How Larry Kim Started WordStream Out of a Bakery and Grew It to Over 10K Users
How Larry Kim Started WordStream Out of a Bakery and Grew It to Over 10K Users
How Larry Kim Started WordStream Out of a Bakery and Grew It to Over 10K Users
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Hey everyone! Today I share the mic with Larry Kim, founder of WordStream, the world’s biggest PPC management software company.
Tune in to hear Larry discuss why you need to focus your energy on creating original content, the mistakes that people make when it comes to content marketing, the strategies he employs to produce the best content out there, and why it’s not necessary to test the same idea across different channels.
VIDEO
Download podcast transcript [PDF] here: How Larry Kim Started WordStream Out of a Bakery and Grew It to Over 10K Users – TRANSCRIPT
Time-Stamped Show Notes:
00:40 – Please leave us a review and rating and subscribe to the Growth Everywhere Podcast
00:57 – Eric introduces Larry Kim
01:30 – Larry started WordStream in 2008 literally out of a bakery
02:20 – His background is in software engineering
03:34 – WordStream’s target market are the people who are not full-time marketers, like entrepreneurs and small business owners
04:01 – WordStream does the work for you for search marketing and social marketing
04:22 – The software costs on average $299 to $500 per month
04:58 – They have over 10,000 users
05:03 – WordStream offers free online tools for millions of marketers
06:22 – Being top of mind for people as a marketer is a lot of work – commitment to originating content is important
07:04 – The mistake people make is delegating or starting to curate other people’s content
07:57 – Two to three hours of Larry’s day is dedicated to learning new things that will inspire his original content
09:30 – The first thing Larry wants to express is that there is a lack of understanding of what constitutes quality content
10:35 – Quality content should be defined in terms of outcomes and results
12:11 – “We should define quality based on numbers”
12:40 – Larry wrote 300 pieces of content last year and only 6 or 7 of them went viral getting millions of views – 98% went nowhere
13:05 – High user engagement rates was a commonality in the ones that had success
13:52 – Today, metrics are being used by the algorithms of social and search platforms
15:50 – The notion of content marketing has shifted and so you have to change your strategy
16:16 – Changing your strategy is like a betting strategy in poker – you have to know when to fold and when to go all-in
17:28 – When you come across unusual stories that go viral, ones Larry calls unicorns, you have to go all-in
18:38 – Drop all the other marketing projects that you have going on and direct all your time and attention on your unicorn
19:14 – “A catchy idea tends to be catchy on social media”
19:33 – Another channel you should look into is paid advertising
21:27 – Keep rolling over your budget for marketing until you find a unicorn
22:44 – It’s not necessary to test the same idea across different channels
24:02 – In poker, you don’t play all your hands the same way
24:38 – Targeting matters! Think about who your target audience is for the content you produce
27:32 – They key to getting into social media is unusually high engagement rates
28:05 – People don’t randomly click on ads – they have a tendency to click on things they’ve heard of before
29:00 – The hack is going back to how marketing used to be – building a brand that people have heard of or are familiar with
31:25 – What’s one new tool that you’ve added in the last year that’s added a lot of value? – Facebook Audience Manager
32:35 – What’s one must-read book you recommend to everyone? – “I don’t read books so I’m going to pass”
33:06 – Connect with Larry on Twitter or LinkedIn
33:27 – End of today’s episode
3 Key Points:
The quality of one’s content should be measured by outcomes or results.
Be willing to change your strategy if your initial plan doesn’t work out.
Targeting matters – produce the content your audience wants to consume.
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How Sean Ellis Built GrowthHackers to 100K Members and Skyrocketed the Growth Hacking Movement
How Sean Ellis Built GrowthHackers to 100K Members and Skyrocketed the Growth Hacking Movement
How Sean Ellis Built GrowthHackers to 100K Members and Skyrocketed the Growth Hacking Movement
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Hey everyone, in today’s episode I share the mic with Sean Ellis, CEO of GrowthHackers. Sean was the 11th guest on Growth Everywhere and this is his second time on the podcast. Sean has worked with Dropbox and Qualaroo and is also the author of Hacking Growth .
