How to Audit Your Growth Marketing Engine & Accelerate Growth

Growth marketing is all about driving business growth and increasing revenue, but it starts with creating the ideal journey for your prospects and customers. So, what does that involve? Glad you asked–  It involves a combination of marketing strategies, tactics, and experiments designed to help companies (like you!)  acquire, grow and retain customers. However, it’s not enough to simply implement growth marketing strategies (that’s actually just the beginning!); it’s essential to audit your engine to identify areas of improvement and accelerate growth. 

Get ready! In this blog we’ll explore how to optimize your growth engine and drive repeatable, predictable pipeline.  We’ll cover the following topics:

• What is a Growth Engine 
• How to Audit Your Engine 
• How to get the most out of your engine (effectively and EFFICIENTLY)
• What success looks like and how to drive continuous improvement

Let’s get to it>>>

💭 What Is A Growth Engine?

It’s a framework that outlines the key components needed to drive.. you guessed it! Growth. Better yet– SUSTAINABLE growth.  There are  five components of a growth engine that you need to know (hint- its your customer lifecycle):

1. Acquisition - how you attract new customers
2. Activation - how you convert new customers into active users
3. Retention - how you keep customers coming back
4. Referral - how you encourage customers to refer others
5. Revenue - how you increase revenue from existing customers

Each component is critical and builds off the others. A weak link in any one of these components can significantly impact your overall growth. So, it isn’t enough to perfect one–it’s important to audit each component to ensure your growth marketing engine is running smoothly and efficiently

📝 How to Audit Your Growth Engine

There are a series of steps involved to complete the audit, but before you start, it’s important to determine what your overarching goals are. Are you focused on acquiring new customers, growing existing, or improving retention? Your outcomes and priorities will look different based on those goals, so be sure to have those defined before diving into the audit. 

There are a series of steps involved to complete the audit, but before you start, it’s important to determine what your overarching goals are. Are you focused on acquiring new customers, growing existing, or improving retention? Your outcomes and priorities will look different based on those goals, so be sure to have those defined before diving into the audit. 

Step 1: Review Your Data and Your Process 

Look at the key metrics supporting your goals. We’ve provided a list below that should capture *most* KPIs for your customer journey. Use this data to identify the trends, patterns, gaps and opportunities. There is so much you can find by connecting the data dots.  

Important note- talk to your customers! The data will get you far, but your customer feedback paired with the data will get you further! 

KPIs to Consider: 

• Efficiency 
• Lead to Opp Conversion Rate 
• Cost Per lead 
• CAC Payback 
• CAC/LTV Ratio
• Deal Velocity 
• Top of Funnel Engagement 
• Content Engagement 
• Inbound Campaign Performance 
• Outbound Campaign Performance 
• Bottom of Funnel 
• Lead Source Diversification (what sources are driving opps) 
• Pipeline Creation 
• Revenue Realized 
• Average Selling or Contract Value 
• Time to Value
• Product Adoption 

Step 2: Identify Areas of Improvement

You did the digging and now it’s time to find your growth marketing levers, AKA areas of opportunity for each component of your growth engine. What does it all mean? Here are a few examples: if your acquisition cost is high, you may need to optimize your targeting or adjust your messaging. If your conversion rate is low, you may need to improve the lead flow path, align your sales and marketing teams, etc.. 

Step 3: Develop a Plan to Optimize

Great news! You have the info you need to drive towards revenue! Don’t stop here– if  you do nothing with the data, you won’t improve at the pace you want to AND your competitors will run ahead of you. Lean into the power of that data! 

It's time to develop a plan, establish priorities (remember Rome wasn’t built in a day), and empower your teams with the information to move from planning into action. We listed a hefty list of KPIs to evaluate, so you’ll likely have a list of things you feel like you need to tackle. 

- Pause, take a quick breath and remember the goals you set -

 Your engine will backfire by trying to do ALL the things. So, how do you prevent it? It’s simple! Relentless focus on high impact items that drive you towards your goals. 

[Tip] It’s better to focus on 1-3 BIG things vs 10 little things. This is easier said than done when you’re in the business of growth, so give yourself (and your teams) the time and space to focus. 

Step 4: Execute and Monitor

It’s showtime! Let’s talk about executing the plan. This will look different based on size, stage and industry. However, there are core areas of your customer journey that impact the health of your growth engine. We’ve provided a list below, along with a quick reminder to track, adjust and experiment! 

[Reminder] Track your key metrics and adjust as needed. Experimentation is a key component of growth marketing, so refer back to the KPIs we shared in step 1. Use this information as your guide to determine the right mix to keep your growth marketing engine humming. 

🏁 Starting Point

Here are some quick take aways to help get you started:

Acquisition 🤝

• Optimize your targeting to reach your ideal customers.
• Test different channels and tactics to find the most effective ones.

Activation 🎯

• Look at ways to improve your onboarding process through marketing automation, internal team enablement, etc.. 
• Remember that Time to value metric? Provide value as early as possible once you have the new customer through educational content, tutorials, community, etc.. 

Retention ✉️

• Provide a great user experience to keep users coming back (ask them for feedback on how you can improve) 
• Use personalized messaging and offers to re-engage inactive users.

Referral 📞

• Make it easy for users to refer their friends and family.
• Incentivize referrals with rewards or discounts.

Revenue 💸

• Upsell and cross-sell to existing customers.
• Provide personalized offers and recommendations based on user behavior.

‍

YOU MADE IT! 

Now, you have a blueprint to optimize (or build) your growth marketing engine. Before we part ways, here are a few takeaways to inspire quick action. 

• Talk to a customer this week: When was the last time your marketing team talked to customers? Empower them to hop on a call
• Review your KPIs: What lead sources are bringing you the highest quality leads? What sources aren’t working? Share them with your team and decide how to proceed with the below.
• Pick one thing to improve: What’s that one thing on your list that will drive the biggest impact? Hint- it could be STOPPING something vs starting something. 

Looking for inspo and wanting to brainstorm? Our resident Growth powerhouse, Rach Charboneau is a great person to connect with. She is always down for a coffee chat, so drop a note anytime! 

‍

‍

‍