The Growth Hub Podcast

For a lot of SaaS companies, building an audience and acquiring a steady flow of traffic is one of the big challenges when it comes to growth, brand awareness and ultimately new customer acquisition. Karola Karlson, growth marketer at Taxify & Aggregate, faced this challenge when she started at Scoro, a work management SaaS company based in Tallinn, Estonia. Despite being relatively new to the field of digital marketing when she started, Karola developed Scoro's content strategy and grew organic monthly blog traffic from 1,6k visitors to 30k visitors in just 20 months! In this episode we talk about how she did that alongside: - How to build a growth-focused content marketing strategy - Common mistakes B2B marketers make when it comes to content marketing - The importance of 10x content and how to balance quality versus quantity in your content marketing - A two hour hack to quickly boost your organic traffic - Some of the most important SaaS marketing lessons Karola learned during her 20 months working at Scoro Taxify >> https://taxify.eu Aggregate >> https://aggregateblog.com Scoro >> https://www.scoro.com From 1.6K to 31K Monthly Blog Visitors In 20 Months – How We Did It >> https://aggregateblog.com/growing-organic-blog-traffic 35 SaaS Marketing Lessons I Wish I'd Known Sooner >> https://aggregateblog.com/saas-marketing-lessons The 2 Hour Hack To Double Your Organic Traffic >> https://aggregateblog.com/increase-organic-traffic-rewriting-blog-headlines The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott >> https://www.amazon.com/New-Rules-Marketing-PR-Podcasting/dp/0470379286/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me= Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris >> https://toolsoftitans.com Follow Karola on Twitter >> twitter.com/karolakarlson The Growth Hub >> www.advanceb2b.com/thegrowthhub Advance B2B >> www.advanceb2b.com The Growth Hub on Twitter >> twitter.com/SaaSGrowthHub Edward on Twitter >> twitter.com/NordicEdward

About one year ago, Dave Gerhardt received a phone call from Drift CEO David Cancel saying they should kill all their lead forms. As Marketing Director, Dave was a little shocked since this was one of the most important conversion points in their entire growth funnel... So to hear how 40,000 businesses signed up to Drift without the use of a single lead form, I caught up with Dave to find out what really went down, including: - How Drift distinguishes between marketing, growth and sales and how they operate their growth funnel without generating leads through forms and gated content - How marketers can make their growth funnels more conversational, human and shorter - How bots can supplement your marketing team and keep the conversation going 24/7 - The importance of podcasting and how to exploit opportunities where your competitors aren’t - What Dave sees on the horizon when it comes to B2B SaaS marketing Drift >> https://www.drift.com Hypergrowth 2017 Conference >> https://hypergrowth.drift.com Why We’re Throwing Out All Of Our Lead Forms And Making Content Free >> https://blog.drift.com/no-more-forms A Side Project Helped Jumpstart My Career (Dave's blog on Medium) >> https://medium.com/the-mission/a-side-project-helped-jumpstart-my-career-7cd6f8e9b07f Follow Dave on Twitter >> https://twitter.com/davegerhardt The Growth Hub >> www.advanceb2b.com/thegrowthhub Advance B2B >> www.advanceb2b.com The Growth Hub on Twitter >> twitter.com/SaaSGrowthHub Edward on Twitter >> twitter.com/NordicEdward

