The Growth Newsletter #080

CRO, TikTok, affiliates, and a new interview.  ‌ ‌ ‌ [Demand Curve] The Growth Newsletter #080 [Read in browser](=) Welcome to the 1078 new marketers and founders who joined last week!  This week we're covering CRO, TikTok, and affiliates.  If you don’t find this valuable, you can permanently unsubscribe at the bottom of this email. If you like it, tell your friends to [subscribe here](.   Together with Vidico.  If you asked us what type of content we'd bet on for the back half of 2022 (and beyond), you'd get a clear answer: Video.  Ads, landing pages, organic social—quality video content racks up engagement and conversions.  But creating great video content isn't easy. Some products are notoriously hard to communicate. And even after endless revisions, you're left with videos that don’t perform.  Vidico is solving this problem.  Vidico is the production company that helps you acquire more customers through video. They make the production process ridiculously easy, and you get effective videos to communicate your product’s value props with a high degree of precision, and creative flair.  Vidico is offering a free video strategy session so you can learn exactly what kind of video content is right for your product and marketing strategy. No commitment—you'll walk away with insights about what's working in your space, and suggestions from video pros that have worked with the likes of Square, Spotify and Airtable.  If you decide to work with Vidico after, you'll also get $500 off their first video project.  [Grab your free strategy session here]( (exclusively for Demand Curve readers).   Want to sponsor Demand Curve? [Here's everything you need to know](.  Fresh Demand Curve article  If you work in SEO, you know Clearscope. Thousands of marketers use it and love it. And it generates millions in revenue annually. We spoke with founder Bernard Huang about how he grew Clearscope. He shared his insights—use them to grow your SaaS startup.  We've included the first half of the piece at the bottom of the newsletter. Scroll down to dive in, or [read the full piece here](.  1. Forms as a visual cue for conversions Insight from [Marketing Sherpa](.  Concise, simple landing pages generally convert better.  For instance, it’s best to eliminate any unnecessary copy, creative, and CTAs.  But less isn’t always more. Take a look at this experiment.  A law firm created two variations of a landing page: - One with the firm’s phone number (with a “call” primary CTA) followed by a lead generation form - One with only the firm’s phone number—no form The form got very few submissions. But the variation with the form generated 53.2% more calls than the variation without it.  The reasoning behind this: Forms act as a visual prompt for action.  Though both variations used the same primary “call” CTA, the inclusion of the form made obvious to leads—even people skimming the page—that the next step is to get in contact.  Based on these results, it’s worth testing how conversions are affected by the presence of a form. For example, if you have a landing page with only an email address or phone number, consider adding a form.  2. Experiment with organic content to de-risk TikTok ads Insight from [Brian Blum]( & [Alex Friedman]( via [Marketing Examined](.  You can quickly validate TikTok ads with zero ad spend.  Organic learnings happen fast. You'll know in 48 hours whether a post is a flop or poised to go full-throttle. Once you have a winner, pulse it with Spark ads to amplify results.  Here’s the framework:  1. Define your ideal follower. Who and where are they? What content do they desire?  2. Create and publish content. Make your content searchable so that when people search for keywords in your niche, they find your videos. Make it great so people share. - Source content ideas—Use [Answer The Public]( to determine what people are searching for. Add a few keywords specific to your niche and pick 5-10 questions to inspire your content. - Start content flywheel—Bake engagement triggers into the content by encouraging viewers to ask questions in the comments. Answer those questions in future content to build momentum. 3. Evaluate performance. After you publish content, track KPIs over 24-48 hours to gauge potential: - % Watch Time - Likes to Views Ratio - Saves or Shares 4. Run your best content as Spark ads. When you post organic content on TikTok, the algorithm determines who you reach. With ads, targeting lets you control who sees your content. The point of this step isn’t to rely on ads, but amplify proven content to accelerate growth. - Select the campaign objective, "Community Interaction" - Run A/B test. A: Interest-Based. B: Hashtag - Spend $75 - $150/day - Let the ad run for 7-10 days, then turn it off The additional bump in views and engagement should help TikTok’s algorithm amplify your content, getting it in front of the right people.  3. Make your affiliate marketing less programmatic and more personal Insight from [Bell Curve](.  Affiliate publishers aren’t robots.  