Marketing writers: How to hire a marketing writer for your business

Marketing writers: How to hire a marketing writer for your business

Marketing writers: How to hire a marketing writer for your business

Abhik Shome

Founder and Editor-in-chief
The Starting Idea

This is the ultimate guide to hiring a marketing writer for your company. In this ultimate guide, we will cover everything you need to look for while scouting and hiring the best content marketing writer for your business.

In fact, if you stick till the end, you will walk away with the exact skills and characteristic traits that I leveraged as a marketing writer to rank no.1 on Google for competitive keywords like :

 

Startup growth hacking:

Personal branding guide:

Free Lead Generation Software:

And more.

So how did I achieve such great results with my content?

What is the secret sauce to creating web content that garners authority and gets you sales?

The answer lies in mastering the skills of a marketing writer.

But what exactly does a marketing writer do?

In this ultimate guide, we will cover the 14 essential skills and traits of an expert marketing writer.

Look for these specific 14 skills and characteristics while hiring a professional Marketing Writer for your business:

1. Proficiency in understanding and creating SEO content

Great SEO content is the key to a successful content marketing strategy. 

You can do all the technical optimization you need for your site, but without high-quality SEO content, it will be next to impossible to make it rank on search engines and get high-quality traffic.

It all goes to show that SEO content truly is the king of SERPs. Therefore it becomes crucial to create and design your content based on it.

A high-quality marketing writer will know the ins and outs of SERP friendly content that consistently ranks on Google. They will be aware of every major strategy and minor tweaks needed to make your content align with what Google sees as top-quality content, thus making it rank on the 1st page of search results.

But what exactly is SEO content?

SEO content is online content specifically constructed and designed to rank on Google and other search engines. 

In other words, SEO content is created to attract search engine traffic (traffic from sites like Google, Bing, and other search engines).

Without high-quality SEO content, you will not be able to reach the full potential of your content marketing strategy.

High-quality content instantly positions you as an authority in your niche. A well-written content piece makes site visitors spend more time on your site and thus improve its search rankings. It also makes site visitors convert into leads and customers for your business.

The consensus is clear: High-quality SEO content is a powerful strategy to scale your business. So look for a content marketing writer that will consistently create top-quality SEO content.

2. Expertise in optimizing content for keywords

 AA big step in creating high-quality marketing content is keyword research. A marketing writer must know how to optimize content for revenue-generating keywords.

Keyword research provides crucial insights into what your target audience is actually looking for on the internet. It gives you data on the words and phrases people are typing on search engines while looking for information about your industry.

According to Ahrefs, 90.63% of websites get absolutely no traffic from Google.

To make your content rank and get quality traffic, you need to do prior research on what your target audience is searching for and then create a content plan based on it.

Keyword research delivers crucial information like:

– How tough is it to rank for a given keyword?

– How much traffic will you get if you start ranking for a given keyword?

– What kind of content should you create to rank for the keyword?

Being aware of this critical data will give you the framework and direction you need for creating marketing content that brings traffic and sales.

How should a marketing writer do keyword research?

Here are 3 best keyword research tips that your marketing writer should follow to find all the top keywords in your niche:

1. List down seed keywords.

Your content writer should identify and list down your seed keywords. These are the main keywords that define the niche you operate in. 

For example, if your product is a project management SaaS, your seed keyword will be project management software or project management tool.

If still confused, your marketing writer can simply use your Google Search Console Data to get the Search Results report. It will fetch the top 1000 keywords that you are already ranking for.

2. Analyze the keywords your competitor is ranking for.

Another easy way to get all the juicy high-value keywords is by identifying the keywords your competitor is ranking for. Here’s how your marketing content creator can do this:

1) Enter your main seed keyword on Google. See the top sites that are ranking for the keyword. A rule of thumb will be to filter out any mainstream publication appearing in the top results as they will not be an accurate representation of your competitor.

2) Use a free tool like UberSuggest and enter each of the top competitor sites that are ranking for your seed keyword.

3) Go to the traffic analyzer option and click on Keywords. It will give you the list of top keywords that are bringing traffic to your competitor’s site. 

Alternatively, your content creator can use a tool like SEMRush to get this done. They simply need to go to semrush.com and enter your competitor’s domain name. Next, under keyword analytics, click on overview. It will fetch all the top traffic-generating keywords your competitor is ranking for.

Pro Content Marketing Writer keyword research tip – One can generate more keywords by analyzing other hidden competitors. Your marketing writer can do this by using a tool like Ahrefs site explorer. Here are the exact steps:

1. Simply go to the Ahrefs site explorer tool and enter your domain name. 

2. Next, go to the option called competing domains. This will fetch a whole list of competitors that are competing for the same keywords in your niche.

3. Finally, enter each of these domains on Ahrefs site explorer and go to the organic keyword option. It will fetch all the organic keywords this competitor is ranking for.

Ask your marketing writer to do the same for all the top competitors. This will give you a list of high traffic keywords to optimize your site around. 

The Ubersuggest keyword research process

Step 1: Go to UberSuggest and enter your main competitor’s domain. Next, go to the Keywords option under Traffic Analyzer.

Step 2 – See the keywords your competitor is ranking for. Choose the ones that are most relevant to your product and create content based on it.

3. Ability to create link-worthy content using the tactic of link-baiting

Getting backlinks from other sites is seen as a vote of approval by Google. In other words, a website with high-quality backlinks is well-suited to be pushed to the top rankings of Google. 

But building backlinks is hard work. The usual approach of doing manual email outreach takes a lot of time and often ends with your pitch getting rejected.

Well, not anymore. 

The best marketing writers will create link-worthy SEO content that attracts natural backlinks to your site.

This can be done by creating content that is so remarkably detailed and useful that it is cited as a source by other sites.

Here are the 4 best tips for creating link-worthy content:

1. Create data-based posts with original research.

Creating a data-based post with original research is one of the best ways to generate natural backlinks for your business site. This is because content creators often cite original research to back their claims and thus generously link to these types of articles.

A good marketing writer can start by conducting a survey on your email subscribers or do the same on social media, getting their opinion on a particular topic. Next, he can arrange their answers in the form of stats and publish it as a blog piece.

Alternatively, a marketing writer can do a roundup of the top stats on a particular topic and publish it as a blog piece.

2. Create visually-driven content.

Nobody likes to read long drawn out text that looks like academic research. People are visual by nature. Visual assets like graphs, infographics, videos, and images make the content easy to consume. Visual elements also have a higher retaining power.  

A study done by Chartbeat shows that 55% of internet users do not read articles for more than 15 seconds. Then what’s the point of writing those big long chunks of a paragraph?

The ideal rule of thumb is to create 2-3 line paragraphs and spice it up with infographics, graphs, and images based on the article. For infographics and graphs, you can use a simple tool like Canva or Visme

Marketing writer Pro tip – Look for marketing writers who know how to convert your content to video articles. A top-notch marketing writer will take it to the next level by adding a video based on the piece using an article-to-video tool like Rocketium or Lumen5). 

Doing so will make your content stand out from the crowd and increase the session time of users who prefer the visual mode of consumption. This kind of visual content is a natural contender for getting organic backlinks.