In this episode we're joined by Ed Fry, Growth at Hull.io One of the big challenges facing sales, marketing and growth teams is the abundance of customer data scattered across multiple tools and platforms. Ed Fry of Hull.io knows this all too well so I caught up with him to hear how you can collect all that data to build the ultimate customer profile in order to segment, personalise and automate your sales and marketing — at scale. In addition to these topics, Ed talks to us about: - What growth really means within the context of B2B SaaS - The importance of defining and building your growth model around your North Star Metric - His 5-part framework to achieve personalisation at scale alongside how he used email to solve this issue at inbound.org - Why we should stop using the term “Marketing Stack” and use “Customer Stack” instead - And the story of how he secured a funding round for inbound.org over lunch with Rand Fishkin & Dharmesh Shah at MozCon, alongside the tremendous importance of conference beers Hull >> www.hull.io Ed's 5 Part Framework For Personalisation >> hull.io/blog/personalization-everywhere-create-a-personalization-strategy Stop Calling It a "Marketing Stack" >> hull.io/blog/stop-calling-it-a-marketing-stack Do Fewer Things, Better >> onstartups.com/do-fewer-things-better Inbound >> www.inbound.org Follow Ed on Twitter >> twitter.com/edfryed The Growth Hub >> www.advanceb2b.com/thegrowthhub Advance B2B >> www.advanceb2b.com The Growth Hub on Twitter >> twitter.com/SaaSGrowthHub Edward on Twitter >> twitter.com/NordicEdward

In this episode we're joined by Steve Rayson, Director at BuzzSumo. When it comes to SaaS growth, a lot of content and discourse focuses on hyper-growth tactics with a (false) promise that they'll magically turn you into a unicorn. But unicorns a rare. They are outliers, so I caught up with Steve Rayson, Director at BuzzSumo, to hear about another path you can take, and it's that of a SaaS Donkey. By putting sustainability and profitability above hyper-growth, BuzzSumo have built a steady SaaS business that is loved by growth and content marketers alike, going from beta launch to $5M ARR over the last three years or so. In this episode, Steve tells us about: - How BuzzSumo challenged the Unicorn Orthodoxy and became a so called SaaS Donkey - Some of the key factors that enabled BuzzSumo to go from $0 to $2.5M ARR - The role of influencer marketing in SaaS growth including how influencers such as Rand Fishkin & Matthew Barby helped spread the word about BuzzSumo - How BuzzSumo set growth targets and went from $2.5M to $5M in ARR - The things BuzzSumo might have done differently with the gift of hindsight alongside what they have planned for the future BuzzSumo >> buzzsumo.com Proud To Be A SaaS Donkey >> buzzsumo.com/blog/proud-donkey-buzzsumo-reflections-growing-5m-saas-business Anders Pink >> www.anderspink.com Follow Steve on Twitter >> twitter.com/steverayson The Growth Hub >> www.advanceb2b.com/thegrowthhub Advance B2B >> www.advanceb2b.com The Growth Hub on Twitter >> twitter.com/SaaSGrowthHub Edward on Twitter >> twitter.com/NordicEdward

In this episode we're joined by Kieran Flanagan, VP of Marketing & Growth at HubSpot. Two of the biggest challenges facing SaaS marketers who operate a freemium model is the acquisition of new users and then converting them into paying customers; but that's exactly what Kieran is responsible for. In addition to this Kieran leads HubSpot's global web strategy team and in this episode Kieran opens up about what it really takes to build a successful freemium SaaS growth funnel, including: - How HubSpot approaches new user acquisition for their sales tools - How to balance between no-touch automation and high-touch human interaction when converting free users into paying customers - Best practices when it comes to actual freemium user acquisition and customer conversion tactics - How HubSpot runs its global web strategy team to facilitate its growth funnel, including how they relaunched the HubSpot website within 6 weeks ahead of the Inbound conference HubSpot Free Sales Software >> www.hubspot.com/products/sales Kieran's Personal Website >> www.kieranflanagan.io Follow Kieran on Twitter >> twitter.com/searchbrat The Growth Hub >> www.advanceb2b.com/thegrowthhub Advance B2B >> www.advanceb2b.com The Growth Hub on Twitter >> twitter.com/SaaSGrowthHub Edward on Twitter >> twitter.com/NordicEdward