Just like your customers, partners, and colleagues, they’re humans. Meaning: They’re driven by connections and emotions.  If you build relationships with them, you could see a sizable bump in your affiliate sales.  Try this. It’s a proven tactic that 99% of marketers (an unscientific estimate) don’t do. - Get a publisher list on [Rakuten]( or [Impact](. - Use your list to scrape contacts on LinkedIn. - Connect with the contacts you find. Send each a personalized intro note. - Gather their contact info (emails). - Shoot them a note every once in a while—especially around times when you want to accelerate sales, like the holidays. Keep it simple and friendly (“hey, wishing you good luck this Q4”) to keep your brand top of mind. That’s one tactic. But think about other ways you can develop relationships with affiliate publishers. For instance, you could offer them free items or coupons. In a previous role, one of our [Bell Curve]( growth strategists sent his affiliate partner wine coupons. Sales skyrocketed.  Most companies work with affiliates through platforms that programmatically make your ads appear on affiliates’ websites. But the people behind the platforms are the ones who click the buttons that can make those ads show up more than anyone else’s. Strengthen connections with them, and you could grow your sales.   News and links News you can use: - LinkedIn is rolling out a new [link sticker option]( to help drive more traffic from your posts. (Like an IG Stories link sticker but for LinkedIn). - Google started showing [pros and cons in product review featured snippets](. If you haven't already, consider adding pro and con structured data for a potential bump in visibility for product keywords. - Nano-influencer marketing (sub 5k followers) spend is [up 220%]( this year. That's a growth rate of ~8x the total spend on influencer marketing (28%). Our take: If lesser-known creators aren't part of your strategy, maybe reconsider. - Related resource: [Influencer (Creator) Marketing playbook]( AI personalization*:  An interesting development that top marketers are keeping an eye on: how AI can make customer data even more valuable.  Last week, Customer Data Platform [mParticle announced]( their acquisition of Vidora, an AI personalization platform for customer data. On August 16th, mParticle CPO Chee Chew and Vidora CEO Alex Holub will be connecting for a fireside chat to discuss what’s possible with mParticle + Vidora and how marketers can get started with AI today. [Register here](.  * Sponsored by mParticle Top new marketing jobs  If you're looking for a top growth role, check out the opportunities below from our [job board](. [Founding Growth Lead Kudos Kudos is a smart wallet that helps consumers save time and money whenever they shop.](   Something fun From [@StateOfLinkedIn](   Want more growth tactics? We're giving away our entire back catalog of tactics to folks who refer two friends to this newsletter. Here's your referral link to share: [(. You can track your referrals [here](. We'll automatically email you the password-protected tactics page once you've referred two people.    SaaS Growth Through Good Old-Fashioned Outreach with Bernard Huang of Clearscope Together with Clearscope.  This deep dive was created in partnership with Clearscope—the leading content optimization platform. Clearscope helps thousands of businesses like Adobe, Shopify, Condé Nast, Nvidia, Deloitte, Intuit, and HubSpot increase SEO traffic at scale.  Want to take Clearscope for a test drive? Demand Curve community members can get up to [3 complimentary Clearscope reports here](. Meet Bernard Huang. If you work in SEO or content, chances are you’ve seen his face or heard of his company. Bernard co-founded [Clearscope](, an AI-powered SEO software platform that’s rated as one of G2’s highest-performing tools. A serial entrepreneur since childhood, Bernard has an adventurous habit of trying new things, often learning by trial and error along the way. Take a look at his résumé, and you’ll find the story of a scrappy autodidact determined to run his own company. A few highlights: - As an undergrad at the University of Texas at Austin, Bernard earned $120,000 playing professional online poker—which he then used to buy a Dickey’s Barbecue Pit franchise with friends. - After teaching himself to code, Bernard was enlisted by a baker friend to develop her website. This sparked his later idea Food By People, a marketplace for home-baked goods. - To get more startup experience, Bernard eventually joined 42Floors, a Y Combinator alum and real estate company, as employee #16. His official title was “Growth Hacker.” - Along with a friend from college, Bernard started GameRunners, an esports coaching platform that helped young gamers sharpen their League of Legends skills. While not all of his projects have led to success—the Dickey’s location closed after a 13-month run and Food By People floundered—Bernard has drawn many learnings from each experience. Without them, he wouldn’t be where he is today as the co-founder of one of the most established SEO tools. I spoke with Bernard recently to