Global markets it_strategy & growth hacking 2014.6

KYODO Consulting Group Young KwonKYODO Consulting Group Young Kwon

Global Capital MarketsStrategy and Roadmap

Study

April 7, 2023 2

Global Capital Markets Strategy & Roadmap

Challenge:This top 10 Bank was facing large inefficiencies in its systems that supported foreign exchange, treasury and derivatives trading activities. The current system infrastructure included costly and inefficient manual processing, ineffective risk management capabilities and impeded the ability to grow the business. Specific issues included:

• Current trading and operations processes feature manual steps that lead to STP rates that are lower than desired, increasing operational risk and impacting BASEL 2 compliance

• There is insufficient and inconsistent functionality for REPORTING of critical corporate information such as P&L, pipeline, and risk in an easily accessible and timely manner to senior and executive management

• Systems and processes are not optimized for managing and reducing CREDIT RISK; consolidated customer CREDIT limits are not available in real-time across channels

• There is significant difficulty providing effective access to all products and services as a single point of entry from the customer’s chosen CHANNEL

• Current PIPELINE management systems are ineffective across lines of business and inter-office groups

• PRICING is inhibited by lack of effective modeling tools, timely and complete market data and efficient delivery to customers

• Traders and Sales staff face a variety of trade capture, customer information, risk management, pricing and information SCREENS from a variety of products with little consolidation of information and frequent duplication of functions

April 7, 2023 3

AnalysisResearch Synthesis(Aligning the strategies)

Roadmap(Timeline with current & planned initiatives)

• Phased implementation approach

• Change impact analysis

• System architecture, data architecture and data ownership for shared services

• Architecture to focus technology on business and user needs

Business

themes

Systems

themes

User

themes

Logical Timeline

Project 1

Project 2

Project 3

Execution

Surveyor Process

Business

needs

Systems

needs

User

needs

Surveyor is a process to develop technology strategy and roadmap that is aligned to business goals, user needs and system capabilities:

Definition

April 7, 2023 4

ResearchMapping Approach and Objectives to Strategy

StrategyFocus resources on competitive advantages, “the core relationship franchise”: Relationship and solutions focused (“Expert Ally”) Restructure portfolio to reduce risk, volatility Maximize fee product growth Execute through the right people, process, technology

MissionTo be the primary bank for our customers, in our core footprint, driving revenue and earnings growth for our shareholders through superior attention to customer, employee, and asset quality. Predictability in earnings Noiseless quarters Focus on core competency

ObjectivesAlign technology investments with Commercial Financial Services’ business strategy in order to position its portfolio of systems as competitive levers over the next three years: Improve accuracy and operational efficiency through automation Ensure business continuance Streamline information delivery Thin Branch

Approach Focus on target clients; cross-sales, product penetration strategies Build upon core competencies Enhance distribution and risk management Support strategic relationships with integrated client solutions

April 7, 2023 5

Strategic Context Treasury

Strategy Support the Bank by:

Ensuring funding / liquidity for Bank assets Optimizing capital management by ensuring adequate capital position

Managing structural market risk embedded in balance sheet Providing supplemental earnings income

Provide investment opportunities to middle market and corporate customers Provide earnings income Focus on customer relationship to improve opportunities for organic growth and improve overall customer service experience

Reduce costs, optimize processes and improve automation

MissionTo be the primary bank for our customers, in our core footprint, driving revenue and earnings growth for our shareholders through superior attention to customer, employee, and asset quality. Predictability in earnings Data Measurement Focus on core competency

Objectives Align technology investments with the Bank’s Treasury mission and

objectives in order to position its portfolio of systems as levers over the next three years:

Continuous service level improvement using efficient, cost effective, and controlled processes

Automation of processes to achieve STP “The right service at the right price” Improve risk measurement and modeling capabilities Enhance data quality and timeliness of information delivery

Credit Bureau (Customer Data)

Money Center Bank

April 7, 2023 6

Observations Patterns

Capabilities needed to facilitate activities within the transaction flow are met with challenges that can be categorized on the basis of the users who perform these functions

Customers Sales & Traders Operations Treasury

Pipeline

Pricing

Credit Management

Trade Capture

Customer Setup

Trade Fulfillment

Investigation

Channels

Relationship Management

Balance Sheet Management

System Functionality

Straight Through Processing

Processing

Reporting

Credit Risk Management

Information Supply Chain

Capabilities needed to facilitate activities across the transaction flow are met with challenges that can be categorized as Processing and Information Supply Chain issues

