First debuted at #CTAconf, updated for #INBOUND16, and now live for all to see. Check out the one growth playbook you haven't heard yet.

1. APPLYING A PRODUCT
MINDSET TO CONTENT
The Growth Playbook You
Haven’t Heard Yet

2. I’M @ANUM
• Formerly HubSpot
• Currently MIT Sloan
• Always Beyoncé

3. I believe content
marketing is
breaking.
www.anumhussain.com

4. We marketers loudly
teach our beliefs in
only creating
valuable content.
www.anumhussain.com

5. We proudly
preach our focus
on optimizing
email blasts.
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6. … without realizing that
we are still part of the
problem.
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7. IT’S TIME TO BE MORE STRATEGIC.
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8. IT’S TIME TO BE MORE STRATEGIC.
The key is to apply the
principles of product
growth to content.
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9. Just as product growth teams
see the world through their
users, content teams should
see the world through their
subscribers.
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10. That’s the mentality we used to turn
*Sidekick’s content presence into a
meaningful revenue channel.
*Sidekick has since been rebranded & merged into the HubSpot Sales Blog.

11. HERE’S WHAT CONTENT GROWTH
LOOKS LIKE.
USER RETENTION SUBSCRIBER RETENTION
USER CHURN SUBSCRIBER CHURN
USER ONBOARDING SUBSCRIBER ONBOARDING

12. Companies solve for their
customers. Product teams solve for
their users. Why aren’t content
marketers solving for subscribers?
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13. 1
MEASURE SUBSCRIBERS LIKE
USER RETENTION

14. Most growth teams seek authentic
growth through active usage.
DAU:
DAILY ACTIVE USER
unique amount
of users who are
"active" within a
day.
WAU:
WEEKLY ACTIVE USER
unique amount
of users who are
"active" within a
week.
MAU:
MONTHLY ACTIVE USER
unique amount
of users who are
"active" within a
month.

15. We measure HubSpot
Sales Products in
WAUs.
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16. We measure HubSpot
Sales Products in
WAUs.
We use a set of criteria
that shows if users are
getting value from our
product every week.
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17. We measure HubSpot
Sales Products in
WAUs.
We use a set of criteria
that shows if users are
getting value from our
product every week.
That core metric helps
us monitor the success
of our product growth.
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18. We applied the same authentic metric
behind product growth … to content.
MAU:
MONTHLY ACTIVE USER
MAS:
MONTHLY ACTIVE SUBSCRIBER
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19. MONTHLY ACTIVE SUBSCRIBER:
noun
1 an individual subscribed to content and clicking
through on that content through emails
2 definition used by Sidekick content team to monitor
authentic audience growth
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20. 11,870
12,698 12,489 12,990 12,495
14,217 13,675 13,176 13,616
16,794
19,159
20,697 20,636
24,108 23,906
24,967
While we aim to rapidly grow our email
list, we focus more on how many
subscribers are actively engaged.

21. So, what happens to
all those unengaged
subscribers …
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22. 2
ALLOW SUBSCRIBERS TO
CHURN JUST AS USERS

23. When a freemium user is unengaged,
we consider them churned. When a
content reader becomes unengaged,
we keep emailing them.
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24. WHAAAAT?

25. When a freemium user is unengaged,
we consider them churned. When a
content reader becomes unengaged,
we keep emailing them.
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26. In the early days of our new sales blog,
we invested heavily in growing our
subscribers.

27. Eventually, we reached 60,000 subscribers
… but only 22,000 were actually reading
our content.
TOTAL SUBSCRIBERS
ENGAGED SUBSCRIBERS
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28. So we removed the 38,000 unengaged
contacts from our subscriber list.