3. Create results-based case studies.

Creating case studies from your results is a powerful way to add credibility and proof for your product or service. 

Case studies based on some new technique or strategy that is driving great results for your brand can instantly position you as an authority. This kind of content is a prime contender for attracting natural backlinks.

Brian Dean’s skyscraper technique or Doug Cunnington’s keyword golden ratio are two great examples of case studies that stand out in the industry for their originality and consistency in delivering results. This kind of content has a great word of mouth potential and can generate a ton of backlinks for your site.

An experienced marketing writer knows how to convert results into case studies and present them as a helpful article to nurture quality customers for your business. 

4. Knowledge about the ideal length of content to make it rank on Google

The question that has haunted every beginner SEO since the dawn of Google: How long should my content be to make it rank on Google?

Answer: Go big or go home.

A good marketing writer knows the value of long-form content and will create content for your business based on the principle of creating landmark pieces of content that stand out in the industry.

This is because long-form content is the single most powerful way to make your SEO content work for you and propel you to top rankings.

Long-form content covers a topic in a comprehensive and detailed way, covering more aspects and angles on a given subject than other websites.

This makes the content powerful and authoritative by its sheer depth on the matter.

Why long-form content?

1. Long-form content ranks better.

Back in 2012, SerpIQ did a decisive case study involving 20k keywords and concluded that the average content length of the top 10 results was over 2000 words long. The no.1 spot had an average length of 2416 words, while the 10th spot had an average word count of 2032 words. The conclusion was clear. Long-form content ranks higher on Google.

But why so? Why does long-form content rank better on Google? 

Let me explain.

Long-form content covers all the queries of a user, giving them all the answers they need to know about a given topic in one place. This way, they do not need to go away and check another site to close their knowledge gap. They are getting all the information they need from your site. 

This increases the average session time of a user and reduces the overall bounce rate. This propels your site to higher rankings on search engines.

2. Long-form content converts better and gets you leads.

Long-form SEO content gets you higher conversions. 

It provides transformation for a user, moving them from point A of the problem to point B of the solution, all within the scope of the content piece. 

Since you are successfully solving their pain points, it instantly elevates your credibility and authority in the minds of your target audience. This improves the chances of them becoming a lead or customer.

3. Long-form content gets more backlinks.

Long-form content packs a wealth of information within itself, thus making it stand out with its value and potential.

Since the value attached to this kind of content is extremely high, it becomes a natural contender to attract quality backlinks from sites looking to link high-quality sources to their content.

A good marketing writer or B2B writer will know how to create engaging long-form content that drives value to the reader and thus help it rank on top of Google.

5. Usage of advanced SEO copywriting techniques to convert site visitors into leads and sales

A professional marketing copywriter will know how to create content that converts your website visitor into a business lead for your company.

They should be able to create SEO-optimized content pieces that are filled with Cialdini-styled persuasive triggers. This will lead to your content bringing high-quality search traffic and then converting this traffic into leads and repeat customers for your business.

6. Best Marketing Writers are able to detect profitable but unseen opportunities in your niche.

A good marketing writer will possess the technical know-how to find content opportunities with high traffic and low competition.

They will be able to spot low-competition topics that can generate high revenue-generating traffic to your site.

7. Ability to nurture leads from different stages of buyer awareness

A top-quality marketing writer will know the nuances of creating content that targets different stages of buyer awareness. They will be able to create content that accurately caters to audience sets. They will specifically create content for the following audience groups:

A) Problem aware – Prospects are aware of the problem but not aware of a solution to the problem.

B) Solution aware – Prospects are aware of solutions for the problem but not aware of your product as a possible solution.

C) Product aware – Prospects are aware of your product as a possible solution to the problem but not completely sure to buy from you.

D) Most aware – Prospects are aware of your product and are waiting for a deal from you to press the trigger.

The best content marketing writers will create content catering to each of the awareness groups and nurture them to become repeat customers for your business.

8. Ability to lower your site’s bounce rate

An experienced marketing writer will know how to create content that influences and persuades your site visitor to stay on your site and read more.

This kind of high-quality business writer will know the triggers to captivate your audience and appeal to their inner needs with the content they create for your site.

This will lower the bounce rate of your site and propel you to top rankings on Google.

9. A top-quality marketing content writer will ask you questions.

The sign of an elite marketing writer is in their ability to ask probing questions. A high-quality content marketing writer will come with a set of questionnaires that help them understand your industry, competition, the USP of your product, and its advantages over the competition.

In our SEO content creation service, we ask our clients to fill a deep dive questionnaire that helps us identify the nuances of our client’s product and industry.

10. Proficiency in converting your content into captivating stories that sell

A top marketing writer will be able to connect your product with the needs and aspirations of your target audience.

They will be able to package your content in the form of attention-grabbing stories that pique the interest of your prospective customers.

11. Expertise in writing scroll-stopping headlines that people are compelled to click on

In the world of multiple social media channels and a 15-second attention span, you need something really click-worthy to make your audience stop scrolling and pay attention to you.

A good marketing writer will know how to create headlines with multiple curiosity triggers that your audience feels compelled to click on.

Look for content marketing writers that write headlines that open a loop of curiosity that one feels compelled to close.

Example of such headlines are as follows:

15 productivity tips that will make you dominate your goals within 30 days

I have 8 growth hacks that will double your revenue in 30 days. Do you have 2 minutes?

How to use your industry leader’s marketing budget for your own business success.

(The last one is something we actually used for our magazine).

These kinds of headlines instantly grab attention and open a loop of curiosity that your audience is compelled to close by clicking on the article link.

12. Ability to format your content for featured snippets

A good SEO content writer will know how to use the heading tags to furnish your content for the featured snippet position.

The featured snippets position is the desirable rank zero position that makes your content rank above the usual no.1 ranking article while producing a snippet of the piece on the search engine itself.

13. Prowess in enabling the transformation of the reader

 A great marketing writer will create content that solves the pain points of your target audience.

They will create content that moves the audience from point A of problem and pain to point B of the solution, all within the span of the content piece.

A good marketing writer will cut out the fluff and give actual valuable advice in the form of steps and strategies that actually move the needle of transformation for your target audience.

13. Sole focus on white hat SEO techniques

This is an often underrated quality that actually can give your business huge benefits in the long run. Always look for quality content marketing writers that solely focus on white hat strategies and play the long game in increasing your domain authority.

There are a lot of sly tactics out there that can make you rank in the short term but can do irreparable damage to your website and business in the long run. Avoid such tactics by hiring a proven content marketing writer that solely focuses on white hat techniques like long-form content and consistent value-focused writing.

14. Ability to check your content for advanced grammar and syntax errors

Top-quality grammar and proofreading skills are a must for any writer. In the B2B world, this becomes all the more important as your content represents your product and business image.

Your entire reputation is at stake.

Hire a content marketing writer that knows how to correct advanced grammatical errors like passive voice misuse and text inconsistencies. An ideal writer will have a 95+ score on Grammarly and an equally high-score on the Flesch-Kincaid readability test.

The Next Step: Hire the best marketing writers for your business and scale your revenue growth.

 Looking to hire a professional marketing writer in 2021 that possesses all the above-mentioned advanced content marketing skills?