April 7, 2023 7

Capabilities & Issues: Management Reporting

There is insufficient and inconsistent functionality for REPORTING of critical corporate information such as P&L, pipeline, and risk in an easily accessible and

timely manner to senior and executive management

–Reporting functions within many Treasury and Capital Markets areas are limited to manually maintained spreadsheets and databases limiting ability of senior Global Markets management to make effective intra day decisions

–Inordinate time and effort spent extracting, massaging and deriving data values from core trading systems (OPICS, Summit, TradingDesk) to overcome inability to effectively access data

–Corporate credit risk and profitability information systems such as Limits Management and Business Intelligence do not receive Capital Markets data in a timely or complete fashion

–Assembling data for budget and forecast reporting is difficult due to multiplicity of platforms, formats and accounting cycles

–Investment Portfolio reporting requires greater system sophistication than the current spreadsheet-based system provides

–No current capability to produce a consolidated customer statement or view across products

Customers Sales & Traders Operations Treasury

Pipeline

Pricing

Credit Mgmt

Trade Capture

Customer Setup

Trade Fulfillment

Investigation

Channels

Relationship Mgmt

Balance Sheet Mgmt

System Functionality

Straight Through Processing

Processing

Credit Risk Mgmt


Reporting

April 7, 2023 8

Business Value Chain Systems’ Ability to Meet Needs

RiskManagement

Algorithmics

BANK PortfolioExecution

TradingDesk (IP)

Phoenix (IP)

Research / Marketing

CRM /Pipeline

Business Flow

High System Satisfaction

Improvements Needed

Enhancements in Progress

Replacement Pending

This diagram depicts where systems are used along the business process lifecycle.

The business group using the system is identified in parenthesis:

(GRM) – Global Rate Markets(FX) – Foreign Exchange(RFX) – Retail FX(DR) – Derivatives(IRD) – Interest Rate Derivatives(CR) – Credit Derivatives(FI) – Fixed Income(IFI) – International Fixed Income(MF) – Mutual Fund(PI) – Principle Investing(IP) – Investment Portfolio(GS) – Global Services(ALM) – Asset Liability Mgmt(SEC) - Securitization

Derivatech/ Risk (FX)

External FX Systems**:FXAll, FXConnect, Reuters Dealing, EBS, UBS, Volbroker

BANK PortfolioAnalysis

Pathmaster (ALM)

Historical DB

Servicing & Operations

FITRAC

DIBS

Accounting

CLO (SEC)

Private I (PI) YieldBook (IP)

PEPM (PI)

Processing

Bankmaster (ALM)

PEPM (PI)

RM Advisor

External Market Data*:Reuters, Marketsheet, Bloomberg, MCM, Telerate

RM Advisor

Historical DB

Market Data /Pricing

AnalysisExecution

bankGCM.com

corporate.bank.com RM Advisor

CTS (FX)

CRM (GRM)

MBAI (RFX)

SPOT (RFX)

Intranet(Funds Transfer)

OPICS (FX)

SwisKey (IRD)

Summit (DR)

Sentry (DR)

RTS (FI)

CLO

Phoenix (FI / MF)

Private – I (PI)

External FX Systems**

External Market Data*

Summit (DR)

Derivatech - OTC (FX)

Derivatives Partner (CR)

Cognotec (FX)

OPICS (FX)

RM Advisor

Private I (PI)

RM Advisor

Business Intelligence

Historical DB

InvestmentLink (FI)

PEP Web (PE)

Derivatives Partner (CR)

FX Options Partner

WebWire (FX/GS)

SPOT (RFX)

OPICS (FX)

Derivatech (FX)

TradingDesk (FI)

External FX Systems**

Treasury Express (FX)

eSpeed (IRD)

Summit (DR)

InvestmentLink (FI)

Helen (FX)

Cognotec (FX)

IMAGINE (IFI)

MBAIT (RFX)

Flexitran (RFX)

