thought leadership is not about you. It starts and ends with your customer.


Great thought leadership content should contribute to over 50% of your company’s press mentions.

• Your content should be “pitchable” to journalists.

• Most of your press mentions should be attributable to content campaigns.

• Every sales deck should incorporate some aspect of your content (a stat or quote for example).

• Your content should support a 60 minute keynote and presentation deck.

• Your content should be relevant at every stage of the funnel, not just the top.

• Your content should be directly tied to closed ACV or another metric that points to closed business.

Great Content Characteristics


There are four content strategies that appeal to each and every potential buyer.

Kyle Lacy

More for Slideshare? Could hide if needed.


EXPERIENTIAL

CONSUMER RESEARCH

PEER RESEARCH

PRODUCT USAGE


Experiential thought leadership is about understanding your customer’s customer journey.


Shopped in 100 retail stores

Tracked 80 different marketing touch points over 90 days

Delivered tailored report cards and competitive analysis

Experiential


Consumer Research is about understanding and discovering trends in your customer’s customer behavior.


Consumer Research

Surveying consumers on mobile, social and email consumption patterns.

Used for geo launches and TOFU demand generation


Peer thought leadership is about understanding your customer and helping them understand their peers.


Peer Research

PEER THOUGHT LEADERSHIP


http://www.typeform.com


Peer Research

Interview the top influencers in the field.

• Create a target list of top influencers• Skype / Call Recorder / Voice Recorder• Speechpad.com for transcription• Publish interviews over the year• Roll up into fun end of year deliverable


Product usage is about collecting, analyzing and publishing internal data.


Your data is your only differentiator.


Product Usage


Thought leadership is not about the sales pitch.


Thought leadership is not about the sales pitch. It should supplement the sale.


Don’t forget internal activation of content

PROGRAMS TIP #2


Meet baby Kyle.


Why is our conversion rate so low?


Shared VocabularyShared VoiceShared Mission


ENABLEMENTENABLEMENTENABLEMENTENABLEMENTENABLEMENTENABLEMENT

ENABLEMENTENABLEMENTENABLEMENTENABLEMENTENABLEMENTENABLEMENT


Who owns enablement?


Leadership first.


Content Enablement Kit• PowerPoint deck of relevant data points• Call script for BDR team• Product data sheets corresponding to content• PDF of content• Single page snapshot of top learnings


PERFORMANCE

Do you have the systems in place to track and evolve?


“We must move from numbers keeping score to numbers that drive better actions.”

David Walmsley


Continuous and rapid improvement


Better goal tracking leads to better results

PERFORMANCE TIP #1

@KYLEPLACY

Data / AutomationCRM

My Primary Stack

Goal / ProjectManagement


Data health is more important than any trend

PERFORMANCE TIP #2


First… a Rorschach test

EXAMPLE OF AN IMPACT SLIDE TEXTExample of supporting information or sourcing information goes here


How do you feel?


One more…

EXAMPLE OF AN IMPACT SLIDE TEXTExample of supporting information or sourcing information goes here


And now?


Source: Forrester Research

70% of technology implementations fail because of bad data.


How does marketing efficiently manage data?• Sales & product alignment is critical• Database cleansing should be top priority• Do you have someone focused on data

management?• Get your team off spreadsheets• One system of record for the entire company• Get your team off spreadsheets• Get your team off spreadsheets


Engagement metrics are secondary to growth metrics

PERFORMANCE TIP #3


You should understand the unit economics of the business better than the CEO or CFO.


LTV the lifetime value of a typical customer

CAC the cost to acquire a typical customer & months to recover CAC

Churn existing customers that cancelled their subscription


Final Thoughts


PROGRAMS

PEOPLE

PROCESS

PERFORMANCE


Your PEOPLE should develop and re-develop your PROCESSES and PROGRAMS to improve PERFORMANCE.


The creation and management of the customer experience is the only thing that makes you relevant.


THANK YOU!Get the deck > http://bit.ly/HighAlpha17Get the content > http://labs.openviewpartners.com

what i learned about software marketing and growth after 2 years in venture capital

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