Work with us directly, and employ our advanced recipes and nuanced growth systems to stay 2 steps ahead of your competition at all times.

Result: A consistent barrage of top-ranking articles that increase your authority and get you a surge of high-quality organic leads and customers for your business.

 When you choose us, you are not just opting for a content writing service. You are choosing to implement some of the most advanced strategies and non-traditional content growth hacks that will scale revenue growth for your business.

We will use our 6+ years of SEO experience, ranking over 2100 keywords on Google (outranking industry heavyweights like HubSpot and Forbes) to scale your brand and outrank your competition.

When you work with us, you will get:

Deep-dive questionnaires – This is the first stage of the content growth system we will implement for your blog.

Here we will probe your niche, asking you questions about your product, its USP, top competitors, customer feedback, and other specific but critical aspects of your business. We will use this information to create SEO-optimized content pieces that generate high-quality leads for your company. This will make your brand the epicenter of all things related to your industry.

Blue Ocean Keyword Research: We will use our advanced content research recipes to uncover blue ocean keyword opportunities with high traffic and low competition. These are the juicy opportunities that no one in your industry is looking at.

Blue Ocean Content Research: We will use tools like Ahrefs, SERanking, and iSpionage to decipher the top revenue-generating content pieces of your competitors. Next, we will use this information to implement a winning content plan for your company.

Blue Ocean Competitor Analysis: We will use our competitor research tools to probe blue ocean keyword opportunities that your competition is ranking for.

Comprehensive Content Outlines: Using SEO copywriting systems, we will create content outlines that touch all the aspects of a given topic in the most comprehensive way possible.

Link-baiting tactics: We will implement nuanced link-baiting tactics so that every long-form guide we create generates links due to the sheer value of the content piece.

Conversational story-driven content: We will create conversational content pieces that appeal to the inner needs and aspirations of your target audience. We will structure the content in the form of relatable stories where your prospect can experience a personal transformation and thus form a connection with your brand.

Powerful SEO copywriting triggers: Here we will fill the content we create for you with advanced SEO copywriting triggers. We will optimize the content to make it rank on the SERPs while at the same time pepper the content with Cialdini-styled copy triggers. This will make the content bring organic buyer-intent search traffic and then convert that search traffic to leads and customers for your business.

Complete SEO optimization: We will optimize your content with our in-house SEO checklists and SOPs that have helped us rank on top of Google for more than 2100 keywords. This includes title tag optimization, meta optimization, keyword density optimization, and more.

Clickworthy headlines: As noted in our examples above, when you work with us, we will ensure that the article headlines we create open curiosity loops for the reader. This will lead to higher click-through rates and more traffic generation for your site.

Adding images with alt-tags: We will add relevant images, screenshots, and GIFs to explain the content visually. Wherever applicable, we will annotate these images and screenshots to express the point further.

We will power it all up with alt-tags to drive SEO traffic.

Explainer Videos: In our effort to create multimedia touchpoints, we will create video articles explaining the main points of the content piece. This will lead to an increase in average session time for your site.

Infographics: Our design team will create beautiful infographics to explain the crux of the article in a visual form. This will help in better retention of the information you are trying to convey. This will lead to better brand recognition.

Text-to-Speech article: We will create realistic AI-voiceovers that will convert your articles into mini audiobooks. This will again aid in better consumption of the content piece.

Grammar optimization: We will use premium grammar checking apps like Grammarly to cross-check the content we create for advanced grammar errors and passive voice misuse.

Editing: If after the questionnaire-driven writing and content outline, you still find some aspect missing, we are happy to offer 2 free rounds of content edits for up to 40% of the total article.

CTA seeding: We will use our conversion triggers recipe to cleverly seed subliminal Call-to-actions throughout your content piece, leading to higher conversions and more revenue for your business.

Organized delivery: We love deadlines. Expect timely delivery of output with clear and precise communication of information.

 

Want to scale your business with a surge of leads, sales, and media authority? DM me on LinkedIn here.

 

Abhik Shome

Abhik helps entrepreneurs shorten their path to online growth with conversion marketing. He is a leading conversion marketing expert and online marketing thought leader. As CEO of Brand Bridge Solutions, an online marketing agency, Abhik's content has been featured in mainstream media outlets like Inc Magazine, Business Insider, Inc ASEAN, YourStory, and Influencive among others. Abhik is the Founder of The Starting Idea, a business growth magazine focused on giving fast-paced actionable marketing strategies to the modern day entrepreneur. He is also the founder of Product Know, an exclusive library of business software and resources. He has recently authored the book The Growth Toolbox covering 210+ tools to grow every aspect of a modern day business. Get it for FREE here. His blogs and articles have been shared and appreciated by top industry experts including Larry Kim, Founder of Wordstream & Mobile Monkey.

SaaS Customer Retention: 11 Game Changing Retention Strategies

SaaS Customer Retention: 11 Game Changing Retention Strategies

SaaS Customer Retention: 11 Game Changing Retention Strategies

This is the ultimate guide to SaaS Customer Retention strategies. In this guide, you will find 11 clever strategies to retain customers and reduce churn.

As competition in the tech world intensifies, SaaS customer retention has become the metric of envy. It is not enough to have a product that customers enjoy. You also need to make sure that you keep them happy and engaged throughout the customer journey.

Even if your product has a high initial conversion rate but if you don’t have a strategy to retain those customers, your revenue will eventually dwindle. To succeed, companies need to develop a customer retention strategy that is agile and effective.

Let us understand it better with some deeper insights.

According to data, it is up to 25 times cheaper to retain an existing customer than acquire a new one.

Also, just retaining 5% of your customers can amount to up to 95% of the revenue.

These are significant numbers and highlight the importance of SaaS customer retention.

So how can SaaS companies optimize for customer retention?

The challenge is that customer retention is not easy. It needs tactical thinking and a deep understanding of your customers’ needs.

It is worth all the effort as it can lead to a long-term, profitable relationship and increased revenue opportunities.

Based on that, I have compiled 11 game-changing SaaS customer retention strategies that you can apply today to reduce churn. Though these tips can be used for other industries, they are best applicable for SaaS customer retention efforts.

Swipe them and see your MRR grow.

1. Offer discounts/promotions with an element of surprise

A smart strategy for increasing retention is to have a built-in element of surprise in your product value.

What kind of surprises can you offer your customers? You can select something of value to your customers and relevant to your product.

Here are a few examples:
1. Extra pro-level features
2. Extension of usage limits
3. A free month of service

You get the drift. Offer something of value that incentivizes customers to continue their subscription to redeem it.

Pro tip: Organize monthly competitions where you reward customers with the best use cases related to your product. This creates a gamified experience leading to higher retention while also giving you valuable case studies that you can use to market your SaaS product.

2. Optimize the customer experience

When you are in the SaaS business, you are not just selling the tech but also the experience.

No one likes a product that feels jarring and has a tacky customer experience. To fix this, review your product functionality, usability, speed, customer support, and other elements that come in the way of using your product.

You can narrow down the problems by launching a customer experience survey. You can ask your customers specific open-ended questions about their experience while using your product. You can incentivize the survey responses by offering them a free month of service or extended storage.