find out how he grew Clearscope into a SaaS powerhouse generating millions in revenue annually. As with any successful company, many different elements have played into Clearscope’s growth at various stages. Skip to [our takeaways](?utm_campaign=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_content=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=email#takeaways) if you’d prefer to read a high-level roundup of his biggest lessons. Otherwise, keep reading for more context and backstory on Bernard’s journey with Clearscope. - [A quick overview](?utm_campaign=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_content=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=email#a-quick-overview) - [Product development](?utm_campaign=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_content=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=email#product-development) - [Early traction (customers 1-10)](?utm_campaign=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_content=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=email#early-traction-customers-1-10) - [Growing momentum (customers 11-100)](?utm_campaign=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_content=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=email#growing-momentum-customers-11-100) - [Sustained growth (101 customers and beyond)](?utm_campaign=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_content=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=email#sustained-growth-101-customers-and-beyond) - [Advice for new founders](?utm_campaign=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_content=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=email#advice-for-new-founders) - [Takeaways](?utm_campaign=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_content=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=email#takeaways) A quick overview What is Clearscope? Clearscope is an AI-powered SEO tool that helps businesses optimize their online content for more search traffic. Companies including Adobe, Shopify, Condé Nast, HubSpot, and Deloitte rely on Clearscope for their content marketing strategies, using it for both keyword research and content optimization. [Clearscope's content optimizer] We at Demand Curve use Clearscope, too. The software’s text editor and keyword reports aggregate a lot of data into one spot, making it easy to see what content Google perceives as relevant to your target keyword. And since it integrates well with Google Docs, Clearscope made a simple addition to our existing content creation process. How Clearscope began Clearscope’s origins trace back to Bernard’s start in growth marketing—and how he developed SEO expertise in the first place. We mentioned earlier that before Clearscope, Bernard joined the commercial real estate company 42Floors as a Growth Hacker. While there, he explored paid advertising and SEO, developing particular expertise in SEO from reading [Moz’s blog]( and running his own experiments. Part of Bernard’s learnings also came from connecting with others in SEO, including the owners of two of the biggest private blog networks at the time. Realizing the importance of backlinks for SEO, he bought many for 42Floors. It worked—the company’s organic search traffic skyrocketed. (Note: This was 2013—a very different time for SEO. The tactics Bernard used then don’t guarantee success today. If you're interested in pursuing SEO as a growth strategy, [check out our playbook about it](/guides/content-led-seo?utm_campaign=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_content=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=email).) Wanting to scratch his entrepreneurial itch, Bernard eventually left 42Floors to work on GameRunners with his friend Kevin Su. The two had lived together during college before Kevin dropped out and taught himself to code. [Article about Gamerunners, one of Bernard's early companies]GameRunners was an esports coaching platform that connected gaming pros with amateurs. From time to time, Bernard would meet with an old colleague and friend from 42Floors to catch up and talk SEO, although purely on a pro bono basis. However, in early 2015, Bernard and Kevin saw their bank accounts running dry in San Francisco. GameRunners wasn’t taking off. So they pivoted, creating an SEO consultancy instead. Bernard and Kevin called it [Mushi Labs](. The colleague from 42Floors had moved on to DoorDash by then. While Bernard had said he wasn’t interested in working full-time for DoorDash, he realized the company’s potential as a Mushi Labs client. Over time, Mushi Labs developed into a full-fledged consultancy, landing other clients like Strava and Teespring primarily through word of mouth. Many came from Y Combinator’s private founder community, [Bookface](, and were referred by Bernard’s former colleagues at 42Floors. At the same time, Bernard further developed his SEO expertise by consulting for the venture capital firm [500 Startups]( on the side, giving companies suggestions for their content and SEO strategies. [[ratio]  Â]( Where