The early stages of any startup are spent finding product/market fit. This is the only proven path to long-term success. However, once you find that fit, your priorities need to shift to taking that product to market, and the transition isn’t always easy. You’ll need to tap different skills and redistribute resources toward generating leads (and revenue!), but who will lead the effort?
Do you hire a CMO or a director of growth marketing? Bring on a marketing team? What about SaaS design agencies and accelerators? It is at this stage that many startups turn to a startup marketing consultant to help plan their next steps. In this article, I’ll explain why a startup marketing consultant is often the smart growth choice.
Startup marketing consultants are marketers with a broad and deep knowledge base in marketing SaaS and other startup offerings. A startup marketing consultant or agency can help your organization reap the full benefits of achieving product/market fit by developing a go-to-market strategy, gaining traction in the marketplace, reducing churn and increasing revenue. They can smooth your organization’s transition from development to distribution and growth.
Startup marketing consultants are an efficient way for early- and growth-stage organizations to tap expert advice before they are ready to make their next round of hires. Calling in a consultant enables you to stay lean without sacrificing growth opportunities by putting customer acquisition on hold.
Bringing a startup marketing consultant on board is also a flexible way to boost your existing team’s marketing power or obtain strategic guidance at critical stages. Startup marketing accelerators are an excellent source to learn general principles, network with other founders, and begin to refine your vision and messaging but they can’t provide boots-on-the-ground support for your marketing program. A startup marketing consultant can offer that one-to-one support, freeing you and your team to focus on other mission-critical tasks.
Additionally, unlike traditional, functional agencies, the best startup marketing agencies and consultants are channel and tactic agnostic. Their focus is on delivering results, not offering a specific set of services. They understand the metrics that matter to you and your investors and will help you choose the right strategies and tactics to meet your KPIs.
The best startup marketing consultants understand your business and are focused on delivering results. But, the truth is, not all marketing consultants are the same. Some marketing consultants are generalists. They don’t understand the unique challenges and opportunities of the startup and SaaS ecosystems. Others perform more like functional agencies–focusing on using the tactics that they know best, or offering white label services instead of strategic guidance. These consultants may be the perfect choice if you already know what you need or just need an extra pair of hands.
However, most startups are looking for a greater return on their investment when they choose to partner with a marketing consultant. They are looking for an expert who can help them maximize growth without burning through their runway. The best choice to achieve these objectives is a growth marketing consultant.
Growth marketing has fueled the rapid ascension of high-growth startups including Glossier, Airbnb, and Robinhood, and is a go-to strategy for FAANG brands. In fact, according to MarketerHire, growth marketers are the most in-demand area of specialization among marketing hires.
Growth marketing is a natural fit for B2B SaaS startups because its roadmap is a familiar one that has proven to be successful.
A growth marketing strategy begins with a planning stage that resembles the product/market fit stage of product development. During this stage, the startup and consultant set goals and success metrics. They’ll also conduct research to gain an understanding of their target audience and brand positioning, choose the most effective channels and tactics, and achieve message-market fit.
The next stage of growth marketing involves building the assets that will deliver that message to prospects at every stage in the buyer’s journey. With marketing assets purpose-built for conversions, the process of optimization begins, with continuous testing, learning, and improving. Only after the entire program is fully vetted–and found to be repeatable and sustainable–does scaling begin.
It bears repeating, growth marketing isn’t exactly the same as growth hacking even though they share many similarities. Both growth marketing and growth hacking aim to maximize lead generation and revenue to fuel powerful growth. However, growth hacking is a candle burning fast, while growth marketing is a slow steady flame. Growth marketing delivers the benefits of a strong customer acquisition strategy without risking all of your marketing budget in a single shot.
BrandTheory is a performance-focused growth marketing agency dedicated to helping SaaS organizations and startups develop and deploy scalable growth strategies. We partner with you to discover your unique market position and build a sustainable customer acquisition funnel using data-driven decision making.
Find out how our systematic approach to marketing strategy can help you build your customer base, increase your revenue and lower your customer acquisition costs by booking a no-cost, no-pressure SmartGrowth Session today.