In this episode we're joined by Alex Theuma, Co-Founder of Europe's biggest SaaS conference, SaaStock. SaaStock 2017 is a must-attend event for everyone working in SaaS, especially if you're based in Europe, so we caught up with Alex to hear more about his journey and how he developed SaaStock into a central component of Europe's SaaS ecosystem. This year's event is taking place from September 18th-20th in Dublin, Ireland, and in this episode Alex talks to us about: - The history of the conference and how he got the idea and inspiration to establish SaaStock - How he was able to raise a funding round from some of Europe’s top SaaS investors ahead of this year’s event - A sneak peak into what attendees can expect from SaaStock 2017 - SaaStock on Tour, which is a set of mini events being held across Europe in the run up to the main conference in September SaaStock: www.saastock.com SaaStock Tickets: https://ti.to/saastock/saastock-2017 SaaStock On Tour: www.saastock.com/tours Follow Alex on Twitter: twitter.com/alextheuma Follow SaaStock on Twitter: twitter.com/SaaStock The Growth Hub: www.advanceb2b.com/thegrowthhub Advance B2B: www.advanceb2b.com The Growth Hub on Twitter: twitter.com/SaaSGrowthHub Edward on Twitter: twitter.com/NordicEdward

In this episode we're joined by Madhav Bhandari, Marketing Manager at Hubstaff. Madhav joined Hubstaff at the beginning of 2015 as the company’s first full-time marketing hire and in this episode Madhav reflects on the last 2 years which saw Hubstaff increase their revenue by 658%. He does this by going through his 6 key lessons that helped them achieve this milestone, including: - The importance of team focus and common goals - Nurturing a culture of ownership and establishing clear KPIs - Embracing the 80-20 rule and doubling down on your most effective growth strategies - Autonomous processes and automating growth - Being completely driven by business revenue - And the role of patience in SaaS growth Hubstaff: www.hubstaff.com Madhav's Blog: www.madhavb.com Madhav's post on Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2017/02/kpis-empower-employees-drive-results.html Madhav on Twitter: twitter.com/themadbhandari The Growth Hub: www.advanceb2b.com/thegrowthhub Advance B2B: www.advanceb2b.com The Growth Hub on Twitter: twitter.com/SaaSGrowthHub Edward on Twitter: twitter.com/NordicEdward

In this episode we're joined by Luke Summerfield of HubSpot, Founder of the Growth-Driven Design movement. Luke discusses the one thing that is at the focal point of all SaaS businesses, the website, and more specifically about Growth-Driven Design (GDD) which is a smarter and more agile way to approach web design and development. In this episode Luke opens up the topic of GDD and discusses how SaaS companies can benefit from this methodology, including: - The similarities between Sir Edmund Hillary’s Everest expedition and the website redesign process - How the GDD movement was born - What the GDD model is - The importance of GDD for SaaS businesses - How SaaS companies can get started with the agile GDD model - Where you can go to learn more about GDD Growth-Driven Design: http://www.growthdrivendesign.com Luke on Twitter: twitter.com/savvyluke The Growth Hub: http://www.advanceb2b.com/thegrowthhub Advance B2B: http://www.advanceb2b.com The Growth Hub on Twitter: twitter.com/SaaSGrowthHub Edward on Twitter: twitter.com/NordicEdward

In this episode we're joined by Pedro Magriço, Director of Growth at Typeform. Pedro joined the Barcelona-based company in 2013 when they had just 10 employees and the product was in closed beta. Now Typeform employs over 160 people and has achieved double digit ARR in the millions. In this episode Pedro tells us about: - The evolution of Typeform’s growth team and how they operate
 - How typeform built virality into their product with one simple button
 - A small tweak Typeform made to their onboarding process that increased the conversion quality of visitors into users
 - How typeform retains their users and minimises churn
 - Typeform’s growth-model, their viral-loop, and some of their most successful growth-tactics Typeform: www.typeform.com Pedro on Twitter: twitter.com/pedro_magrico The Growth Hub: http://www.advanceb2b.com/thegrowthhub Advance B2B: http://www.advanceb2b.com The Growth Hub on Twitter: twitter.com/SaaSGrowthHub Edward on Twitter: twitter.com/NordicEdward