027: Growth Marketing Lessons From Inbound.org’s 5x User Growth w/Sam Mallikarjunan

When I read Sam’s post “The Hard Choices Behind How Inbound.org Grew 5x” (they now have over 160,000 members) I knew I needed to get Sam on Experts On The Wire.

We dissect many of the elements of their growth, including – why you need to ignore your earliest adopters, keeping a team focused on one thing (only the things you can grow with statistical significance!), how they leveraged SEO, their homepage algorithm – and the secrets behind the “persona” and micro-copy on Inbound (hint: it’s modeled after a real person!)

Enjoy!

And don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes!

Links

• HubSpot
• Inbound
• How Inbound Grew 5x
• Moz
• How Not to F**k Up Your First 90 Days as CMO
• Stack Overflow
• Quora
• How HubSpot Writes Microcopy
• MailChimp Style Guide
• 37 Signals
• Why Medium Works
• My Favorite Sales Email Ever
• How to Sell Better Than Amazon

People

• Sam Mallikarjunan
• Dharmesh Shah
• Rand Fishkin
• Mary Green
• Ed Fry
• Alex Schultz
• Alaura Weaver
• Brian Lenney
• Casey Henry
• Gary Vaynerchuk

Agenda

What is HubSpot Labs?

Inbound.org

• “It started as Dharmesh and Rand’s side project but got too big.”
• How Inbound grew (a lot)
• “We tried to create the Avengers team of the marketing world.”

Growth Tactics

• “Your early adopters will rarely form the core of your future growth.”
• “Velocity indicates value.”
• Featured content
• “Should we allow people to sign-up without Twitter?”

Personas

• The why is more important than the who
• Implicit and explicit data

Measurement

• Statistical significance
• “Let’s get to X number of subscribers before we start doing advanced lead attribution.”
• Build a reliable bank of data

SEO and Inbound.org

• “We’re going to stop building new features and focus on SEO.”
• The Smartest Inbound Marketing Community Online
• Using microcopy
• “Tone/personality of site is modeled after……”
• “Puts happy juice in your brain.”

Depth and Width

• Width of opportunity is a more valuable business practice
• Many ecommerce sites lack the confidence that customers will buy again

Publishing on Outside Sites (LinkedIn Pulse/Medium)

• Focus on building your own sustainable blog/brand

Humor

• Don’t ask, “Does humor work?” but “Does it work with the persona I’m going after?”

Dharmesh Wisdom

• “Focus, focus, focus.”
• “Always solve for the customer.”