Growth marketing is a buzzword in the marketing world, but it’s foundation and practices are hardly new. By focusing on the areas to improve, companies can use growth marketing to fuel incredible growth.
This is especially valuable for logistics companies, which rely on customer retention and longevity for profitability. Learn more about growth marketing and develop a growth marketing plan to fuel growth.
What is Growth Marketing?
Growth marketing is defined by these key components:
- Consistent experimentation across the customer journey to identify areas for growth
- Data analytics surrounding the user experience (UX) and areas of improvement
- A step-by-step process rather than a one-size-fits-all approach
Ultimately, growth marketing is about looking at a company’s current position and identifying inefficient processes that may prevent it from achieving its goals and objectives.
Difference Between Growth Marketing and Traditional Marketing
Unlike traditional marketing, which may be focused on a variety of goals related to brand awareness, conversions, or traffic, growth marketing is entirely focused on growth. The strategy looks at areas that are lagging and seeks to improve them to allow a business to scale effectively and earn valuable lifetime customers.
Why Logistics Companies Need to Implement Growth Marketing Plans
Shopping companies rely on long-term customers and retention for profitability. Leads and customer acquisition can be expensive, which is why growth marketing is a valuable strategy to optimize efficiency and attract loyal customers.
Growth Marketing Framework
A growth marketing framework is a methodical, step-by-step approach to identifying areas of improvement and maximizing efficiency. The process is repeatable in an effective framework, so it can be used as the business scales.
Growth marketing framework may be tweaked to each company’s needs, but the general approach includes:
- Research: This includes customer insights, social channel insights, core metrics, value propositions, the business model, and user journey.
- Goals and objectives: This is highly variable by the company, but it defines where the company is and where it wants to be.
- Prioritization: Data will provide valuable insights into areas for improvement, but avoid doing too much at once. Find the biggest areas for improvement and focus on them in the strategy.
- Testing the best ideas: The high-priority goals and objectives are perfect for testing, which should include a hypothesis, an experimental framework, limitations, and quantitative and qualitative information.
- Implementation: Once the results are in, implement the best solutions and reevaluate every few months.
- Analysis: Implementation will show the ideas that work and the ones that don’t, so analyze the efforts and find new areas of improvement.
Noticing a trend here? Growth marketing framework is a cyclical process. Ideas are defined and tested, then implemented and reevaluated, over and over. Throughout this process, you’ll learn more and more to make the next idea and effort more successful.
And best of all, this framework is measurable and repeatable, so it can be used again as the business scales.
5 Steps to Get Started with Growth Marketing
1. Know the “North Star Metric”
The North Star Metric refers to the singular focus of your strategy and growth, which may be sales, leads, subscriptions, or something else. Think of it as the measure of success that must be satisfied before looking into growth strategies and tools.
2. Determine Product/Market Fit
Many businesses make the mistake of scaling efforts before determining product or market fit. If the business isn’t addressing a need in a sizable market, it’s not ready for growth. In this case, it’s possible to consider other markets where it may be a better fit.
3. Use Data and Analytics
Growth marketing is all about data and analytics. You must be able to assess data to make informed decisions about marketing direction. Numerous tools are available to track data and glean important insights, such as traffic and conversions across channels. If necessary, develop a tech stack specifically for data analytics.
4. Analyze the User Journey
Each business has a unique set of user journey funnels that turn a prospect into a paying customer. Map the data from the analytics tools around the user journey to identify bottlenecks and implement solutions to make the funnel more efficient.
Think about the moment the user realizes the value of your service, the funnel stage at which they drop off (and why), and touchpoints that can be optimized to guide users toward conversion.
5. Analyze Traffic
The last step is to determine where users come from and how the channel can be used to drive qualified traffic. These can be grouped into organic and paid traffic, which may have further subcategories. The traffic mix is unique to each business.
Types of Growth Strategies Logistics Companies Can Use in Their Growth Plans
- Focus efforts on the appropriate channels that offer the largest and most targeted audiences.
- Stay ahead of digital trends to stand out from the pack.
- Focus on measurable, repeatable results.
- Get in-depth customer insights to identify any inefficiencies in the user journey and improve them.
Growth Marketing Metrics for Logistics Companies
There are virtually endless metrics that logistics companies can use for growth marketing, but here are the primary ones:
- Customer Lifetime Value: This is a major indicator of revenue earned from each customer and how it can be maximized.
- Cost Per Lead: Leads can be expensive to nurture, so the cost per lead allows you to focus on the low-cost, high-reward leads.
- Customer Acquisition Costs: This is an indicator of how much goes into bringing on a new customer, which is valuable in understanding how to qualify leads.
- Average Recurring Revenue: As mentioned, air freight logistics companies rely on customer retention more than bringing on new customers all the time. This shows the value of each customer on average and the volumes needed for consistent profits.
Use Growth Marketing to Boost Your Business
Logistics companies approach marketing a bit differently than other industries, especially when considering growth. A solid growth marketing strategy and framework can identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and other obstacles to long-term growth and profits.