👀 2-min PMM Insights: Substack's Freemium Goals, Outreach's Growth AEs, Virtualis' Metrics, Alloy's New Verticals
September 2023, Part 1 Release
📈 4 MICRO [PRODUCT MARKETING] CASE STUDIES
[1] Assign Growth AEs to cross-sell/upsell and run renewals to scale Net Revenue Retention (NRR).
Outreach created a position called Growth AE on top of the traditional acquisition-focused AE (Account Executive). Part of the reason was to free CSMs to focus on product adoption efforts while getting great talent to fill the role of Growth AEs. This new position has a similar pay structure as AEs and works as a replacement for Account Managers.
[2] For early-stage startups: Shift focus and optimize for 3 down-funnel metrics once you're growing after a successful product-market fit.
The CMO of Virtualis uses an early-stage growth framework to drive marketing efforts for scaling ARR from zero to $1 million during the first year. The final component of this framework involves implementing strategies to increase customer lifetime value (CLTV), reduce churn, and lower customer acquisition cost (CAC). These metrics dictate the sustainability and profitability of your business.
[3] Leverage freemium to not just acquire new users but to also align your future customers with your company mission.
Substack wants every writer to have the tools to build an independent business. Therefore, the company offers their platform for free until the writer starts charging for their work.
[4] Expand into a new vertical after evaluating pull, timing, and network - in that order of importance.
Alloy Automation stumbled into the commerce vertical by tinkering with a few cases. As they decide which vertical to expand into, they're researching patterns in their website visitors by industry, prioritizing the industry with the most urgent use case, and looking at existing relationships within each new vertical.
📚 1 BOOK & TOP 3 INSIGHTS
“The SaaS Playbook: Build a Multimillion-Dollar Startup Without Venture Capital” by Rob Walling
[1] 4 cheat codes to grow any SaaS business fast - (i) Expansion Revenue: customers paying more as they see value via pricing tier upgrades, (ii) Dual Funnels: targeting a wide audience at a low price point and enterprise audience at a high price point, (iii) Virality: each new customer bringing at least a fraction of a new customer, (iv) Net Negative Churn: expansion revenue exceeding revenue lost from churn.
[2] The 3 HIGH/3 LOW framework gives you the minimum, highest impact SaaS metrics you should look at beyond MRR and monthly growth rate. You should push down the 3 low metrics - CAC, Sales Effort (includes your sales cycle duration & no. of touchpoints), and Churn. You should push upward the 3 high metrics - Annual Contract Value (ACV), Expansion Revenue, and Referrals.
[3] The 3-factor framework to filter and prioritize your marketing approaches (ex: SEO, content, affiliate, etc.) - (i) Speed: time to results, (ii) Cost: hard costs in dollars & cents, (iii) Scalability: can you scale this approach to reach more folks?
🧠 5 CURATED MARKETING THINK PIECES
[1] “Did We Make a Good Pricing Decision?”
[2] Should You Launch Products During a Recession?
[3] What makes a strategy great
[4] The decline in Design (Thinking)
[5] What exactly are the economics of AI?