does Clearscope fit into all this? “The original goal was not to do consulting, but to start our own thing,” Bernard told me. So as with GameRunners, Bernard and Kevin set out to develop a product—this time, focusing on the SEO space. After spending a lot of time poring over spreadsheets and using data from the machine learning company [AlchemyAPI]( for clients, they sought to automate their manual processes. Bernard saw potential in natural language processing, a branch of AI aimed at using computers to understand information from text and speech. “I thought it would be interesting if we tested using natural language processing to optimize content copy to see whether or not it has an impact on organic rankings,” Bernard explained. Product development Having graduated from college with an economics degree, Bernard considers himself the “non-technical founder.” When I asked about the technical work behind Clearscope’s product development, he gave his co-founder, Kevin Su, all of the credit. According to Bernard, “Kevin has been the full-stack product brilliance behind the tool from day one. … The brilliance and simplicity of Clearscope can only be attributed to Kevin's ability to have a strong product sense.” But before Kevin could create Clearscope’s software, the two needed to validate its proof of concept. They didn’t want another flop like GameRunners. So following the principles of lean customer methodology, the two decided to “sell it before you build it.” Kevin created an HTML/CSS mockup of their software idea, and taking screenshots of it, Bernard made a slide deck about the product. Then he worked on connecting with other SEO professionals in San Francisco through [cold email outreach](/blog/cold-email-marketing?utm_campaign=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_content=Growth+Newsletter+%23080&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=email). Here’s a look at one of his emails: [Bernard's cold email to other SEOs]Bernard used cold outreach to connect with other SEOs in San Francisco. Note that he asked for the prospect’s input—he didn’t try selling anything outright. A few details worth highlighting: - Bernard’s email wasn’t overly personalized, yet it still came across as a tailored message. It’s clear he did his homework on the prospect—he knew they were a “fellow SEO in SF” and included the name of the prospect’s company. - Although Bernard wanted to pitch his product idea to gauge potential interest, his email ask wasn’t blatantly about selling. Instead, he shared honestly that he was “exploring potential products to help people manage internal SEO stuff.” - What’s more, Bernard’s ask revolved around meeting to get the prospect’s advice and input. It was clearly a two-way conversation (“trade SEO war stories”), not a one-sided sales pitch. Bernard set up coffee meetings with around 40-50 SEOs. In each one, he walked the prospect through the slide deck with screenshots of Kevin’s software mockup, explaining what the hypothetical product would do. “At the end, there used to be a slide that said, ‘We'll do this all for $500 a month’—to price test it,” he recalled. “Then I'd ask, ‘If we built this, would this be something that you'd be interested in purchasing?’” Bernard estimated that 20-30% of these prospects said they’d buy it or at least check it out—enough for him to tell Kevin, “I think we have enough to start working on it.” From there, the two paused on taking new clients for Mushi Labs so they could create Clearscope’s software. Reflecting on this, Bernard chuckled. “Our mindset was ‘There's no Plan B, we just got to make this work.’ We kind of burned the boats, and went all in on Clearscope.” Early traction (customers 1-10) You might expect that Clearscope naturally grew by funneling clients from Mushi Labs. It’s totally plausible: Wanting to productize their work, two experts running an SEO consulting service develop software that they then market to their existing clients. Not quite. Bernard shared that he and his co-founder actually converted very few of their consulting clients into Clearscope customers. “When people go with a consultant, they’re going with a consultant because they want you to do the work,” he said. “When you sell them software, they have to do the work.” Bernard’s point is a good reminder of the importance of understanding your target audience and what “job” they “hire” your product for, according to the jobs-to-be-done framework. If you're changing your business model or trying a new product, don’t assume your existing audience will be interested. So how did Bernard find Clearscope’s earliest clients? Once again, he turned to outreach—this time, within his network. Professional relationship management Early on, Bernard made it a habit to export all of his LinkedIn contacts into a spreadsheet at the end of the year—a virtual Rolodex of sorts. He assessed each contact based on their value as a potential Clearscope client. Then he carefully developed a few email templates with which to reach out: - a standard outreach email - a semi-personalized