LoanTrak

TradeTrak

ADP

Bloomberg

Bloomberg

Bankmaster

April 7, 2023 9

Consolidated Requirements Model

• Real-time, consolidated credit information across all products

•Usable interface

• Ability to integrate with channels, real-time services, and trade fulfillment

Trade Capture

• Robust ability to execute trades

• Ability to access every product from every channel

• STP to Trade Capture

Channels

•Maximum STP of applicable product types

•Operational efficiency where manual intervention is needed

• Robust reporting

Trade Fulfillment

• Audit trail and reporting functionality

• Basic case management

Investigation

• Cross-product view of risk

Risk Reporting

• Cross-product view of customer relationship

RelationshipManagement

• Timely, competitive, consistent pricing

Pricing

Trading LimitsManagement

• Real-time market rates

•High-quality pricing data

Pricing Data

• Common tools and methods

Balance SheetManagement

Booking LayerReal-Time ServiceLayer

Access Points

• Transaction data enriched with corporate context

•Management reporting


InformationSupply Chain

AnalyticApplications

• Single-point setup across product tools

•Official customer attributes available at time of setup

Customer Setup

• Centralized customer data across all product areas

• Access to customer data at the time it is needed

•Data quality controls

CustomerInformation

• Capability to manage product-specific opportunities

Pipeline

•Other Product Systems

• Third Party Confirm Systems

• Payment Processing Systems

• Custodial Systems

•General Ledger

•Market Data Sources

April 7, 2023 10

• Single-point setup across product tools

•Official customer attributes available at time of setup

Customer Setup

•Usable interface

• Ability to integrate with channels, real-time services, and trade fulfillment

Trade Capture

• Robust ability to execute trades

• Ability to access every product from every channel

• STP to Trade Capture

Channels

•Maximum STP of applicable product types

•Operational efficiency where manual intervention is needed

• Robust reporting

Trade Fulfillment

• Audit trail and reporting functionality

• Basic case management

Investigation

• Cross-product view of risk

Risk Reporting

• Cross-product view of customer relationship

RelationshipManagement

• Timely, competitive, consistent pricing

Pricing

• Real-time, consolidated credit information across all products

• Real-time market risk of deals across all products

Trading LimitsManagement

• Real-time market rates

•High-quality pricing data

Pricing Data

• Common tools and methods

Balance SheetManagement

Booking LayerReal-Time ServiceLayer

Access Points

• Transaction data enriched with corporate context

•Management reporting




• Centralized customer data across all product areas

• Access to customer data at the time it is needed

•Data quality controls

CustomerInformation

• Capability to manage product-specific opportunities

Pipeline

Key:

Requirements cannot be fulfilled without significant manual intervention

Requirements may be partially fulfilled by existing systems

Requirements can be fulfilled by existing systems; not leveraged currently

•Other Product Systems

• Third Party Confirm Systems

• Payment Processing Systems

• Custodial Systems

•General Ledger

•Market Data Sources

Requirements Gap

April 7, 2023 11

Proposed Hi Level Analysis Options Pros and Cons

• Leverages existing investments in core systems

• Does not require significant additional investment in a new systems infrastructure

• Meeting minimum business requirements will likely incur significant customization cost

• Some business goals requiring close integration between systems (such as cross-system P&L reporting) will be difficult to achieve

CO

N

PR

O

• Leverages existing investments in core systems

• Overall STP levels can be significantly increased in the short-term with centralized services such as common customer setup, limit management, etc.

• Requires significant infrastructure to centralize services

• Bank will continue to be bound by the challenges and constraints of the current booking systemsC

ON

PR

O

• Minimizes need to rely on customization to overcome booking system limitations

• Overall STP levels can be significantly increased in the short-term with centralized services such as common customer setup, limit management, etc.

• Requires significant initial investment to identify and select the optimal vendor product

• Requires significant infrastructure to centralize services

CO

N

PR

O

• Provides maximum flexibility in satisfying business requirements

• Bank will not be bound to external booking system vendor timelines and product support

• Requires extensive investment in formulating detailed requirements for and developing a custom booking layer

• Time-to-market of the solution is the longest of any optionCO

N

Rationalize current architecture direction with minimal new product investment

Replace core booking systems with a vendor solution that meets a majority of Bank requirements

Overcome core booking system limitations though targeted enhancements and customization

Total custom build of core booking systems

PR

O

A B

C D

April 7, 2023 12

Analysis Phase: Option AAnalysis Phase: Option B

Relationship Reporting


Risk Reporting

Balance Sheet Management

Customer Information

Pricing Product 1 Pricing Product 2 Pricing Product 3

Trading Limit Management

Product Group 1 Product Group 2 Product Group 3

Wrapper

Trade Capture Product 1

Trade Fulfillment Product 1

Wrapper



Wrapper



Pipeline

Customer Setup

Channels

Investigation

Booking Layer

Real-TimeService Layer


Access Points


Four Options in Total

April 7, 2023 13

Synthesis: Logical Architecture Proposed Future State

FX PricingService

FXConnect

Intraday Limit Server

ALGO BusinessIntelligence

ASCL DDABiz

AdvisorCorporate

Portal

ERS

CustomerSetup

Service

ExoticsPricing

CognotecBANKWEB Pricing

DerivativesPricingService

Corp WireTransfer

TIB Bloomberg UBS LPC

PricingData

Service

Blotter/Position

Management

CRMSales

Dashboard

InvestmentWeb

FXAll

Message Bus

ERSMaintenance

Interface

DerivativesPricing

Formulas

Intranet

CustodialSystems

TransactionEntry

Interface

LimitManagement

Connector

PricingConnector

ConfirmationSystems

MatchingSystems

Connectorsto othersystems

GLInterface

GL

Audit Trail

TradeWorkflow

DocumentationWorkflow

Investigationsand Exception

Processing

ConfirmGenerator

SettlementEngine

TransactionCaptureInterface

ManagementReporting

TransactionData

Trade Fulfillment

Messaging

Trading Limits Mgt.


