MIA #04: Building a Growth Process & Growth Machine (+ Template)
A practical guide to building a successful growth machine that is scalable, predictable, and repeatable.
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How to Build a Growth Process & Machine
A growth process sets the foundation for a successful growth machine that is scalable, predictable, and repeatable.
Scalable: can handle increased demands and growth without breaking down.
Predictable: the outcomes of the growth efforts can be anticipated with reasonable accuracy.
Repeatable: the process can be applied consistently to achieve growth.
See how it works in this video:
Here is an effective method for building a growth process:
1. Find Growth Levers
Identify the areas within the organization that can be leveraged to drive growth. e.g. Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue.
2. Set Objectives
Establish clear and measurable objectives that can be actioned to influence a growth lever. e.g.
Acquisition Objective: Increase monthly sign-ups by 20% within three months.
Activation Objective: Achieve a 15% increase in user activation within three months.
Retention Objective: Reduce customer churn rate by 10% within three months.
Referral Objective: Increase the number of referrals by 25% within three months.
Revenue Objective: Boost monthly recurring revenue by 15% within three months.
3. Explore Data
Analyze quantitative, qualitative, and intuitive data to gather insights and information that will inform the scope of growth projects.
Quantitative Data: Analyze metrics from Google Analytics (GA), Mixpanel, Clarity, etc for metrics like conversion rates, user engagement, revenue per user, or customer churn rates.
Qualitative Data: Conduct user surveys, and interviews, view support tickets, and see video recordings on Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar, or FullStory.
Intuitive Data: Consider industry trends, market dynamics, and emerging technologies to make informed decisions about potential growth opportunities.
4. Brainstorm and create a backlog of Growth ideas
Generating ideas for achieving growth and adding them to a backlog of potential projects to be considered. Here’s how to generate ideas:
Observe: How are others doing it?
Question: Why? What is? What if? What about? How do we? What can we do to increase user activation by 15% within three months?
Associate: Connect the dots between unrelated things. e.g. what if our activation process was like closing a deal?
Network: Connect and learn from growth people (like us).
👉🏽 Join the Marketing In Action LinkedIn Group.
5. Prioritize
Use the ICE Framework (Impact, Confidence, Effort) to prioritize the projects/tactics and select the most promising ones.
Impact: This measures the potential significance of a project on your goals. The higher the score, the more valuable the project.
Confidence: This reflects your certainty about the project's potential success. A higher score means you're more confident in its success.
Effort: This quantifies the resources and work required. A higher score means the project is easier to undertake.
Each of these factors is scored on a scale of 1 to 10, with higher scores indicating higher priority. The scores for Impact, Confidence, and Effort are then summed up to give an overall ICE score for each project (max: 30).
6. Test
Once you've selected the most promising projects, you implement them on a small scale for a defined period (typically 30 days) as version 1 (v1).
Frame a test hypothesis to validate your idea e.g. If we implement project Onboarding Comms, which focuses on improving the onboarding process for new users, the activation rate will increase by 5%, because it will reduce the time it takes for users to understand and start using our product effectively.
Justify your assumptions based on:
Quantitative: Previous experiments, surrounding data, funnel data
Qualitative: Surveys, support emails, user testing recordings
Secondary: Networking, blogs, case studies, competitor observations
All projects must be well defined with a SMART goal (i.e., Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) that determines the expected outcome of the project and the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that we will use to assess the success or failure of the project.
7. Implement
After the testing phase, successful tactics are scaled up and fully integrated into the organization's processes.
This is the second version (v2) of the project, and it can run for a longer period, usually 60 to 90 days.
8. Analyse
In the analysis phase, we will document the learnings based on the following criteria:
Success/Failure: We will determine whether the project "Onboarding Comms" was successful in increasing the activation rate by 5%. If it achieves the desired outcome, we will consider it a success. If not, it will be labeled a failure.
Impact: We will evaluate how closely the project's actual impact aligns with our initial prediction. This will help us understand whether the project overachieved, met expectations, or fell short of our objectives.
Why: We will conduct a post-mortem analysis to understand the reasons behind the project's success or failure. This may involve identifying specific factors, challenges, or unexpected outcomes that influenced the results.
9. Systemise
After analyzing the project, if it proves successful, we will integrate it into the organization's processes. The integration can be done in one of two methods:
Productize: If possible, we will use technology, engineering, and automation to productize the improved onboarding process. This may involve developing tools, features, or automated communication flows that can be consistently applied to enhance the onboarding experience for all new users.
Playbooks: For projects that cannot be fully productized, such as events, content marketing, or partnerships, we will create step-by-step playbooks. These playbooks will document the successful tactics, processes, and strategies employed during the project, making it easier for the team to replicate them in future initiatives.
10. Run periodic Growth Sprints
Growth sprints can be weekly, or bi-weekly 30-60 minute reviews to focus on:
A review of Growth Objectives
Updates on Active Projects / Initiatives
Learnings, Blockers, and Adjustments made
New Growth Ideas
Action Items and Next Steps
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TL: DR
Get a PDF summary of this article here.
Your growth process must be scalable, predictable, and repeatable.
Find Growth Levers—areas within the organization that can be leveraged to drive growth. e.g. Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue.
Establish clear and measurable objectives that can be actioned to influence a growth lever.
Analyze quantitative, qualitative, and intuitive data to gather insights and information that will inform the scope of growth projects.
Add growth ideas to a backlog of potential projects to be considered.
Use the ICE Framework (Impact, Confidence, Effort) to prioritize the projects/tactics and select the most promising ones.
Document the learnings from your project/experiment based on the success/failure, impact, and WHY.
Integrate your successful experiments by productizing or creating playbooks.
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You might find these interesting:
How to build a Growth Team — A practical guide to structuring your growth team, and executing Product Led, Sales Led or Hybrid GTM motions.
How to hire a Growth Marketer — A practical guide to finding and hiring growth generalists, channel specialists, and ensuring acquisition channels are delivering performance.
Partner Recommendation:
James Praise — I partner with founders and marketing teams of Product-Led startups to drive long-term growth using Performance Marketing, SEO, Product Marketing, and Lifecycle Marketing, from acquisition to retention to revenue.
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