Get High at Work!

Marketing is all about the numbers

Written by

Kevin Sandlin

in

Tonight we got a special treat at our #DGM2 class: Maria Joyner of Synapp.io laid down the growth hacking truth on the class, setting the bar very high for our next three guest speakers. Who knew that Synapp.io was her first salaried job? The key to Maria’s success?

“Find a startup that’s killing it, and take credit for all their success.”

As a growth hacker, here’s what Maria has done since starting work at Synapp.io:

  • email marketing
  • rebranding the Synapp.io web site
  • relaunch the web site
  • a/b testing
  • building out the support team
  • Moving into the new office
  • interviews for a sh**load of new employees
  • product management
  • API integration for partners
  • work with web site designers 
  • write cookbooks
  • learn basic HTML and markdown

What the heck does any of that have to do with digital marketing? Everything, and segmentation. That’s startup life. If you work for a huge company, you’ll do one of these things. At a startup, you’ll do all these and more. Learning basic coding is very helpful to anyone in a startup, but specifically for a growth hacker.

So we’re now in our 4th week of Digital Marketing class at General Assembly, and these new marketers are rapidly learning that “digital marketing” is far less about fun web sites, apps, and banner ads, and far more about the numbers, and Maria helped drive that home with a thorough talk on customer segmentation.

Last week, we slogged through a couple of sessions of Google Analytics. Now that we’ve slayed that beast, tonight we dug into the world of data analysis and visualization. You know what that means, right? Excel. In all its glory. Microsoft Excel, whose replacement has been the motivation for hundreds of SaaS startups, still rules the day when it comes to analyzing data.  In fact, just today, I retweeted this gem:

That’s right. #4 behind three kinds of software gurus is the person who is most adept at making sense of all that data. I got my first promotion out of B-school because I could make an Excel spreadsheet sing with pre-IPO numbers. Remember: marketing is all about the numbers that go into the top of the funnel and the percentage that make it out the bottom of the marketing funnel and into the loyalty loop.

Comments

Leave a comment

More from Kevin

  • Try a sample, then eat the whole cake

    Have you ever seen a big tasty-looking carrot cake in the window of a bakery, then run in and bought that $21.99 carrot cake, and then you get home, nuke a piece, dive in, and…ugh. That’s how my grandmother made carrot cake!! Where are the raisins? It’s so dry! But you bought the whole cake, and…

  • 4 Steps to Determine How Well You Know Your Brand

    This post originally appeared on the General Assembly Digital Marketing Blog. How well do you know your brand? DO you know your brand? Actually, “brand” is an uncomfortable topic for many startup founders and small business owners, simply because they weren’t thinking about their brand when they started. It’s not a knock on them. Every entrepreneur…

  • It’s easier – and better – for someone else to tell your story

    Since transitioning from a simple content aggregation publication into a content marketing service, I’ve had dozens of meetings with entrepreneurs and marketers about “telling their story.” A consistent pattern has emerged out of those meetings that has become predictable in all my initial consultations with potential clients: It’s easier for me to tell your story…

  • How and Why to Segment Your Website Audience

    This post originally appeared on the General Assembly Digital Marketing Blog. When you go shopping for new clothes, online or in a brick and mortar store, which section do you hit first, the men’s or the women’s clothing? Good. OK, when you need a new power cord for your computer or smartphone, do you go…

  • 4 Steps to Predictable Marketing Outcomes

    One of the greatest achievements in starting a business is when you reach the point at which you can conduct a marketing campaign and predict with great confidence the outcome of the campaign, regardless of the end goal. When you can accurately predict the outcome of each individual marketing effort, you can then grow your…

  • Digital marketing summed up in six simple points

    Last Thursday, I led a 2-hour version of the six hour version of the 10-week Digital Marketing class at General Assembly. I really enjoy teaching these short, impactful sessions that serve as great introductions or primers for folks who want to learn to talk the talk in Digital Marketing or determine if they’d like to…

  • Digital Marketing 101: Glossary of Digital Marketing Terms

    This post originally published on the General Assembly Digital Marketing Blog. 1. Analytics – information resulting from the systematic analysis of data or statistics. In digital marketing, analytics is the information resulting from systematic analysis of data gathered from marketing activity such as email marketing, landing page A/B testing, or Google Adwords purchases. 2. Average…

  • Digital Marketing 101: Creating Your Digital Marketing Calendar

    This post originally published on the General Assembly Digital Marketing Blog. This post is part of our Digital Marketing 101 series. Sign up to get the full series! Everything we’ve discussed so far in this Digital Marketing 101 series has focused on what to do and a bit about how to do it. But in…

  • Digital Marketing 101: Understanding the Digital Marketing Funnel

    This post originally published on the General Assembly Digital Marketing Blog. When we started our latest session of Digital Marketing at General Assembly’s Atlanta campus, I told the class, “the term ‘digital marketing’ is a misnomer. It’s marketing, but we focus on getting our message to our audience digitally. But it’s still marketing.” What I…