Data-Driven Growth: Lies, Lawyers & Outsized Results

Data-Driven Growth
Ed Fry @edfryed

Life in marketing started with crappy adsense websites...

Pitched Distilled on a repeated Summer gigs. Learnt how SEO actually
works. Wound up marketing their consulting, training & conferences.

Through Distilled I learned to love conferences. People + ideas + drinks.
Drunk-pitched Rand a jobs board for his new “inbound.org” community

$500/month. $12k “forever” budget. GM @ inbound.org for Rand & Dharmesh.
(both busy with Moz & HubSpot) but it grew beyond a side-project...

VERY orange. Scaling international, freemium sales products & lawyers...
HubSpot acquired inbound.org about 12 months before they went public.
Interesting times scaling intl., freemium sales & lawyers...

Grew a remote team from Bucharest to Seattle and built the community to
over 150,000 members. Focus for me became engagement & retention.

Focused on personalisation. Use all our tools, teams & data to connect
our members with meaningful, useful content. Started sharing what was
Got to know more marketers #ConferenceDrinking could call in favours.
AMAs/Q&A/campaigns to increase engagement. But favours don’t scale.

But every “hack” that could scale reach and engagement marketers would hate.
Chrome notifications, twitter bots, automated email #PageFights Fear!

Frontier of failure
SCALEABLE
AUTHENTIC&ENGAGING
PERSONALISATION
AT SCALE #data
“HALP ME”.
spam-o-matic

Lead me to join Hull to help people manage their customer data.

Data ops deep within scaling SaaS startups
Sales Marketing CS
Customer Data Operations
Customer data is the lifeblood of so many teams. But working out whose job this was?

Painful path to product-market fit
Definitely for
marketers!
W
hoa,
support
tickets...
“Technical marketers”
seem so much better
Of course! Data
engineers!

n00b SEO
Adsense & affiliate filth
Strange story, but there’s a common theme in how data was (& wasn’t) used

There are two types of people in the world.
Those who live & breathe data, and those who don’t
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2017/05/06/the-worlds-most-valuable-resource-is-no-longer-oil-but-data

There’s those who collect, those who understand & those who act on data.

I think I found the pattern...
Beyond better analytics/data vis/reporting/other data talks...

Collecting data
Collecting data is not hard
There’s literally 1000s of tools to help. Ready to plug-and-play.

GA gives everyone access. I remember funnel/geo reports.
Real-time analytics during AMAs. But what happened after.

Website
Email
newsletter
We had these plug-and-play tools...

...but this was just a tiny
fraction of our user journey
Setup
for you Everything else
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Access to the right dataWhere is your customer journey? Beyond GA, Email… CRM? Backend?

SELECT location,
count(location) FROM
users
GROUP BY location
ORDER BY
count(location) DESC;
CITY NO. USERS
London 12345
New York 9876
Boston 8765
Use SQL to understand your customers

Now we could query all of our members behaviour in our database.
Could understand best users by cohort, skillset, country...

Questions to
ask yourselves
on making the
right data
accessible
➔ Where is your customer
journey captured? What
data sources make up
“God View” ? (Not just
plug-and-play GA)
➔ What does you team need
to access data? (tools,
skills, inputs, logins)
➔ Do they know what data
they can access today?
And what data they need
to provide?

Access does not drive growth
Need to draw insights and understand where to focus.

Build models from dataUse data to focus your growth efforts (and avoid dumb decisions)

Economists derive
& manipulate
equations to
understand theory.
Can you do the
same? Can you
model your growth?
Model your growth with equations

Growth model at inbound.org
Article
Weekly
Contributors
Weekly Active
Users
Discussion
0.7x
2.7x
4x
For every one additional discussion, we observed 2.7 contributors.
For every additional weekly contributor, we observed 4x weekly active (logged in) users.

Plot a “line of best
fit” over between
any two:
1. People
2. Actions
3. Objects
Make an educated
guess over what
should go on the
axis for your model.
Find the right things to model
Using linear regression to test the relationship between two variables.
“Lines of best fit” are easy to make in any spreadsheet tool. Easy to understand graphically.