Trade Capture

Pipeline Mgt.

CustomerInfo.

Pricing

Capital MarketsODS

Capital MarketsDashboards

Balance Sheet Mgt.

MRQ

Commercial Loan Sys

Yields

ERSLookupService

April 7, 2023 14

Trade Capture / Fulfillment Key Features

Trade Capture / Trade Fulfillment

LoanSystem

DerivativesPricingService

Blotter/Position

Management

Message Bus

DerivativesPricing

Formulas

Intranet

CustodialSystems

TransactionEntry

Interface

LimitManagement

Connector

PricingConnector

ConfirmationSystems

MatchingSystems

Connectorsto othersystems

GLInterface

GL

Audit Trail

TradeWorkflow

DocumentationWorkflow

Investigationsand Exception

Processing

ConfirmGenerator

SettlementEngine

TransactionCaptureInterface

TransactionData

Trade FulfillmentTrade Capture

• Product SupportSupport for a full range of interest rate products, fixed income, foreign exchange and money markets, equity and credit derivatives

• Deal Entry

Data entry and display fields for dates, tenors, currencies, notionals, and other items required for deal entry and viewing

• Position ManagementA high performance real-time position keeping server

• P & L Reporting

Real-time Profit and Loss reporting and calculations based on current trades, including support for complex, structured trades

• Compliance and Regulatory ReportingRobust reporting for compliance and regulatory purposes.

• Standards Support

The booking layer provides support for FPML (Financial Products Markup Language) which is the industry standard for e-Commerce, Risk and Processing of structured products

April 7, 2023 15

Complete the X/Y InterfaceValue: Reduces risk and eliminates manual processing of rejects for

participations and syndications

1

Improve the accuracy and timeliness of feeds into ABC SystemValue: Improves risk exposure analysis and reporting Partially Funded (Evaluate)

2

Address issues with the UVW organizational and product hierarchiesValue: Improves accuracy and consistency of reporting across lines of businessPartially Funded (Evaluate)

3

Improve tools and streamline processes for data reconciliationValue: Provides more timely reconciliation and data availability Not Funded (Long-Term)

5

Automate and standardize manual data acquisition methodsValue: Improves efficiency, stability and reliability of manually entered dataNot Funded (Prioritize)

4

Current Interim Future

Partially Complete

Partially Complete

Partially Complete

Complete

Complete

Complete

Improve ease and consistency of reporting across lines of business

Increase confidence in data accuracy and reporting

Reduce time and effort required for data reconciliation

Program Objectives

Roadmap High level timeline for program: Customer Relationship

KYODO Consulting Group Young KwonKYODO Consulting Group Young Kwon

A Short Course in Growth HackingBy Young KwonJanuary 2014

April 7, 2023 17

Disclaimer

I am a relatively novice growth hacker.

Who is learning from titans.

Therefore I did not create almost any of this content myself. Most of it was made by established growth hackers like Sean Ellis and Andrew

Chen. I have tried to label the sources as accurately as possible (apologies in advance if there are mistakes).

So again, I did not create this stuff but rather gathered various great stuff I found on the web and organized it.

So I don’t take credit for any of the great ideas in this deck.

April 7, 2023 18

The growth hacker is the warrior that guides his troops to avoid this tragic end.

April 7, 2023 19

Chapter 1: What is Growth Hacking

Chapter 2: The Growth Hacking Process

Chapter 3: The Growth Hacker Funnel

Chapter 4: Pull Tactics for Getting Visitors

Chapter 5: Push Tactics for Getting Visitors

Chapter 6: Product Tactics for Getting Visitors

Chapter 7: How to activate

Chapter 8: Retention

Chapter 9: Funnel Optimization

Chapter 10: Summary

April 7, 2023 20

Is growth hacking just like traditional marketing?

“A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth.” – Sean Ellis

NO!!

Traditional marketing has a very narrow focus and was built around traditional products (eg. shampoo,

cars, etc.)

