Startups Marketing
Growth Hacking
Asst Prof. Kavin Asavanant, Ph.D.
Chulalongkorn Business School
Growth is a business strategy
• 2 Options
– High-risk, binary outcome, investment backed
– Lower-risk, mixed outcome, easily self-sustaining/lifestyle
business
• Land-grab scenario
– Pressure of competition; if we don’t’ sign people up for our
product then someone else will get there first
Growth hacking / technical marketing
• Teams at high-growth companies are scaling to millions of users
without major use of any traditional mass advertising/marketing
approaches
Incentivized Users to be Evangelists
https://www.airbnb.com/c/masavanant
Growth Hacker’s Toolbox
• SEO
• Content Marketing
• Conversion Optimization (CRO) & A/B Testing
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is
the process of improving the
quality and quantity of
website traffic to a website or
a web page from search
engines. SEO targets unpaid
traffic rather than direct
traffic or paid traffic
contents
marketing
contents marketing
Contents marketing – Google Trend
https://trends.google.co.th/trends/trendingsearches/daily?geo=TH
A/B Testing
A/B testing is a user experience
research methodology. A/B tests
consist of a randomized
experiment with two variants, A
and B. It includes application of
statistical hypothesis testing or
"two-sample hypothesis testing"
as used in the field of statistics
https://www.optimizely.com/
A/B testing example
Conversion improves from 2.3% to 4.3%
A/B testing example
B has a lower cost per
action by 224.7%
Increase conversion by 100%
A/B testing example
Stages of Growth
• Pre-launch: test proposition with customers; learn
what you should build
• Beta: fix your crappy product until people like it and
stick around/give you money
• Growth: time to scale. You got here by doing Things
That Didn’t Scale – time to operationalize all that
stuff while you explore and build out new
acquisition channels
Stages of Growth
• Scale: optimize, keep on top of changing
channel effectiveness and emerging
opportunities; start compliment your growth
hacking efforts with above-the-line marketing
Know where your customers hangout
• “Location, location, and location”
Be
wh
ere
yo
ur
cu
sto
me
rs
are
Facebook Group
Line Group / Line OpenChat
Line Group / Line OpenChat
Exercise (your project)
• Where do your users hangout online ?
• How do you get into Line Group of your targeted business? How do
you find them?
2. Create your own online presence
Google Business
Your personal social media
Your personal social media
• Personal : Facebook / Instagram / Line Posts / WeChat Story
/ TikTok
• Professional : LinkedIn, Blockdit
Pantip – Exposure
Marketing Role
Q: what channels do you market to?
• Design & test multiple marketing channels
• Select & Focus on Channels with
• High volume
• High conversion
• Low cost
• Segment & select channels / customers by conversion – what
group pay the most? What group come back the most?
Quantitative & Comparative Measurement
• Conversion Criteria:
• Best-performing (%) channels / campaigns / copy
• Largest-volume (#) channels / campaigns / copy
• Lowest-cost ($) channels / campaigns / copy
• Measurement Components:
• Audience Segment (new mom, university students)
• Channel Source (social network, SEM, organic, PR, offline)
• Campaign Theme (“learn new skills”, “study at chula”)
• Landing Page & Call to Action (CTA)
Product Role
Q: how do you choose what to build?
• Choose features for conversion improvement
• 80% on existing feature optimization
• 20% on new feature development
• Guess, A/B test
• Measure conversion improvement
Founder Role
Q: what metrics do you choose to watch?
• Hypothesize customer lifecycle & refine
• Choose 5-10 conversion steps
• Less, not more is better
• Measure and iterate
• Focus on conversion improvement
• Ideally, delegate each metric to someone to own
Dave McClure’s Pirate Metrics
Dave McClure’s Pirate Metrics
Acquisition
Activation
Retention
Referral
Revenue
How do your users know you?
Users come to the site from various channels
Do drive-by users use and understand and like your
product?
Users enjoy 1st visit: “happy” user experience
Does a one-time user become engaged?
Users come back, visit you multiple times
Do your users tell their friends?
Users like product enough to refer others
Do you make money from user activity?
Users have some monetization behavior
Customer Lifecycle / Conversation Behavior
Marketing Channels:
- largest-volume (#)
- lowest-cost ($)
- Best-performing (%)
Your service
Customer Lifecycle / Conversation Behavior
Your service
Customer Lifecycle / Conversation Behavior
Your service
Customer Lifecycle / Conversation Behavior
Your service
Customer Lifecycle / Conversation Behavior
Have to figure out based on
your business
Your service
Example
Acquisition
Activation
Retention
Referral
Revenue
Charged as % of total sales from
the merchant partner
Exercise (optional)
Choose one product in the following domain and analyze the
in the AARRR model
- E-Commerce (Shopee / Lazada / 7-11 Delivery)
- EduTech (StartDee / Globish / MindFlow)
- Entertainment (Spotify/Netflix)
- FinTech (BitKub, ZipMex, Binance, True Money, Shopee Pay, Dolphin
Pay, Lazada Wallet)
- Games (of your choice)
Integrate to your project
Think and propose about your AARRR model:
• What are important metrics at each level of A-A-R-R-R