29. Our goal isn’t to shove content
into inboxes, it’s to provide the
right content to the right people.
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30. We sacrificed
subscribers every
quarter through
creative unsubscribe
email campaigns.
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31. These unsubscribe
campaigns kept us
focused on the
people who actually
matter in our funnel.
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32. We revived some subscribers while
removing completely inactive ones.
2.3%
revived
4.1%
revived
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33. So now, a few key things have happened:
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34. So now, a few key things have happened:
LOWERED UNSUBSCRIBE RATES
✓
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35. So now, a few key things have happened:
LOWERED UNSUBSCRIBE RATES
MORE ACCURATE ENGAGEMENT RATES
✓
✓
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36. So now, a few key things have happened:
LOWERED UNSUBSCRIBE RATES
MORE ACCURATE ENGAGEMENT RATES
REVIVED OTHERWISE DORMANT USERS
✓
✓
✓ www.anumhussain.com

37. 3
APPLY USER ONBOARDING TO
CONTENT

38. The Sidekick product growth team launched
60+ onboarding experiments to uncover a new
user welcome flow that increased retention.
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39. They tested, reiterated, and tested again
until something clicked.
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40. This got me thinking
about current content
subscription models …
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41. SUBSCRIBE
Reader
Subscribes
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42. SUBSCRIBE
Reader
Subscribes
Receive Subscription
Complete Email
Receive Next
Published Post
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43. SUBSCRIBE
Reader
Subscribes
Receive Subscription
Complete Email
Receive Next
Published Post
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44. Unlike with product, most marketers
don’t strategically onboard their
subscribers. We just start
bombarding them with blog emails.
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45. If an optimized user onboarding flow
leads to longer user retention, wouldn’t
an optimized subscriber flow result in
a similar impact?
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46. We began experimenting and eventually
end up with new content onboarding.
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47. READER
SUBSCRIBES
READER ENTERS
DRIP CAMPAIGN
READER RECEIVES
NEW POSTS
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48. READER
SUBSCRIBES
READER ENTERS
DRIP CAMPAIGN
READER RECEIVES
NEW POSTS
Standard step. A
visitor on your
website fills out a
form to subscribe
to your content.
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49. READER
SUBSCRIBES
READER ENTERS
DRIP CAMPAIGN
READER RECEIVES
NEW POSTS
Hypothesis: The higher the engagement with subscribers
early on, the longer they’ll retain as monthly active
subscribers.
Approach: New subscribers enter 4-week workflow that
sends them top performing posts.
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50. READER
SUBSCRIBES
READER ENTERS
DRIP CAMPAIGN
READER RECEIVES
NEW POSTS
These workflow emails generate 2x the clickthrough rate
as our normal sends – an indication that first impressions
really count – and were a vital contributor of our most
valuable metric, which we’ll cover in the next section.

51. READER
SUBSCRIBES
READER ENTERS
DRIP CAMPAIGN
READER RECEIVES
NEW POSTS
Once the workflow
is complete,
subscribers join our
email list to receive
new content as its
released.
www.anumhussain.com

52. And we’re left with two lists.
1. NEW
SUBSCRIBERS
When someone filled
out a form to subscribe,
they were considered
new and added to the
content onboarding
workflow.
2. INSTANT
SUBSCRIBERS
Upon completing the
four-week workflow,
subscribers would then
receive new blog posts
as we created and
published new content.
www.anumhussain.com

53. APPLYING A GROWTH
MINDSET TO CONTENT

54. Now you may be thinking
… this all sounds cool,
but why bother?
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55. For us, content was
more than a marketing
channel. It was a
revenue channel.
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56. We found that weekly product user retention
increased if users were subscribed & reading
our content.
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
WEEK 1 WEEK 2 WEEK 3 WEEK 4 WEEK 5 WEEK 6 WEEK 7 WEEK 8 WEEK 9
NOT SUBSCRIBED SUBSCRIBED

57. IT ALL STARTS WITH AN IMPROVED
CONTENT GROWTH STRATEGY.
USER RETENTION SUBSCRIBER RETENTION
USER CHURN SUBSCRIBER CHURN
USER ONBOARDING SUBSCRIBER ONBOARDING

58. Thank You.
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