In first phase of a startup you don’t need a marketing plan and team.

You need growth!

April 7, 2023 21

What is the role of a growth hacker?

In the digital world products are defined differently than in the physical one (eg. Twitter is a product)

Due to this a product can play a role in its own adoption (eg. Facebook sharing, Dropbox)

Growth hackers understand the potential of software products to

spread themselves and their job is to make this happen!

April 7, 2023 22

So who is Growth Hacker?

Typically it is an analytical person who knows a bit of everything and believes in testing and measuring

everything.

He is excited about learning and tries to learn every day.

At a small startup a growth hacker typically has a front-end and back-end developer in his team.

April 7, 2023 23

A Growth Hacker is T-Shaped

The flat horizontal part represents all the skills a growth hacker needs to be familiar with: psychology, viral loops, email campaigns, SEO, PPC, product

design, etc.

Source: Quicksprout.com

The vertical line represents the skills you dominate in. You’re an expert in these skills and

this is what gives your product a chance at scaling.

April 7, 2023 24

Growth hacking is not mysterious…

“Growth hacking is less like an illusionist and more like a marathoner” – Sean Ellis

Takes a lot of work to master the skills that pertain to growth.

You need to train for months.

More importantly you need to train in the right way.


…Growth hacking is a lot of hard work!

April 7, 2023 25

Growth hackers are curious

What would happen if we made our entire product invite-only?

What would happen if we made our users do something every week to keep their

account from being de-activated?

What if we let customers pick their own price?

What if we gave away a free upgrade for our product to everyone that pays to have

Chinese food delivered to our office?


Constantly think and try new things… some of them may even be stupid.

April 7, 2023 26

Growth hackers are obsessive

Are you ready to think about growth all of the time? Even in 6 months?

Do you have the capability to focus on a narrow goal for the foreseeable future?

Its important because often you need to try a hundred things to find a few that work.


April 7, 2023 27










Chapter 10: Summary

April 7, 2023 28

Step 1: Define actionable goals

Example:

Too broad = Increasing your DAU (daily active users)

Just right = Educate members about content creation through

email.

How to think about it?Keep going a level deeper until the goal is an actual task that can be

completed once and for all.


April 7, 2023 29

Step 2: Track your goals with analytics

Without analytics you have no way of knowing if you’ve achieved your

goal

Decide what you’re going to measure

Find the best tool to measure it (eg. Google Analytics, Kissmetrics,

Mixpanel, etc)


April 7, 2023 30

Step 3: Leverage existing strengths first

Every startup has inherent strengths or assets

Do the things that take the least effort and have most result first


Send email list Add “What’s New” category to product

• Already have large mailing list• Have strong system of email

distribution• Takes 1 day

• Requires at least 2 weeks of planning, mockups, programming, etc.

• Engineers very busy at the moment

VS.

Do this first!!!!!

April 7, 2023 31

Step 4: Execute experiment

1. Write down hypotheses before experiment


• This email will have higher click rate than previously because of

xxx• Content creation will increase

by x% because xxx

2. Don’t get discouraged by initial results

3. Learn from success and failureTHERE IS NO SUCH THING AS BAD

DATA!

April 7, 2023 32

Step 5: Optimize the experiment

1. Try to have a control group


2. Utilize A/B Testing

3. Give up on experiment only if you don’t believe it can give better results or if it requires huge resources

4. Repeat

April 7, 2023 33










Chapter 10: Summary

April 7, 2023 34

Growth hacking is about eventually achieving Product – Market Fit

April 7, 2023 35

What does Product-Market Fit Look Like?

Source: Andrewchen.co

April 7, 2023 36Source: Andrewchen.co

April 7, 2023 37

The Growth Hacker Funnel is how you achieved P-M Fit


• You can pull them in, push them in or use the product to get them in

3 Levels to the Funnel

• This is when the user takes an action that creates a relationship with you (join email list, create account, etc)

• Uses your product regularly. The Holy Grail!

Ch. 4: Pull Tactics

Ch. 5: Push Tactics

Ch. 6: Product Tactics

Ch. 7: How to activate

Ch. 8: Retention

Ch. 9: Funnel optimization

The rest of this presentation is organized according to the funnel!

April 7, 2023 38










Chapter 10: Summary

April 7, 2023 39

Pull

Source: quicksprout.com

Give visitors a reason to come to you (incentivize them, entice them, etc.). They key is that you are providing something of value.