Our models gave us three
hypotheses for growth #focus
Discussions > Articles
Existing contributors > New contributors
↑ Contributors = ↑ WAU
Inbound was never going to succeed on articles alone. Discussions had to be the focus.
Conversation is the content. The comment is the conversion (ideally from previous contributors).

Questions to
ask yourselves
on using data
for models
➔ What types of people,
actions and objects can
you compare?
➔ What is your growth
model?
➔ What are the biggest
levers in your growth
model? #focus

Models do not drive growth
You need to get your team onboard. They need a destination.

Goals from dataHow can you use data to align and motivate your team?

“Management by metrics”
Pull apart. Clash together. A miracle of alignment.

“The North Star Metric is the
single metric that best captures
the core value that your
product delivers to customers.”
★
NSMs shouldn’t be an outcome (e.g. revenue) or short term.
https://blog.growthhackers.com/what-is-a-north-star-metric-b31a8512923f

Assigning objectives behind the North Star
Weekly
Contributors
Weekly Active
Users
Weekly
Discussions
North star metric ★
1500 goal (community team)
↑ Q&A
Reactivate contributors
This is OKRs (Objectives & Key Results) around your growth model.

Build org structure around
your growth model
How do objectives
sub-divide down:
➔ Channels
➔ Regions
➔ Cross-functional
teams
Marketing
Qualified
Leads
Inbound
Paid
Acquisition
SponsorshipsSEMSocialSEO

Waterfall charts = The most powerful motivator
Plot actual vs. target/past
performance cumulatively over time.
(Though this example is rate-based)

Management by metrics all together
NORTH STAR METRIC
Team Objective
Individual ObjectiveIndividual Objective
Combine all four methods.
Derive objectives from your
North Star Metric & Growth
Equation
Use objectives to organise
your team structure.
Report key results as
waterfall charts.

Questions to
ask yourselves
about using
data for goals
➔ What is your company’s
North Star Metric? Is
it long term & relevant
to your entire team?
➔ How does each team and
person drive towards
this? (Growth model →
OKRs → org structure)
➔ How are you reporting
progress towards each
objective? (Waterfall
charts for KPIs)

Goals do not drive growth
Need to move beyond theory & understanding your data

Process with dataHow can data decide what you work on day-to-day? </gut-decisions>

There’s no way you can train people who have
a bad attitude. It’s just recruitment,
redundancy & resignations.
Matt Roach, Sanoma @ CXL Live 2018.

Remember this?
Weekly
Contributors
Weekly Active
Users North star metric ★
1500 goal (community team)
↑ Q&A
Reactivate contributors
We created a repeatable process on the community team to scale Q&A.
Weekly
Discussions

Find & cleanup easily answered questions

Create a segment of ideal contributors
>500 members by timezone, skillset, recent activity etc.

Send an email inviting contributions
Plain text, gmail-style with a simple text link CTA

Promote the active threads
Active threads are valuable to more contributors & readers

Behind the scenes, we unified all our member data.
Enabled our community team to take action quickly.
Synced updates from SQL database to HubSpot
Created segments & properties for key values
Used ready-made segments for Q&A outreach

Oz Content built a lead nurturing process
20X increase in MQLs vs. previous “catch-all” nurture.
Unify and enrich all leads with Clearbit
Create niche webinars for best-fit leads
Email webinar invites to best-fit leads
Mark attendees as MQLs, and pass to sales.

Appcues created a product-qualified leads process
4
New free trials are enriched with Clearbit
Sync best-fit trial users to HubSpot CRM
Slack notifications sent with buying signals
Reps reach out with personalised message

Questions to
ask yourselves
on using data
for process
➔ What are regular
processes that are part
of your growth?
➔ How does your data
inform what you work
on? Where do your
insights come from?
➔ How can you turn
process into a
repeatable playbook?

Process does not drive Growth
Remove humans to scale to outsized results. Where inbound failed.

</pirate analogies>.
To truly grow using your data, you need a different way of thinking.

Rules from dataDefine your decision making upfront. Build automation & process on top.