Once you get the replies, you can study and analyze the fault lines in your customer experience and work out a focused approach toward fixing them.

3. The bonus follow up

Customer support moves the needle in terms of customer retention. But I am not talking about the generic customer support that any AI chatbot can do. Instead, I am talking about going the extra mile with personalized bonus follow-ups with your customer.

A bonus follow-up can be set anywhere between 3 days to a week after the initial query. Customer support can send a message inquiring if the customer was able to solve the problem.

You can add some value to the message by sending some more resources or a personalized video message where you discuss the solutions in more detail.

Very few companies are doing this, and guess what – Your customers will love it and keep coming back for the experience.

4. Smart Onboarding with gamification

Use gamification tactics to engage and motivate users in the onboarding process. It helps make the onboarding process enjoyable rather than something tedious.

When users sign up for your product, you can provide them with the option to choose a profile avatar to create an element of personalization. Next, use progress bars to indicate how close they are to completing the tasks required for unlocking the next level in your product. Finally, provide a checklist of these tasks so that users know what needs to be done and don’t feel overwhelmed when signing up for your product.

You can also double down on gamification by giving badges and ranks to users for completing certain milestones. You can spice it up further by offering extended limits and features for those who finish certain milestones.

5. Sending a benefit + progress report

Your app features may not communicate your value as much as the actual results. You can apply an interesting retention hack by sending progress reports to your users. The report lists the user activities and the results achieved from them.

For example, if it is proposal-based software, you can list the money earned from all the successful proposals. If it is a text editing software, you can list the number of errors corrected (similar to what Grammarly does).

Doing so communicates the tangible real-world value of the app and makes customers continue to use the service.

6. Publishing research-rich white papers and content pieces

A SaaS business should continuously produce high-value content pieces rich with insights and actionable data. These content pieces should primarily aim at solving your customer’s pain points definitively, with lots of actionable growth strategies.

When you commit to such an ongoing content strategy, you show your users that you’ll always be there for them. You help them overcome their challenges by providing valuable content. Your users will become loyal to you and stick with your product.

7. Relatable case studies

Talking about product features is one thing, but sharing actual case studies of how your product helped different customer archetypes is at another level altogether.

Sharing relatable case studies that directly pertain to product use cases can have a powerful effect on customer retention. This way, customers can look beyond features and get inspired by actual use cases that have moved the needle for similar businesses. All this builds a lot of trust and tangible value around the product leading to customers sticking with the product longer.

8. Build a value-based community around your product

People come for the product but stay for the community. A good community surrounding your product creates a lot of value addition that makes customers stay with the product longer.

Customers can find other like-minded individuals and network with each other apart from sharing valuable resources and use cases.

Also, an active community changes the perception of a SaaS product from mere clicks on a screen to actual real faces who are actively using the product and talking about it. This adds a lot of trust to the product.

You can double down on your community by organizing community-exclusive webinars, tutorials, and events. This way, the membership to the community will feel like a VIP ticket for active customers who can now access additional resources due to being subscribed to the product.

9. Interview star users

Do a video or a written interview of star users who have greatly benefited from the product. Feature them on a podcast and share it via your newsletter and social channels. Showcasing 2-3 interviews per month full of user-generated tactics will lead to a results-focused narrative around your product. This positive messaging will lead to higher trust and retention.

10. Offer alternatives to cancellation

When the user is hell-bound to cancel, you can offer some last ditch creative alternatives like pausing their subscription for a month without a charge or offering a lighter version of your product as a cheaper alternative.

These finance-sensitive solutions can lead to lowering your churn dramatically.

11. Use customer retention tools.

You can use a number of customer retention tools to engage your customers and make them stick with your product.

Here are a few options you can try:

KingSumo: For organizing contests and giveaways.

Woorise: Another alternative for creating contests.

Circle: For hosting engaging communities (where people can ask questions, earn badges, etc.).

Proof: Collect,manage, and showcase reviews from various social media sources.

Endorsal: Collect and display testimonials while syncing with review platforms like Facebook, Yelp, and Google My Business.

VideoPeel: Collect and showcase video testimonials.

The Next Step

These were my top tactics for B2B SaaS customer retention. What do you think about these tactics? Any tactic that I missed? Please comment and let me know.

Feeling the itch to go pro with clever marketing strategies? Check out our FREE Growth Club newsletter.

Want to go more advanced and have a growth call with me to discuss your specific customer retention pain points? Connect with me via LinkedIn here.

 

 

Abhik Shome

Abhik helps entrepreneurs shorten their path to online growth with conversion marketing. He is a leading conversion marketing expert and online marketing thought leader. As CEO of Brand Bridge Solutions, an online marketing agency, Abhik's content has been featured in mainstream media outlets like Inc Magazine, Business Insider, Inc ASEAN, YourStory, and Influencive among others. Abhik is the Founder of The Starting Idea, a business growth magazine focused on giving fast-paced actionable marketing strategies to the modern day entrepreneur. He is also the founder of Product Know, an exclusive library of business software and resources. He has recently authored the book The Growth Toolbox covering 210+ tools to grow every aspect of a modern day business. Get it for FREE here. His blogs and articles have been shared and appreciated by top industry experts including Larry Kim, Founder of Wordstream & Mobile Monkey.

12 Best Growth Hacking Strategies and Examples of All Time

12 Best Growth Hacking Strategies and Examples of All Time

12 Best Growth Hacking Strategies and Examples of All Time

Abhik Shome

Founder and Editor-in-chief
The Starting Idea

Here are 12 innovative growth hacking strategies startups can use to grow exponentially in 2024. These are the same growth marketing strategies used by now iconic startups before they were famous.

We have arranged these startup growth hacking examples based on sheer ingenuity and unorthodox marketing creativity that made these startups first explode in the market.

But first, let’s tackle some basics.

What is growth hacking?

In simple words, growth hacking is an innovative and unorthodox way to get massive results fast while bypassing old-established processes.

In marketing terms, growth hacking means to implement non-traditional marketing strategies that are driven by creativity and data to get massive results fast, all the while spending little to no money on getting these results.

Growth hacking is often used by early-stage startups that are bootstrapped for funds.

What is the goal of a growth hacking strategy?

The ultimate goal of a growth hacking strategy plan is to get as many customers and leads as possible without spending too much money. That is why growth hacking is the go-to marketing response for an early-stage startup.

Now that we are clear on what exactly is growth hacking, and its goal, let’s dive right into some actionable strategies to grow your startup in 2024.

Read on to get a point by point breakdown of famous startup growth hacks along with the software and resources you need to execute the strategy yourself.

1. The YouTube Growth Hack

One of the no.1 growth hacking strategies for new startups is to grow a brand on YouTube.

YouTube is one of the biggest channels for content consumption. A long term strategy to grow your brand here can give you a far bigger ROI than buying ad space on television or billboards.

When you consistently post valuable content, it builds trust, reputation, and makes your brand trigger specific associations that can benefit your product greatly.

One of the best examples of a famous startup using YouTube to growth hack its brand is the camera company, GoPro.

GoPro used YouTube effectively to showcase its overall product experience by posting videos captured through the device.

After demonstrating its high-definition video experience and building a fanbase, it doubled down on brand building by asking its users to post their videos and tagging GoPro.