Example: You find a great Slideshare presentation when Googling for a topic

Cost of these tactics are typically measured in time or personnel, but you don’t directly pay for a visitor

April 7, 2023 40

Pull tactic #1: Blogging

Key to SEO: Blog posts are keyword rich and easily indexed by Google

Typically distributed through RSS, so there is an inbuilt mechanism to deliver to others

Great at educating people and pushing them through your funnel

Can position you as a thought leader

Guest blogging is a great inbound linking strategy as blog owners are always looking for new guest posts


April 7, 2023 41

Pull tactic #2: eBooks, Slideshares & Whitepapers

Hard to ignore a detailed document on a niche you care about

Have high perceived value and can ask for email in exchange for downloading

Can spread well through social media


April 7, 2023 42

Pull tactic #3: Infographics

Display both expertise and nice design

Spread very well through social media

Guidelines:1)Pick something that is clever or noteworthy2)Find the right data3)Analyze the data4)Build the narrative5)Put into nice design6)Distribute via all channels


April 7, 2023 43

Pull tactic #4: SEO

If you are creating a lot of content Google will recognize that you are an authority on the topic

SEO is a very deep topic and will take time. But you should at least understand the basic high-level stuff.

Two main areas of SEO: Code & Content. Many resources available to do technical audit of your site (eg. Moz) and tell you which coding elements to change.

Need to decide which keywords you are targeting. This will depend on 3 factors: Traffic, Conversion, and Competition


High Level

April 7, 2023 44

Pull tactic #4: SEO

Source: http://growthhackers.com/slides/slides-the-ultimate-guide-to-funnel-optimization/

The strategy in 90 seconds

April 7, 2023 45

Pull tactic #5: Social Media

Engage with people who might be using your product.

Provide value at any chance. Answer questions, etc.

Don’t just take… but give. Become a hub of interesting content.

Social media takes time.

Tweets have a half-life of 1 hour, Facebook 1 day. Create a schedule accordingly.

Don’ buy followers of any kind.


The general playbook

A Facebook post from my startup, uGift

April 7, 2023 46


Answer questions on Quora. Create new questions around the topic of your product.


Niche platforms

Post relevant posts to Reddit, Hacker News, etc.

Find potential users on Followerwonk.

April 7, 2023 47


One of Ankur Nagpal’s biggest viral successes on the app store was an app that asked people to rate which of their friend’s profile picture was the best

After a pic was chosen this sent a message to that friend

Of course the friend opened it. Because we are all vain.

It spread so viral Ankur had to slow it down

Appeal to vanity

April 7, 2023 48

Pull tactic #6: Contests


Give away prizes that are meaningful to your audience. Experiences make a great prize.

Give them more entries to win the contest based on how much they give you in exchange.

Make a big deal when you announce the winner

Be careful not to use this too often. The people that respond to promotions tend to often not be the “right” user profile

AppSumo built an email list of over 700k emails by running contests.

Traditional contests

April 7, 2023 49

Pull tactic #6: Contests

Source: http://www.kenontek.com/2014/01/27/growth-hacker-ankur-nagpal-shares-secrets/

Try some crazy ideas

Ankur Nagpal ran a promotion that gave away a Pacman arcade game to the winner

It created tons of buzz and free PR

People were actually buying ads to try and win

Non-Traditional contests

April 7, 2023 50

Pull tactic #7: App Marketplaces


Reviews matter a lot so make sure you have good ones. Use tricks to ensure this (eg. on app ask “Do you like my app?” If they answer yes, then ask them for a review.

Screen shots are very important. Make sure yours are great.

Put a lot of thought into the name. It should be easy to find.

Use other tactics besides just people finding you on the marketplace as it is too competitive these days.

Use Multiple Points of Entry: Udemy createslots of apps on the various topics that theirclasses cover so that they can be foundacross a wide range of topics on the appstore

B2C (iTunes, Google Play, etc.)

April 7, 2023 51



Account for the differences between the major appstores

Apple determines ranking mainly by velocity of downloads (and little else)

Google Play more sophisticated. They use reviews, quality of downloads (ie. low uninstalls) and numerous other factors like keyword density, which are common to SEO.

You can growthhack your reviews (and therefore your ranking) by first asking “Love my app?” and then only asking the user to review it.

B2C (iTunes, Google Play, etc.)

April 7, 2023 52



Less crowded = easier to stand out

Ask the marketplace to promote you on their blog or email

Reviews and screenshots also matter

B2B (Salesforce, Mailchimp, etc.)

April 7, 2023 53

Pull tactic #8: LOPA (Leverage Other People’s Audience)


Guest blogging is one example

Tweet a review or complement about a site or blogger with an audience. Try to get them to retweet you.

GrowthHacker.tv asks the people they interview to promote the interview on their own social channels.

