Growth in 2023 poses a challenge for many startups, but the pain may feel especially acute for early stage founders. Through research and work with Insight’s early stage portfolio companies, we have developed six practical digital strategies to drive efficient and effective growth this year.
1. Focus on SEO
Why This Matters
98% of Insight portfolio companies consider building relevant organic traffic a core component of their go-to-market strategy, and rightly so. For B2B, most buyers prefer to research on their own prior to contacting sales. SEO and digital content fuel that upper funnel research. In addition, paid channels are becoming more expensive: the marketing program cost per dollar of sales pipeline nearly doubled (from $0.08 to $0.13) in 2022.
What This Looks Like
If you find relevant keywords with limited competition and sufficient traffic, invest in data-driven thought leadership and content about those topics. If you have a dedicated fanbase, consider referral marketing or building word-of-mouth. Hosting events — virtual or in-person — and building your YouTube presence via video content can drive increased organic interest from buyers. Ultimately, determine what resources you have to drive organic growth (including a first marketing hire that understands SEO) and focus on what can drive the greatest impact.
2. Find the “break points” in your funnel
Why This Matters
Reducing friction throughout the buying journey can generate big returns for a company at any stage. Some of these improvements might require little effort for outsized results.
What This Looks Like
Calculate the impact that a 1% increase in conversion rate (CVR) would have on your bottom line. You’ll likely find the impact of a one percent improvement outperforms the investments you’d make in other parts of your company’s marketing. Evaluate your funnel’s “break points” and optimize for conversion at each stage. Create and hold a cross-functional team comprised of digital marketers, product marketers, and developers accountable for improving site conversion.
3. Experiment with new media channels
Why This Matters
If you are beginning to allocate budget to media, it’s crucial for you or the head of marketing to stay current on privacy policy updates, algorithm changes, and rising ad costs, and diversify media strategies. When your media mix is concentrated, you risk relying on too few platforms. Even if a platform makes a small change, you could experience a major impact in impressions served, conversion rates, and media costs – all of which impact your bottom line.
What This Looks Like
Your budget allocation to paid media will dictate how much focus this deserves. On average, Insight portfolio companies allocate 10% of their media budget to testing. We recommend conducting small tests in new channels without sacrificing the performance of your core few. On average, Insight portfolio companies allocate 10% of their media budget to testing.
4. Build your company’s first-party data
Why This Matters
Privacy protections, such as Apple’s removal of IDFA, have already minimized the efficacy of third-party ad targeting. The proposed American Data Privacy Protection Act has the Interactive Advertising Bureau warning its members to accelerate their transition away from third-party cookies. By building a first-party database, companies can continue to target audiences as restrictions tighten, and they can use first-party data to better personalize interactions with customers and buyers. For example, user preferences and interests collected in an on-site quiz can be used to tailor future content to that specific user, showing them highly relevant products, features, or offers.
What This Looks Like
Ensure your team knows that first-party data collection is a priority and why it’s important. Encourage tactics such as lead forms with event registration, user preferences, and other voluntary forms of user information. Also, strengthen sales’ role in seeking out key contacts and driving them to act on your first-party properties (e.g., website, landing page, or event platform).
5. Create foundations to enable attribution
Why This Matters
Data collection has been hamstrung by privacy legislation, resulting in a lack of understanding of what tactics actually move the needle to create a sale. Early stage companies should consider building a marketing and revenue tech stack that enables end-to-end-visibility of budget spend to sales created. By deploying simple tracking tactics such as UTM codes for digital campaigns, you’ll better understand the value of upper-funnel tactics on bottom-line results. With this knowledge, you can redeploy budgets to programs generating the greatest impact.
What This Looks Like
Seize opportunities to improve your attribution. For some, this could be as simple for B2B marketers as including the question “How did you hear about us?” in your contact us or demo forms or for B2C when they purchase you have a marketing automation platform ensure it is properly connected it to your customer relationship management system to tie buyer actions to outcomes.
6. Experiment with generative AI
Why This Matters
Generative AI (GenAI) tools are transforming how work is accomplished across all business functions. You may be considering the best way to leverage GenAI to “do more with less.” We recommend testing a GenAI tool first in your marketing function. Why? GPT-3.5 and other improvements to large AI models have brought unprecedented scale and accessibility for writing content, creating landing pages, and user experiences that are personalized and authentic in a fraction of the time. Empower your marketing leader to test and communicate wins in the form of increased output, time savings, better results, etc.
What This Looks Like
Ask your marketing leader to determine the specific use case or problem they are trying to solve by using an AI tool. Empower them with a budget to research and choose the best tool for their use case. Align on KPIs you expect to achieve and hold your marketing leader accountable for tracking and communicating progress. Several Insight portfolio company solutions using AI that can support marketers:
- For content writing: Jasper AI or Writer
- For landing page testing: Mutiny
- For conversational email: 6sense
While 2023 promises to be a challenging year, employing the above digital growth strategies should generate measurable business impact.