GoPro would then go on to post the best fan-made videos on its official channel, thus giving acknowledgment and exposure towards its fanbase.

This led to massive relationship building and brand loyalty for GoPro among its fans.

All of this led to increased views on YouTube, and ultimately more loyal customers for the brand. GoPro is currently at 7.93 million subscribers and counting.

Imagine how much it would have cost the company to reach out to such a massive audience with paid ads?

Another great example of YouTube growth hacking is Red Bull.

Being an energy drink, Red Bull has its brand revolving around an active, high adrenaline lifestyle.

They effectively promote this lifestyle by posting videos about daredevil stunts and athletic feats, thus living the values of a high energy brand.

The channel has over 8.95 million subscribers and has done wonders for Red Bull’s brand association.

How to apply this growth hack for your product?

To implement this for your brand, you need to start a YouTube channel and start posting consistent content around a topic.

The best idea for content creators right now will be to post consistent content on a specific niche and create videos giving solutions to all the problems in that niche.

You can use a growth hacking tool like TubeBuddy to grow your YouTube channel in a fast and strategic way.

It will give you critical insights, like search volume, ranking difficulty, related keywords, and tags.

All of this can help you optimize your YouTube SEO and help you strike YouTube gold by making your videos rank high in your niche.

The nifty tool also comes with other creator-focused tools like thumbnail generator, end screen templates, and canned responses.

A must-have tool for all YouTube creators.

2. Product Integration

Why build a user base from scratch when you can leverage the product in front of a beloved platform with tens of millions of highly engaged and active users?

This growth hack is called the platform integration hack and has been made famous by Airbnb‘s use of Craigslist‘s platform to grow their user base substantially.

Though Airbnb was a much more sophisticated and verifiable platform than Craigslist, it lacked the Craigslist user base.

So in order to build its own user base, Airbnb implemented a platform integration hack by listing all the listings in their platform simultaneously on Craigslist.

Any user searching for vacation rentals ran into a barrage of professional listings with Airbnb’s name inviting clients to click on it.

Side by side, Airbnb also used an email campaign to inform people who posted on Craigslist about how much more easy and convenient it was to post on Airbnb too.

How to apply this growth hacking strategy for your startup?

You can implement this startup growth hack by first figuring out the platforms that have a large amount of your user base.

Think about the sites and places your target customer frequents and then create tie-ups with these companies and properties to promote your product.

The tie-up can be monetary, where you offer them a certain amount of money in exchange for the placement.

Alternatively, you can offer to make them your affiliate where you pay them a certain percentage per sale made through their platform.

If you are a SaaS startup, you can tie up with a site like AppSumo to get the initial sales and user base for your product.

AppSumo is a SaaS marketplace with almost a million subscribers. They run lifetime deals on software and effectively market new SaaS startups to generate sizeable revenue.

As a startup, you can tie up with them and offer your product on their platform.

3. Build Virality into your product.

Once a product has virality built into its functionality, the user base can skyrocket fairly quickly.

Take the case of WhatsApp. Once you started to use the product, you felt encouraged to invite your friends and family on to the platform so they can interact with you via free calls, messages, etc.

As they came on board and started using it, they felt the same encouragement to invite people in their own network so they can use the product to its full potential.

Thus virality was built into the very functionality of WhatsApp thus led to its massive popularity. Most platform based products have virality built into them.

Some other examples of platforms with viral factors are FacebookCraigslist, and LinkedIn.

How to apply this growth hacking strategy for your startup?

To implement thisstartup growth hack, you need to provide a certain value (with WhatsApp it was free calls on the internet) which is exclusive to your platform and can be availed when other users get on the platform with you.

4. Have a fairly simple homepage.

Having a very simple homepage helps to make a decision-making process much simpler as it removes confusion or over thinking amongst the minds of potentials users/customers.

Some companies which have had great success implementing this are QuoraTwitter, and Dropbox.

How to apply this growth hacking strategy for your startup?

To implement this startup growth hack include one headline highlighting the value proposition of your startup along with a simple and clear CTA.

This makes the users understand what you and your startup are all about in a very quick, simple, no-frills way.

Clear and concise information allows them to take action fast.

5. Implement gamification into the product

Implementing gamification (point scoring, giving ranks, creating competition with other users, having rules of play) is a much-overlooked marketing technique which can instantly hack growth of a product.

Human beings by nature are competitive and by creating the atmosphere of game playing with rewards for better performance can lead to instantly high graphs of engagement in the product.

The company which has mastered this the best is LinkedIn.

LinkedIn users are prompted to fill their profile, unlocking various levels of achievement, based on how much information they upload on their profiles.

The levels of achievement are marked with names such as All Star, expert, advanced, etc., which act as great social proofs in a user’s professional network.

Another employment of gamification is the endorsement feature where LinkedIn users can be endorsed by each other for particular skillsets.

Each skill shows the number of times it has been endorsed by other users with their profile pic showing next to the skillset.

Profiles with endorsements are 13x more viewed according to LinkedIn.

How to apply this growth hacking strategy for your startup?

To implement this growth hack for your startup business, use a tool like Vyper to implement gamification, and get your users engaged with your content.

Use their gamification widget tool to give points to your users when they complete an action (for example, submit their email to access a product).

Next, as they get the access link via their email. You can offer more rewards that the user can unlock when they gain more points.

These points can be gained by doing other actions like subscribe to your YouTube channel, follow you on Twitter, etc.

6. The Branding hack

It basically means getting your brand and its USP featured within the operations of the product as a free advertisement.

This hack was best used by Hotmail in 1996 when it had around 20,000 subscribers.

It opted to market its service directly to the friends, family, and colleagues of its users by adopting a fairly simple strategy – Put a clickable tagline at the end of every mail sent from its platform saying, “Get your free email from Hotmail”.

When the recipient of the email clicked on this tagline, he or she got directed to the signup page of Hotmail.

This growth hack alone skyrocketed the company user base to 1 million users within 6 months of its implementation. 

Implement it by featuring heavy to light branding within a freemium business model.

Your branding is featured when the user uses the free plan of your product.

How to apply this growth hacking strategy for your startup?

To implement this growth hack for your startup business, create a coming soon landing page with some exciting copy that incentivizes the user to sign up for launch updates.

Once they sign up, make them re-direct to a viral waiting list page. You can use Vyper to get this done. On the waiting list page, show them their position on the waiting list.

Next, incentivize them to climb higher on the waiting list by offering rewards for people who will be on top 10 or top 20 of the list on the product launch date.

These points can be awarded when the user does an action like your page, share your blog post, or follow you on Twitter.

Also, make sure that the rewards on offer connect with the problem that your main soon-to-be-launched product solves.

It can be giving upgrades in personalization, swifter delivery, or complementary products to make the original product more impactful.

All this will make your channels grow while making your users highly engaged and excited about your product launch.

7. Create a viral waiting list.

Another very interesting growth hacking method filled with the vitality quotient is a viral waiting list.

Typically when you launch a product, you will create a landing page to describe it to a wider audience.

The hack here is to make use of this landing page one step further and take advantage of it even before the product launch.

How to apply this growth hacking strategy for your startup?