Reach out to group leaders on Meetup.com and ask them to write about you

Offer free accounts to leaders in your industry

Create a YouTube video targeted to a specific writer and wait for them to Google themselves

April 7, 2023 54

Pull tactic #9: PR


April 7, 2023 55

Pull tactic #10: Scraping


Without knowing much coding you can scrape valuable user data from popular community sites and create great email lists from it.

April 7, 2023 56

Pull tactic #11: Use others’ great content to get signups to your product


Check out this blog post if you want to know more about how this one works: http://www.kenontek.com/2014/01/14/the-brilliance-of-tweetganic/

April 7, 2023 57










Chapter 10: Summary

April 7, 2023 58

Push


Instead of enticing, you push people to your site, often interrupting whatever they were doing.

Example: Someone is waiting to watch a Youtube video but not until they see your ad

To understand whether ‘Push’ works for you, you typically need to understand ‘LTV’ (Lifetime Value of a Customer).

If LTV is higher than your CAC (Customer Acquisition Costs) you can scale extremely quickly.

April 7, 2023 59

Push tactic #1: Ad Platforms

Source: quicksprout.comcc

The standard ones: Google, Yandex, Facebook, Twitter

More niche ones: Linkedin, Carbonads.net, Decknetwork.net. Consider the persona of your customer.

Retargeting: Available via Google Adwords or thru specialized networks such as AdRoll

Understand the different ad platforms

April 7, 2023 60Source: quicksprout.comcc

How much you can pay? Is a function of your business model. If you earn more than your competitor, you can outbid them.

Groupon grew almost entirely due to paid advertising. Funded by an extremely lucrative business model.

Try to deal directly with content owners if you will spend a lot on a single platform


Everything is a function of your business model

April 7, 2023 61

Get good at Google Adwords. Understand how to change copy, photo, keywords, etc.

Facebook’s ad platform allows to test and optimize different photos


Test variations of your ads

April 7, 2023 62

Target “Exact Match” long tail keywords on Google Adwords as it tends to be much cheaper click rates

Tactic: If you advertise blog posts on Facebook and rotate them every few days the per click costs likely to be much lower than advertising a static landing page for an extended period of time.


Understand what impacts the cost of ads

Example of ads from my startup, uGift

April 7, 2023 63Source: quicksprout.comcc


Improve the targeting of your ads

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Push tactic #2: Promo swap


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Push tactic #3 Affiliates


This is when you pay someone (ie. a different site) for achieving a goal (eg. sending you a visitor)

Essentially the affiliate does the hard work of thinking how to achieve the goal and allows you to focus on the product.

Affiliate sites will work best if they target a niche that is relevant to your product.

Best to use an established affiliate solution like Commission Junction or DirectTrack rather than trying to create your own.

One type of affiliate are those that that charge “Cost Per Action”, which typically means a sale or filling out a form. Its typically quite expensive and therefore works best when you have a relatively high gross profit.

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Push tactic #4 Reach out offline


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Push tactic #5: Target specific audiences and write them direct

Source: growthhackers.com/slides/slides-the-ultimate-guide-to-funnel-optimization

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Push tactic #6: Purchase email lists

A common practice here in Ukraine is purchasing of email lists. You can often get 500,000+ emails for peanuts.

The trick of course is then adding them to a high-quality email platform like Mailchimp without raising red flags

This takes a bit of art and a bit of algorithm

But I know of a startup that was getting 7,000 unique visits per day after just a few months of operations as a result of this approach.

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Chapter 10: Summary

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Product


People wind up on your site because of the product itself.Example: A social network gets everyone that uses existing users to get more users.

If you can use a product tactic in which each visitor brings along more than one person, than you have a K factor of 1. You’ve created a viral loop!

But, most products DO NOT go viral. Especially B2B.

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Product tactic#1: Network invitations


Email Contacts

Allow for importing of your address book.

Social Contacts

Allow for easily sharing your social contacts. Make it the default option.

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Product tactic#2: Social sharing


Make sharing your product (and important updates) extremely simple and available (ie. everywhere!)

Be smart about how you get people to invite their friends. Use Facebook’s social graph to ask them to invite those people who are most likely to join!

It is much easier to increase invite acceptance rates than it is to increase the # of invites!

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Product tactic#3: API Integrations


Imbed sharing into the product experience (ie. it happens in the background without having to ask the user permission all of the time)

Spotify leveraged Facebook’s API. After you “Facebook Connected” your activity on Spotify was automatically published to your FB feed and inside the app to

anyone you are connected to.