Pricing
is a rule
https://www.priceintelligently.com/blog/saas-growth-focused-too-much-on-acquisition

Sales
compensation
is a rule
Pay % of subscription $
Pay % retained $
Pay % annual committed $
https://hbr.org/2015/04/the-right-way-to-use-compensation-2

Content modelling is a rule
SEO
content
https://www.siegemedia.com/strategy/2x-content-not-10x-content
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdDTxzfqY-k&list=PLDCBEEAFF5571810B&index=43
➔ Scalable
➔ “Complete”
➔ Authentic

User reviewsHotel features
Location
Searcher context
“solo travellers”
“We speak your
language!”
Proximity
Content modelling is a rule

Content modelling for a blog
Title Title Title
Body Body Body
Author Author Author
Title
Body
Author
Content models referencing other content models
https://www.contentful.com/r/knowledgebase/content-modelling-basics/

Content modelling for a landing page
Title A Title B Title C
CTA
CTA
CTA
Title D
CTA
Video Feature B Video Feature D
Feature A Quotes A VideoFeature C
Quotes A Quotes B Quotes B
Alt. CTA Scale landing pages by “lego-blocking” content together.
Webflow and Instapage can do this, but what about design?

Content = Rules.
Manage content in a
headless CMS
➔ Landing pages
➔ Content blocks
➔ Images
➔ Referencing

Content = Rules.Design = Rules. Dev = Rules.
Next, integrate:
Scripted.com
Mechanical Turk
MonkeyLearn
Translate.com
Clearbit Reveal
G2Crowd
Alexa
… go crazy :)

Use content
modelling to
scale SEO &
landing pages
➔ Quick sales +
product content
➔ Scalable SEO(ish)
➔ 43 unique pages in
one week (<3
minutes per page)

Content recommendation
Content recommendation rules = Content rules + customer data rules

You’ve collected a
ton of customer data
https://juro.com/#privacy-popup

Orchestrate
all your customer
journeys with three
types of rules
SEGMENTS
Who to talk to
TEMPLATES
What to say
WORKFLOWS
When & where to say it

Users invited
> 3 times
Segments as rules:
“Who to talk to”
Country
United States
Demo requested
TRUE
QUALIFIED LEAD
Customer “fit”
VERY GOOD

Templates as rules: “What to say”
Hi {% if user.first_name != blank %}
{{ user.first_name | capitalize }}
{% else %}
there
{% endif %},
{% if user.clearbit_job_role == “marketing”
AND user.crystal_disc_scores contains “D” AND
user.madkudu_customer_fit_segment contains
“high” %}Stop sending generic, send-to-all
spam emails
{% else %}
Website. Email. Chat. Powerful templating like Liquid can transform your messaging.
Personalisation (beyond “hi {firstname}!”) & internationalisation.

Templates as rules: “What to say”
Intellimize predicts and
serves best converting
variations of a page
using known data about
the website visitor and
content’s conversion.

#demo_requests
Hana Abaza
Head of Marketing
Toronto
Fit: Very Good
Signals: Data Warehouse, Salesforce, $SHOP
Matching tech: 8
Blog Reader for 2 months
Interested in data warehousing
Viewed pricing 3 times this week
Templates as
rules: “What
to say”
internally
1
Tech stack
Website
Scoring

Workflows as rules: “When & where to say it”

Control the complexity in your workflows
New user?
END
Profile
complete?
Drip BDrip A
New user?
Profile complete?

New user?
END
Profile
complete?
Connected
Twitter?
Connected
Twitter?
New user?
Profile complete?
Drip A Drip B Drip C Drip D
Connected Twitter?

New user?
Profile complete?
Twitter connected?
Location added?
Location inferred?
Gender?
Interests added?
Skills
Has a blog?
Job seeker?
Job searched?
Job applied?
Article submitted?
Commented?
Bio completed?
Has any badges?
HubSpot connected?
Recently active?
Opens email?
Follows @Inboundorg
Power user?
Upvoted?
Subscribed daily?
Subscribed weekly?
Epic failKeep it simple, stooopid

https://prezi.com/p/rakvqjfhetij/customer-life-cycle/

Control your complexity
Unify Transform Sync
… then let templating do the work

Explore customer journey
orchestration bottom up
LEAD MANAGEMENT
INTENT MANAGEMENT
ALIGN

First, align sales and marketing
(teams own tools own data)
Qualified leads SLA
Talking points for reps
Data for lead assignment
Follow up SLA
Share sales activity
Feedback & attribution
SALES
“source of truth”
MARKETING
“source of truth”

React to leads engagement omnichannel
Unified Lead Profile
Track reactions → Update segments
Meetings
Chat
SMS Mail
Social
Email Website
Phone
Product
Actions, tracking, and reactions.