The idea is to turn your landing page into a viral waiting list.

To implement this growth hack for your startup, you can use a tool like Vyper or ReferralHero.

What it does is it places your subscribers into a queue, which enables you to create a rewards-based program.

So suppose a user gets enticed by your offering and signs up for your launch updates, he/she will be displayed the position they are on in the waiting list.

Here, you can create a rewards program and announce whoever is on the top 10 of the waiting list, will get a special reward (the reward can be a webinar, an exclusive ebook, exclusive add-on, whatever corresponds and resonates best with your product).

The rules for climbing the waiting ladder will be to share the page on Facebook, tweet about the product, etc.

This will create virality and popularize your product message, thus increase its hype and curiosity before the launch.

The end result will be higher customer/user acquisition even before launch.

The app will turn them into your brand ambassadors.

British growth hacker Vin Clancy used this growth hacking method prior to launching his book, Secret Sauce, thus creating the most successful Kickstarter program for the niche of growth hacking.

This growth hack was also used by Mailbox.

After downloading the Mailbox app, you would be told exactly which number in the queue are you.

8. The Referral hack also known as the ‘Dropbox hack’.

This is a highly effective hack and though Dropbox did not invent this method they surely are one of the most famous examples of this hack, as they successfully increased their sign ups by 60% by using this simple hack.

Anyone who signed up for Dropbox got an option to increase their storage space by inviting their friends to try the product.

The minute the referred friend signed up for Dropbox, the original user received more storage.

But what were the incentives for the referred friend to sign up?

Dropbox offered extra cloud storage to the referred friend too if they signed up using the link given by the original user.

As mentioned, this increased the sign ups dramatically and generated viral demand for the links among friend circles.

How to apply this growth hacking strategy for your startup?

This hack is perfect for SaaS companies which work on some sort of credit per month basis and can be implemented by using a tool like EarlyParrot. One key point to Dropbox’s success is the deep integration of their referral program within their SaaS.

9. The Data fuelled growth hack

Ask any growth hacker and they will say data analytics is by far one of the best resources they can have at their disposal.

This is because seeing the correct data can tell you a lot about what is working in a business, what is not, and what needs to be done. 

Twitter used data to solve an onboarding problem it faced early on in its life.

Twitter found out that a new sign up will likely become a core user if it follows 30 or more people.

Following this, Twitter started to focus on suggesting new users an option to import contacts in order to hit this number.

How to apply this growth hacking strategy for your startup?

To implement this growth hacking strategy, start by studying your analytics and data.

Use the freely available Google Analytics to study how your users are interacting with your website and what pages are most popular.

Next, you can go pro by using a freemium heatmap tool like Hotjar to study the aspects of your site where users are most engaged and also the areas where they are dropping off.

Also, you can use Hotjar to create user feedback surveys, asking people to rate various features and aspects of your site, and inviting them for suggestions.

All of this will give you enough ideas to optimize your product for growth.

10. Seed the initial content.

A lot of famous companies and products used this technique to generate Initial user interest and eventual traction.

Create as much content as possible internally and put it out there on your website.

This method is especially useful for platform based websites which rely on user generated content.

The founders of Reddit used this tactic to fill their UGC based site with the initial content which acted as an incentive for other users to start creating their own content on the site.

How to apply this growth hacking strategy for your startup ?

You can implement this growth hack if you are mainly a content-based company.

For example, if you have a blog, you can start by publishing a bunch of articles initially and promote them through cheap FB and Twitter ads.

Below the article, you can have Call-To-Action inviting readers to write for your blog with a link taking them to your “write for us” page.

On the “write for us” page, you can list down all the requirements and invite the user to submit their content piece for your site.

11. Create exclusivity around your product.

People seek exclusiveness and rewards.

Hence, one way to make your product sought-after by many people is by restricting its access and not giving it to them too easily.

If you can make prospective users perform a certain task or work in order to “earn” your product, then they start seeing your product as a reward and thus position it as such.

Another way is to restrict access and create an ambiance of “inner circle” built around your product so that one can get access to it only through an invitation. 

Gmail used this approach by letting only invited individuals to sign up and use its product.

This ‘entry by invitation only’ approach created a huge curiosity and demand for the product as it was not accessible to all.

Another famous startup which skyrocketed through this growth hack was Pinterest.

Exclusivity fuelled desire and led to explosive growth for the social media platform. 

How to apply this growth hacking strategy for your startup?

To implement this strategic growth hack for your startup, think of aspects of your product that you can make gated with VIP access.

Think of a secret plan, or a higher than premium plan, which is only available for access once a year.

This kind of exclusivity will create intense demand for your product.

12. The ‘Tinder’ growth hack

This is a very interesting hack which involves first targeting the right network (most preferred users who will drive other users) and then installing an incentive tactic as a method to get these preferred users involved with the product.

After this is done successfully, the presence of the preferred users will drive more highly engaged users into the product who will now see the product at a higher value.

Tinder used this interesting tactic to grow its initial base of most preferred users.

They organized exclusive frat parties at colleges and allowed entrance to only those students who downloaded the application.

Once these hip and influential frat users were onboard and started using the app, it attracted other users towards the platform to interact with them for hopes of finding a match and so on it spread across the United States.

Tinder targeted sorority girls as its early adopters. They would go to sorority chapters, give a presentation and have all the girls in the meeting install the app.

After that, they would go to the corresponding brother’s fraternity and make them open the app to see a platform filled with cute girls, which got them interested in using the app.

How to apply this growth hacking strategy for your startup?

You can implement this growth hack by targeting your most preferred users (users whose onboarding will increase the value of the app and bring more users which in a dating application’s case are female users) at places where they are likely to be and incentivize them in some way to come onboard.

This event will trigger the network effect to take shape and bring in more users who will now see the platform having a higher value and thus engage more with it.

Another way to apply this growth hack can be to distribute your product to influencers in exchange for an honest review or shoutout.

The influencers will then post on social media about your product or be seen using it by their large fan base, thus leading to mass promotion and reach for your product.

And with this point, we finish our list. As you can see, growth hacks by design invoke creative, unorthodox tactics as means to achieve growth. 

 A lot of them are not conventional, but I guess that’s what makes it all the MORE FUN!

Tell us what you think of these growth hacks and SHARE these famous stories behind them with your friends.

Have a famous growth hack story which you would like to share and get featured for? Share it in the comments section.

Abhik Shome

Abhik helps entrepreneurs shorten their path to online growth with conversion marketing. He is a leading conversion marketing expert and online marketing thought leader. As CEO of Brand Bridge Solutions, an online marketing agency, Abhik's content has been featured in mainstream media outlets like Inc Magazine, Business Insider, Inc ASEAN, YourStory, and Influencive among others. Abhik is the Founder of The Starting Idea, a business growth magazine focused on giving fast-paced actionable marketing strategies to the modern day entrepreneur. He is also the founder of Product Know, an exclusive library of business software and resources. He has recently authored the book The Growth Toolbox covering 210+ tools to grow every aspect of a modern day business. Get it for FREE here. His blogs and articles have been shared and appreciated by top industry experts including Larry Kim, Founder of Wordstream & Mobile Monkey.