version - a heavily customized one [Screenshot of one of Bernard’s year-end outreach templates] Above is one of Bernard’s year-end outreach templates. This is the standard version—but as you can see, it still reads as warm and personable. Unlike the cold emails he used during the product development stage, Bernard didn’t have a concrete ask. His messages functioned more as a friendly update and conversation starter, and they placed his name top of mind—perfect in case any of his contacts had SEO needs. “The whole intention was really to just tell people what I was doing—to get that conversation going in case it popped up in people's day-to-day,” Bernard said. This wasn’t quite cold outreach, since Bernard knew these contacts. Taking inspiration from Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz’s book about networking, [Never Eat Alone](, he instead called the strategy “professional relationship management.” And it worked, gradually pulling in Clearscope’s earliest customers. “If you can't sell your friends on professional services that you're offering, you're not going to be able to sell a random stranger on it,” Bernard said. “Your first five customers are probably going to come from your network if you're selling consulting or agency type of services.” With this philosophy in mind, Bernard avoided using paid ads. People who knew Bernard and his track record of SEO success felt confident in signing up for Clearscope, a product that had no reviews or case studies at the time. Ensuring product adoption There was no time to sit back and relax after Clearscope signed on its first handful of customers. Since its software was so new, Bernard and Kevin knew it needed refining. “It was still lacking a lot of things,” Bernard recalls. “What we wanted to optimize for early on was learning—learning what to say, who to say it to, what clients wanted, what they resonated with, what they wanted to see—all of that good stuff.” To find out how to improve the product, the two looked to their early customers. Kevin wrote a webhook for Slack that would automatically send a message whenever a client ran a report in Clearscope. Seeing these messages appear made Bernard and Kevin happy—but also revealed which clients weren’t actually using Clearscope. Bernard reached out to these inactive customers to check in on them. His logic: Customers wouldn’t value Clearscope if they didn’t use it. So he worked on finding out what customers wanted and guiding them to product adoption as much as possible, even if that involved taking a very active role in their product implementation. [Emails from Bernard to early Clearscope customers] Bernard persistently reached out to customers who weren’t using Clearscope’s software. He could identify them based on a webhook his co-founder wrote. Bernard recalled giving a generous discount to convert one trial user into a Clearscope customer—only to find that after signing up, the customer barely used the software. So he offered to optimize 10 articles for them, asking only that he be able to use the resulting data for a case study. [Email offer from Bernard for free article optimization] Bernard offered an inactive Clearscope user free optimization work at the end of one of his emails. The customer happily agreed. Ten articles later, data from Google Search Console showed that optimization with Clearscope led to a 52% average increase in the customer’s search traffic. Some pages got as much as a 230% boost. “This was one of the biggest breakthroughs in customers one through 10,” Bernard noted. And it wasn’t just the one client who saw results—Bernard extended his offer to other early customers to create more case studies. The data helped justify Clearscope’s cost against lower-priced SEO software like Ahrefs, and would set the stage for further growth. [Continue reading article](   What did you think of this week's newsletter?  [Loved it]( | [Great]( | [Good]( | [Meh]( | [Bad](  If you enjoyed this, please consider sharing with a friend. If a friend sent you this, get the next newsletter by signing up [here](.  Who's [Demand Curve](? We’re who marketers and founders rely on to solve real marketing problems. We skip trends and fluffy stories and only share high-quality, vetted, and actionable growth content from the top 1% of marketers.  How we can help you grow: - Read our free [playbooks](, [blog articles](, and [teardowns](—we break down the strategies and tactics that fast-growing startups use to grow. - Enroll in the [Growth Program](, our professional course that will help you get traction and scale revenue. - Hire our agency, [Bell Curve](, and we'll grow your startup for you. - Engage with our audience by [sponsoring]( Demand Curve. See you next week.  — Nick, Grace, Joyce, Dennis, and the DC team. [Nick] Nick Costelloe [Grace] Grace Parazzoli [Joyce] Joyce Chou [Dennis] Dennis Buckley   © 2022 Demand Curve, Inc. All rights reserved. 4460 Redwood Hwy, Suite 16-535, San Rafael, California, United States [Unsubscribe](=) from all emails, including the newsletter, or [manage]( subscription preferences.