Growth marketing, a timeline:

2015: "We need to go viral."

2017: "Well, we raised $25m of VC. Let's dump it on Facebook ads."

2021: "Wow. We should have been focusing on content and building a great product."

How to grow a podcast:

• Be YouTube-first; do video

• Split eps into 8min YouTube clips with SEO’d titles

• Get guests that are searched for on YouTube

• Consider not publishing bad eps

• Exchange eps with other shows

• Niche is fine, but be widely accessible

How to grow a YouTube channel:

• Describe the video's value in the first five seconds

• Ask a question you don't resolve until the last five seconds

• With YT algo, 1 amazing video > 10 good videos

• Quick cuts don't give people time to ask if they're bored

—Mr. Beast

Some tips for growing newsletters:

• Plug it at the end of a tweet thread.

• Swap plugs with other newsletters.

• Send a sample issue upon signup to excite people for future issues.

• Consider twice-monthly over weekly. My poll revealed people are fatigued with newsletters.

Two major SEO factors I look for:

1. The click-through rate of your page title.
2. Searchers not needing to return to Google after clicking your page. How?

• Write for depth

• Link to more topics they might want instead

• Start w/ a summary to show they're at the right place

Getting content ideas:

• Buzzsumo shows competitors' big content. Write about those topics

• Google Trends shows breakout topics in your industry. Cover them

• Search Reddit for good content that didn't go big. Credit (!) your source, remix the insights, and push it broader

Here's a LOOSE idea of which customer acquisition channels to prioritize based on your business model.

This isn't set in stone—try many channels over time.

Getting Twitter followers:

• Learn copywriting—punch + clarity

• Respond to big accounts quickly w/ insights

• Write for retweets: focus on insights + stories

• People retweet novelty, inspiration, tribal affiliation

• Bio should say why ppl should follow. See mine: @julian

To see how competitors are running acquisition:

• View their Google Ads via Ahrefs

• View their popular blog posts via Buzzsumo

• View their Facebook ads via the Facebook Ads Library

• All of these also reveal which landing pages they're using

If you want more content on startup marketing, give me a follow. I post threads 2x/week like this.

You can see past threads here: @julian