Manage intent data (in B2B)
Market to teams who show interest before signup.

1. Reveal companies visiting your website

2. Create a segment of best-fit visitors

3. Create prospecting rules (creates profiles)

4. Sync prospects to engagement channels
(and send hyper-personalised messages)

ROAS > 7.5. 6% lead-to-customer. Another >$10k/day with their SDR team.
Both growth teams of ONE. Both driving outsized rules-based growth

Questions to
ask yourselves
on using data
for rules
➔ What are the decision
making moments in your
growth process? Can you
create rules for them?
➔ What is the ideal data
flow for each decision?
➔ How can you unify,
transform & sync your
lead & customer data?

Model Goals Process Rules
Access Goals Process Rules
Access Model Process Rules
Access Model Goals Rules
Access Model Goals Process
Access Model Goals Process Rules
+ + + + = Flying blind
= Dumb decisions
= Misaligned teams
= Chaotic workflow
= Resource starved
= Data-Driven Growth!
+ + + +
+ + + +
+ + + +
+ + + +
+ + + +

Access
Access Model
Access Model Goals
Access Model Goals Process
Access Model Goals Process Rules
Customer data platform
with unified data
Two funnel diagrams with
conversion metrics
Marketing: MQL & PQL
pipeline to sales +
freemium upsell
Quarterly objectives
optimizing rules in
part of the funnel
Automated,
personalised lead
nurturing & handoff
to sales.
+
+ +
+ + +
+ + + +
As an example demand gen growth team...

“Spotted” on
https://www.hull.io/blog/
Gists of my personalised emails:
https://gist.github.com/edfryed
https://www.economist.com/leaders/20
17/05/06/the-worlds-most-valuable-re
source-is-no-longer-oil-but-data
https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides
/set-goals-with-okrs/steps/learn-the
-abridged-history-of-OKRs/
https://www.w3schools.com/sql/
Creating “trendlines” / lines of
best-fit
https://support.google.com/docs/answ
er/6075154?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3
DDesktop
http://edfryed.com/blog/quantified-c
ontent-strategy-building-a-predictiv
e-growth-model-for-inboundorg
https://blog.growthhackers.com/what-
is-a-north-star-metric-b31a8512923f
https://inbound.org/blog/the-future-
of-email-highs-lows-and-lessons-from
-100000-outreach-emails
https://www.hull.io/blog/oz-content-
mofu-hyper-segmentation-playbook/
Resources at hull.io/get/elitecamp
https://www.priceintelligently.com/blog/saas-gro
wth-focused-too-much-on-acquisition
https://hbr.org/2015/04/the-right-way-to-use-com
pensation-2
https://www.siegemedia.com/strategy/2x-content-n
ot-10x-content
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdDTxzfqY-k&list
=PLDCBEEAFF5571810B&index=43
https://www.contentful.com/r/knowledgebase/conte
nt-modelling-basics/
https://webflow.com/cms
https://instapage.com/instablocks
https://middlemanapp.com/
https://www.netlify.com/
https://www.contentful.com/
https://prismic.io/feature/dynamic-layout-conten
t-components
https://juro.com/#privacy-popup
https://www.hull.io/blog/email-personalization/
https://www.intellimize.com/
https://www.madkudu.com/
http://clearbit.com/
https://prezi.com/p/rakvqjfhetij/customer-life-c
ycle/
https://www.hull.io/blog/reveal-loop/
https://www.hull.io/blog/account-based-retargeti
ng-ads/
https://www.hull.io/blog/lead-scoring/
https://www.hull.io/blog/data-enrichment/
https://www.hull.io/blog/web-personalization/
https://www.hull.io/blog/lead-tracking/
https://www.hull.io/blog/email-personalization/
https://www.hull.io/blog/lead-nurturing/
https://www.hull.io/blog/customer-data-integrati
on-without-integrations/

Terviseks!
Ed Fry @edfryed ed@hull.io
hull.io/get/elitecamp

Data-Driven Growth: Lies, Lawyers & Outsized Results

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