How to Grow Your Brand on Social Media for Generating Leads and Customers

How to Grow Your Brand on Social Media for Generating Leads and Customers

How to Grow Your Brand on Social Media for Generating Leads and Customers

Abhik Shome

Founder and Editor-in-chief
The Starting Idea

How many of you reading this are posting regularly on social media?

Social Media right now is the hottest free source out there for growing a brand & generating leads/customers for your business.

Having said that, a lot of people are clueless about how to leverage it in a way so that you can get max ROI for your brand and business.

Here’s the key mindset to take note of when posting on social media:

Post on social media in a way that makes you behave like a human and is focused on providing value first and encourage real conversations through it.

In other words, act like a real person on social media. Act like a human being and not a robot who pushes a bunch of links out.

Post a variety of content that is focused on providing value and encourages others to have conversations with your brand.

My team and I have figured out a system of strategies and tools to get a lot of social media growth in a short time.

Here they are:

1. Deep dive in research

Research the best performing social media posts of your industry leaders/competitors in terms of blog links and images. Also for safe measure, see the weakest performing posts, so you know what kind of posts to navigate from.

Tools you can use for researching your industry leader’s/competitor’s social media profiles:

2. Post a variety of content

Create an assortment mixture of content pieces in the form of value bomb videos, inspirational videos, inspirational quotes, viral interactive posts, blog pieces, etc.

There are many ways to find viral content, but one easy way is to perform a Google search ‘viral inspirational posts’ and then choose the Images tab.

Here is a list of certain terms you can search for:

  1. Viral Engagement Posts
  2. Viral Inspiration Posts
  3. Viral Tweets
  4. Viral Quote Posts
  5. Viral Interactive Posts
  6. Viral Instagram Posts

and so on. 

3. Post at least 8-10 times on social media every day

A lot of people who miss out on your posts in the day will see you appear on their newsfeed at night.

Do not leave out a single time schedule/time zone of your target audience.

Always be visible for having an omnipresence effect on their lives.

4. Use recycling post feature

Create a minimum of 40 posts that is an eclectic mix of interactive posts, quotes, blog pieces, videos, CTAs etc., and then schedule them with recycled posts feature.

This constant and spanned visibility of same content through time will cause a mere-exposure effect.

What is the mere exposure effect, you ask?

Well, have you noticed certain songs you find distasteful and ugly in the beginning slowly start to grow on you to the point you eventually start liking them?

That’s mere exposure effect where we develop favorable feelings to things when we are constantly exposed to them.

Use this to your advantage by putting your best foot forward and constantly showing it off in front of your target audience in strategic bursts.

Note – Remember to schedule them in such a way that no post is repeated twice in a very short time.

Tools you can use for post recycling:

Want us to manage your social media growth for you?

Just shoot an email to abhik@thestartingidea.com

5. Use contrasting colors & patter interrupt images

Colors and images matter in terms of conversion.

Use a color contrasting to the platform on which you are posting. Since most major networks (FB, LinkedIn, Twitter) are some shade of blue, try posting colors that are in contrast to the various shades of blue, but not overdo it.

Mix and match it with pattern interrupt images.

Tools to design social media posts:

Websites to find pattern interrupt images:

6. Follow Jab Jab Jab Right Hook Approach of Gary Vee

Post valuable helpful pieces of content that engages, informs and entertains your audiences (called value posts) and mix it with the occasional sprinkling of an ASK post (where you ask them to commit to a Call-To-Action, i.e, sign up for your lead magnet, join your newsletter, buy your product, etc.).

The order of this can be VVVVA (V=Value post, A=Ask post).

7. Follow and add the people who are following other influencers in your industry

Tools to use:

  1. Socialbee for following competitor’s followers.
  2. Meet Alfred for adding people connected with your competitor’s LinkedIn profile.

8. Create a messenger bot

Double down by creating a messenger bot which delivers blog pieces and lead magnets to your audiences.

Tools to use:

Want us to manage your social media growth for you?

Just shoot an email to abhik@thestartingidea.com

Abhik Shome

Abhik helps entrepreneurs shorten their path to online growth with conversion marketing. He is a leading conversion marketing expert and online marketing thought leader. As CEO of Brand Bridge Solutions, an online marketing agency, Abhik's content has been featured in mainstream media outlets like Inc Magazine, Business Insider, Inc ASEAN, YourStory, and Influencive among others. Abhik is the Founder of The Starting Idea, a business growth magazine focused on giving fast-paced actionable marketing strategies to the modern day entrepreneur. He is also the founder of Product Know, an exclusive library of business software and resources. He has recently authored the book The Growth Toolbox covering 210+ tools to grow every aspect of a modern day business. Get it for FREE here. His blogs and articles have been shared and appreciated by top industry experts including Larry Kim, Founder of Wordstream & Mobile Monkey.

5 Free Organic Traffic Sources to Scale Your Business Rapidly

5 Free Organic Traffic Sources to Scale Your Business Rapidly

5 Free Organic Traffic Sources to Scale Your Business Rapidly

Abhik Shome

Founder and Editor-in-chief
The Starting Idea

Having warm traffic coming to your site is what content marketing dreams are made up of. A lot of marketers evangelize paid ads as the fastest way to grow an online business.

This is true as paid ads done right are highly effective. But not every one of us has the budget to support a continuous ongoing campaign through Facebook Ads and Google AdWords to generate leads. Thankfully, the current state of online media offers a host of sources which can help generate a ton of traffic and scale our businesses rapidly.

Here are 5 free organic traffic sources you can use to grow your online business extremely fast and in the process become an influencer in each of these channels.

1. Quora

Simply go to Quora and search for the keywords related to your niche. For example, if your niche is online marketing, just type the term on Quora’s search function.

You will be presented with a multitude of questions related to your keyword. Go to each question and answer them. Try to provide the maximum value you can without holding back.

Remember the more value you provide upfront, more the reader will be incentivized to read further on what you have to say.

After doing this, add links to your blog which further expand or give a more detailed answer to the question.

Again, put only appropriate links which add further value to your answer.

If you do these two things correctly, you will get a ton of hot traffic on your site, keen to get the value you are providing.

Have a lead capture form in place to attract this audience and turn them into leads for your business.

It’s no secret by now that LinkedIn pushes content out more heavily than Facebook.

The reason is simple – they are hungry, for great content. Mastering your LinkedIn game right now will result in a lot of traffic coming your way.

This is because whenever a person in your network will like the post, it will be displayed to his or her connections, thus creating a viral effect.

Entrepreneurs who are taking advantage of it are getting an average 5k to 10k views on their posts.

Make use of it before it gets saturated. Take a part of your blog post and publish it on LinkedIn.

Put a Call-To-Action in the end, saying “Click to continue reading” which will direct readers to your website. It can result in massive vetted traffic.

Reddit is the place to be for finding internet gold. It is divided into sections called Subreddits, with each Subreddit dedicated to a particular niche.

So, simply go to Reddit and search for your niche, then join the Subreddits dedicated to that niche.

Now if not being spammy holds true for all the sources here, it is 10 TIMES more applicable when it comes to Reddit.

Redditors are notoriously famous for having zero tolerance for spam and promotional posts.

