Project: Craft Your Growth Strategy
Overview
In this project, we’re going to have you craft, at a high-level, the steps you’ll be taking later in the course. It’s the most important thing you’ll be doing for the course, because it dictates so much of what you’ll be doing.
What you’ll learn
A lot of the vocab we use as marketers.
Who your audience is (or at least get a much better idea).
The most compelling ways to pitch your product.
Our project format for the training program. You’ll get used to our process.
Prerequisite
A product you’re working on.
(If you don't have a product, pick a company you'd want to work for.)
Phase 1: Open glossary
Open up our glossary of marketing words in a new tab. You don’t have to read through it yet. You’ll search through it as you go through Phase 2.
Phase 2: Fill out form.
You’re going to fill out a similar form to what we make clients fill out when we first start working with them.
You need to fill out this form so your instructors have context on your business before they review and bulletproof your strategy.
There may be words that you don’t know in the form. That’s what the glossary is for. It’s meant to save you time and not force you to Google things.
Keep the glossary open as you fill out the form.
Phase 3: Acquisition strategy
Open a new document in Dropbox Paper. Make an account if you don’t have one, and start a folder for your course materials.
Read through each channel in our reading on picking the right channel. Keep a running list of the channels that apply to you.
After you’ve read through each channel, make a list of the top 5 (or so) channels that you think you should test.
For each channel, add a bullet point justifying why you chose it: write 2-4 sentences for each channel. Do not skip this step.
Then prioritize the channels into what you think you should test first.
Phase 4: Value props
Phase 4a: 3-column chart
Make the 3-column chart we described in the reading. You can use a copy of this template to save time 🙂
Phase 4b: Problems, implications, solutions, benefits
Take your 3-column chart and turn it into problems, implications, solutions, and benefits. You can use a copy of this template, to start.
Write out at least five value props. Try to get to ten.
Each cell in your sheet should be one or two sentences long.
Phase 4c: Filter
Pick your 5 most compelling value props and move those to the top of your doc. Add some extra rows in between them and your less compelling ones.
Phase 4d: Add to doc
Add a link to your final value props sheet at the bottom of your doc in a section called “Value Props”.
Phase 5: Target personas
Go through our reading on finding your target audience if you haven’t yet.
Even if your company already has an internal persona doc, start from scratch following our structure and see if you come up with something different.
Phase 5a: Thought Exercise
Come up with a list of 2 to 5 potential personas for your product, based purely on the thought exercise in the reading. Add them to your strategy doc in a “Personas - Thought Exercise” section.
Get extremely specific about the persona you’re targeting, based on your value props.
For example, instead of saying “Property managers”, say “Property managers at companies that have been on the market for more than 30 days (i.e., that they’re having trouble renting)“.
Think of these as bullet-point customer personas that are no longer than a sentence.
It’s always better to go into more detail rather than less. We can always back into a broader persona and take away details. The magic is in getting hyper-specific.
If you're just starting out, work outward from the personas that need you most. Almost always, it's easier to convert people like your current customers; it's easier to understand their problems, and it's easier to use existing customers as case studies.
Phase 5b: Data
Come up with another list of 2 to 5 potential personas for your product, based on data you have on your current customers. If you don't have customers yet, you can skip this part.
Add them to your strategy doc in a “Personas - Data Exercise” section.
Phase 5c: Combined
Combine those lists into an "Overall Personas" list, ordered by how urgently you believe they'll want your product.
Put your most likely customers at the top.
Phase 6: Submit your work
If you're a current student, send us your doc for review.
Acquisition Strategy: Submit this as a Paper Doc
Value Props: Submit this as a Google Sheet
Here's an example of what our feedback looks like:
Last updated
