This is a presentation I did for the inaugural Techstars Atlanta class. It covers three main areas of building a growth engine for startups: 1) marketing fundamentals (target audience exploration, messaging, moments + places), 2) testing + data (growth hypotheses, marketing funnel, data strategy) and 3) marketing channels (paid ads, message automation, lead gen, referral program). For each section, I provide relevant frameworks, bring them to life with examples and recommend my favorite tools and platforms.

1. BUILDING A GROWTH ENGINE
FOR STARTUPS
CEZARY PIETRZAK
Presented to Techstars Atlanta
August 24, 2016
@ckp

2. MY BACKGROUND
2000 - 2004
2005 - 2008
CEZARY & CO
2008 - 2012
2012
2013
2014

3. GROWTH TOPICS I WILL COVER TODAY
PART 1
Fundamentals
PART 2
Testing + Data
PART 3
Marketing Channels

4. WRITE IT DOWN…OR IT DIDN’T HAPPEN

5. PART 1: FUNDAMENTALS
Marketing fundamentals canvas
Target audience exploration
Messaging architecture
Moments + places

6. MARKETING FUNDAMENTALS CANVAS
Mission
Vision
Brand
Target Audience
Market Niche
Key Message

7. TARGET AUDIENCE EXPLORATION
Market Size
Demographics
Mindset
Tools
Behavior Frequency

8. MESSAGING
Key Message
Key Descriptor
Mission
Vision
Audience
Mindset
Industry Realities
Functional Benefit
Emotional Benefits
Tone
Boilerplate

9. PART 2: TESTING + DATA
Develop hypotheses
Prioritize channels
Map out marketing + sales funnel
Set up data + tracking strategy

10. DEVELOP GROWTH HYPOTHESES
Sources
Behavioral insights
Background research
Industry benchmarks
Company stage
Growth goals
Investor requirements
Previous hypotheses
Data
Experiment
Type
Key Metric
Prediction
Outcome
Resources

11. PRIORITIZE CHANNELS

12. MAP OUT YOUR MARKETING + SALES FUNNEL
B2C
Acquisition
Onboarding
Engagement
Retention
Revenue
Referral
B2B
1 New
2 Contacted
3 Phone Call
4 MQL
5 SQL
6 Opportunity
7 Nurture
Mobile
Web/Mobile Web > App Store > Install > Open > Signup

13. SETUP YOUR DATA + TRACKING STRATEGY
CRM
Data Layer
Business Intelligence
Data Warehouse
Attribution

14. PART 3: MARKETING CHANNELS
Paid Ads
Message Automation
Lead Gen + List Building
Cold Outreach
Referral Program

15. PAID ADS
Principles
Own your data
Don’t trust platforms
CTR = vanity metric
One tracking source
Dashboards
Campaign
Daily
Creative

16. MESSAGE AUTOMATION
Process
Use marketing funnel as base
Think of actions / non-actions
Keep it simple
Ship one email at a time
A/B test from the start
Analyze + optimize
Elements
Message flow
User action
Condition
Timing
Move to flow

17. LEAD GEN + LIST BUILDING
Process
Source company list
Merge databases
Sanitize data
Find people / roles
Generate emails
Enrich data
Data
Company
Contact / Role
Email
Supporting Data

18. COLD OUTREACH
Process
Break down audience mindset
Focus on subject lines first
Personalize as much as possible
Use tactics like “Re:” in subject
Set up 3-5 step direct sell drip
Shift to content marketing
Move back to direct sell

19. REFERRAL PROGRAMS
Elements
Passive discovery
Proactive discovery
Invitation mechanism
Invitation timing
Offer
Follow-up
Tracking
Considerations
NPS score
Dev support
Minimum setup

20. LEARN ABOUT
MARKETING + GROWTH + MOBILE
CEZARY.CO
@ckp