To avoid getting shadow banned, give as much value as you can. Share other people’s content apart from your own, do not hold back when sharing yours and where necessary provide the links for further reading.

A perfect way to do this is by getting some karma points (around 50+) before posting anything remotely promotional.

Karma happens organically when you constantly give value to discussions in the Reddit community.

This way the community knows you are an active user who adds value and not a salesman who dumps content and leaves.

4. Medium

The easiest way to ensure that your content will be read is through Medium.

It has a well-established audience base. You can leverage your content there to get more views from relevant audiences by using its tag features which are great for SEO purposes.

Also, all major publications are active on medium, so you have a higher chance of connecting with them.

To further add the benefits, your followers on Medium are notified every time you publish a post. You can also connect your existing Twitter and Facebook account to boost your following from the first day itself.

A great way to get traffic to your site is by putting 2/3rd of your post on Medium and adding a Call-To-Action at the end of it to lure the warm traffic to your blog.

FB groups are a great organic way to get to your target audience and get known in your niche circles fast.

Like it or not, FB is the most used social media channel and that is where people hang out the most.

Use the FB group search function and type in the keywords related to your industry.

Vet the groups you want to join by seeing if they ask entry questions before they allow you to join. This is a great way to tell if the group is spam protected and has active members or not.

After being allowed to join, read the group rules carefully and start engaging with other people’s posts by commenting and adding value to the discussion.

The idea is to get seen as a group regular so that the community adopts you as one of their own.

After doing this for a week or two, start posting valuable content in the group BUT please DO NOT post links in the group.

Due to the FB algorithm changes, most self-respecting groups have a strict no link policy to avoid spam and affiliate links. Respect it and simply post valuable content.

How will this benefit you in getting website traffic you ask?

Well, if you keep posting valuable content, interested people will visit your profile to see who you are. Here is where the magic will happen.

Make sure you have your website link and a short description of it on your bio and if possible in your cover photo.

More often than not, the visitors will click through to your site and be led to the funnel where you can capture them through a sign-up form.

Yes, the funnel is a little longer compared to the other sources listed here, but it is a great opportunity to get leads in your industry from where they are most active at – Zuckerberg’s lair.

An all conclusive pro-tip

Here is a little secret technique which you can use to ensure you get a viral boost in all the sources I mentioned.

Simply establish a telegram group of fellow content marketers in your niche, and every time new content goes out from you on any of these channels, ask them to engage with it through likes, comments, etc.

Doing this will tell the platform algorithm that the content you posted is driving instant engagement and hence will be pushed more.

Abhik Shome

Abhik helps entrepreneurs shorten their path to online growth with conversion marketing. He is a leading conversion marketing expert and online marketing thought leader. As CEO of Brand Bridge Solutions, an online marketing agency, Abhik's content has been featured in mainstream media outlets like Inc Magazine, Business Insider, Inc ASEAN, YourStory, and Influencive among others. Abhik is the Founder of The Starting Idea, a business growth magazine focused on giving fast-paced actionable marketing strategies to the modern day entrepreneur. He is also the founder of Product Know, an exclusive library of business software and resources. He has recently authored the book The Growth Toolbox covering 210+ tools to grow every aspect of a modern day business. Get it for FREE here. His blogs and articles have been shared and appreciated by top industry experts including Larry Kim, Founder of Wordstream & Mobile Monkey.

4 Ways How Startups Can Improve Internal Communication

4 Ways How Startups Can Improve Internal Communication

4 Ways How Startups Can Improve Internal Communication

Olga Mykhoparkina
Guest Contributor

Congratulations! Your startup is successful and expanding quickly. You might be excited about your growing business (and you should be!) but a new challenge awaits you soon.

While beginning a successful startup is half the battle, managing internal communication can become as large of a challenge as getting your business off the ground.

Proper internal communication is crucial to the continued growth of a prosperous startup; when you are able to make sure that all your employees are on the same page and devoted to the same mission, your customers will notice.

Here are the top four ways how your growing startup can improve internal communication.

Onboard Effectively

One of the largest barriers startups face in their internal communication is the onboarding of new employees to the company’s mission.

Working in a new environment can be stressful and intimidating, especially within a small startup culture.

Your business can alleviate this stress by introducing new employees to his or her coworkers, and by clearly defining the roles of each member of the team.

This will allow new employees to direct questions and concerns to the proper team members.

Meetings are Out.

Online Communication is In.

The successful startups are 7x more likely to use online communication tools instead of traditional face-to-face meetings than failing startups do.

New online communication tools provide superior inter-departmental support because they require less time than organizing a traditional meeting, plus the added benefit of having all information readily accessible at all times.

For example, business messenger Chanty provides unlimited messaging history to its users, eliminating the need for note-taking at meetings.

Additional apps like Slack and eXo also remove the need for meetings by allowing all team members to communicate instantly.

Encourage your team to skip the meetings and move internal communications online, and be sure to create department-specific channels to make relevant information immediately available.

Crush Cultural Barriers

Cultural differences can cause huge breakdowns in communication – this is especially true if all members of your team do not share the same level of language they use to communicate.

Providing the tools for employees to improve the language they use at work is an excellent and effective way to improve internal communication, as well as communication with customers and clients.

For native speakers, training employees to speak clearly and use simple words when communicating with those still learning can also help to break down cultural barriers and improve the speaking skills of both parties.

Your startup can also take steps to create diverse and multicultural teams, improving not only internal communication but also cultural understanding and team synergy.

Actively Encourage Feedback

Your employees have the most intimate knowledge of your business practices and how to improve them.

Feedback from your team members should be treated as valuable and encouraged from all departments.

Your startup can improve internal communication by directly asking employees to submit anonymous feedback multiple times throughout the year; anonymity encourages team members to be more honest and removes the fear of being reprimanded for critical comments.

Ask team members what they think the startup is doing right as well as about areas that are in need of improvement.

Then, make sure your team leaders follow up on issues!

Treat negative feedback as seriously as you would a complaint from a customer, and in the case of multiple recurring issues, consider restructuring certain parts of your startup.

If employees feel as if their opinions are being heard and considered, they will be more open and communicative and your startup will be successful.

Running a startup is difficult – it can be even more difficult if all your team members aren’t on the same page.

Uncontrolled growth has resulted in the death of countless startups unable to handle the pressure of hiring a larger team.

However, by taking steps to improve internal communication, your startup can move steadily towards bigger and better goals while retaining your most valuable employees.

4 Top Takeaways

Here are the top takeaways for helping to improve your internal communication:

1. Properly introduce all employees to one another when onboarding.

2. Replace meetings with online tools like SlackeXo or Chanty and see your productivity soar.

3. Create diverse teams in order to encourage cultural understanding.

4. Take all employee feedback seriously, and encourage management to do the same.

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Happy directing!

Olga Mykhoparkina

Olga is the Chief Marketing Officer at Chanty – a simple AI powered business messenger and a single notification center. This powerful and free Slack alternative is aimed to increase team productivity and improve communication at work. Having a 9-year experience in digital marketing field, Olga is responsible for Chanty’s online presence strategy, managing an amazing team of 5 marketing experts and getting things done to change the way teams communicate and collaborate. Follow Olga on Twitter or feel free to connect on LinkedIn.