Listen as Sean discusses the importance of running weekly growth experiments for your business, why focus is such an important asset for any founder, how to scale customer acquisition, and what he’s learned about growth from GrowthHackers, Qualaroo and other multi-billion-dollar companies.
VIDEO Download podcast transcript [PDF] here: How Sean Ellis Built GrowthHackers to 100K Members and Skyrocketed the Growth Hacking Movement TRANSCRIPT
Time-Stamped Show Notes:
00:36 – Leave a review and rating and subscribe to the podcast
00:56 – Eric welcomes Sean Ellis
01:19 – Sean shares about his background
01:21 – Sean worked with two startups that grew to become companies
01:54 – Most of Sean’s work is during the first year of a startup
02:22 – Sean worked with Dropbox , Eventbrite and Lookout
03:02 – Qualaroo was acquired from Kissmetrics
03:11 – Sean worked on Qualaroo and GrowthHackers at about the same time
03:22 – Qualaroo informs the types of tests you need to improve your website
03:38 – Sean sold Qualaroo to focus on GrowthHackers
04:11 – Sean was more focused on selling Qualaroo quickly rather than making a bigger sale
05:15 – GrowthHackers is trying to help companies manage their growth by setting up processes, training, and software
06:06 – GrowthHackers has their own community with hundreds of thousands of members
06:32 – GrowthHackers is Sean’s passion project
07:25 – GrowthHackers increased their monthly rate to $850
08:49 – Experimentation is important for learning how to grow your business
09:27 – Running an experiment follows the same scientific process
09:45 – What’s the one constant thing you see every time in every business? – The PRODUCT dictates a lot of the potential of a business
10:21 – The second most important thing is WHO is most passionate about the product
11:02 – Sean then works to find out who else can benefit from the product
11:14 – “It is about understanding the experience that leads to retention”
12:06 – Sean worked on a company where he was able to grow the retention and customer base
13:04 – Sean did a lot of testing to improve the onboarding and highlighted what lead to long term retention
13:46 – Sean’s book was written with Morgan Brown and it was about Sean’s processes as well as the best practices of the companies he’s worked with
14:15 – Marketing a business involves public touch points
15:05 – Sean and Morgan wanted to document how companies grow
15:35 – Sean wants to share to people what growth hacking really is and how they can apply it to their own businesses
16:18 – Sean started to write about his experiences in his own blog and the book is the culmination of all his work with these different companies
17:10 – Sean is passionate about helping people scale and give the most impact
18:04 – The GrowthHackers Conference is a celebration of bringing people together
19:20 – It is about sharing ideas between practitioners
19:52 – GrowthHackers University is built around the Growth Master Role
20:31 – It is a self-paced course through Teachable for people who are running the processes of their companies
21:08 – Sean says the solution to growth is a multi-faceted one and each piece is important
22:20 – Sean and his team manages the load by looking at each piece and finding what needs to be worked on the most
23:31 – What’s the most effective thing you are doing now in terms of customer acquisition? – The community was built on a Twitter queue
24:15 – Aside from Twitter, the community is actively engaging with one another through different channels
25:18 – What’s one big change you made in the last year that’s impacted you or the business in a big way? – Selling Qualaroo25:35 – What’s one new tool that you added in the last year that added a lot of value for you? – Segment 26:01 – What’s one must-read book do you recommend? – Presenting to Win Influence 27:04 – What’s one blog, publication or podcast do you recommend? – The Everything Store , The Upstarts 28:53 – Connect with Sean on Twitter and on GrowthHacker
29:20 – End of today’s episode
3 Key Points:
The potential growth of a company relies heavily on the value of its product.
Business growth is about retention—understand what keeps your customers faithful to you.
Experimentation is KEY to growing your business and needs to be part of your process.
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