Just be careful about depending on this too much because if Facebook changes its API it may cease to work

Imbed sharing into the product experience

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Product tactic#3: API Integrations


Another great example is Nike+’s integration with Path and Facebook, so that friends can see your activity.

Friends can even cheer you on from Facebook or Path which will sound an applause while you run.

The Results on Path!

Asks to share your results on Path

Trigger actions by users in other products

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Product tactic#4: Backlinks


Widgets of any kind are a great way to get backlinks, which result in clicks to your site as well as improved SEO.

Widgets can serve many different purposes. Think of what you can offer which relates to your product.

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Product Tactic#5: Incentives


Dropbox uses storage like a currency. It is relatively cheap to them but valuable to new users. So they trade it for getting new users.

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Product Tactic#6: Organic


Some products spread organically via organic word of mouth.

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Product Tactic#7: User becomes content creator


Always great when you can get your user to generate the content that will attract new users to your site (ie. via long tail SEO)

Quora = answering questions

Linkedin = creating profiles

Craigslist = listings

Slideshare = presentations

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Product Tactic#7: Generate scarcity


If there isn’t yet huge demand for your product than artificially create scarcity

When Gmail launched it was invite-only and they limited the number of invites people could send out

Some SAAS products launched and only allowed 3 customers to sign up per day

Limit the # of promo codes you give out to your app

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Chapter 10: Summary

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First define what it means to “activate” a customer


Get their email address

Get them to create an account

Get them to read or comment on something

Get them to share something

Get them to buy something

Get them to fill out oa form

Get them to interact with someone

Get them to send a friend request

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Activation Tactic #1) Make Strong Landing Pages


Headlines critical

Call to Action that captures emails

A big image or video

Social Proof

A few benefit statements

Your unique value proposition

Link to other popular pages on your site

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Activation Tactic #2) Copywriting


Headline explains your value proposition

Subhead explains unique value propositions

Different audiences respond to different kinds of writing

Social proof is important (eg. testimonials)

A great place to find good examples of headlining and copywriting is offline

publications

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Activation Tactic #3) Calls to Action (CTA)


Needs to be one clear CTA

Keep things simple

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Activation Tactic #4) Onboarding


Onboarding is the process of leading users to where you want them to go on your site

You may want o use a video as part of your strategy

People are impatient and will forget about you quickly unless you push them through the onboarding process.

Twitter does this great. Clearly guiding people from creating to using an account

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Activation Tactic #5) Gamification


People love progressing, getting awards, finishing tasks, etc. It is hardwired into our brains. Use this fact.

Awards

LeaderboardsProgress

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Activation Tactic #6) Pricing Strategies


Offer different pricing options with various functionalities

Free Trials & Money Back Guarantees

Discount Codes – Udemy sends out emails on a regular basis with discount codes that are only valid for a limited time. They drive huge sales.

Pricing options, Free Trials and Discount Codes

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Opportunity bundle your product with other non-competitive, complementary products? If so, try services like Hacker Bundle

Bundling

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A common piece of advice the Founder of WP Engine, Jason Cohen, gives to entrepreneurs starting out is “Raise your prices!”

Why? When it is difficult to discern the value of your product people will often attribute pricing to value

Cialdini’s book, “Influence” has a great example of earrings that were not selling at all suddenly selling out because the store manager accidentally doubled their prices when she intended to halve it.

When in doubt, increase prices


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Services like Exit Monitor can detect when a visitor is about to bounce from your website

They do this by tracking the mouse movements

You have an opportunity to make them a special offer right before they bounce

Activation Tactic #7: Try exit services

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Chapter 10: Summary

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Retention #1) Test & Measure


Wrong = Focus on getting a lot of traffic before product-market fit.

Right = Put effort into getting enough traffic to test your hypothesis. Do not exhaust your supply of beta users!

Use staged traffic

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Retention #1) Test & Measure


Use cohort analysis

MixPanel

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Retention #2) Your “Aha” Moment


Do you know what your “Aha” Moment is? If it takes 2 days currently, can you make it 2 hours?

If its necessary to create an account to see your product in action is it possible to show them a sandboxed version of your product that will give them an “Aha” before they sign up?

Don’t promote features which do not lead to the “Aha”. It is just clutter.

Twitter’s “Aha” occurs after you have followed a certain number of people. So they lead people thru the process to make sure that it

happens.

Identifying your “Aha” Moment

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Retention #2) Your “Aha” Moment

It’s important to note that what you think may be your “Aha” moment may be a false alarm.

Use analytics to decide.

Everyone thought Infinite Scroll would be great for Etsy…

But it turned out people were buying less…

Validate it with analytics

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Retention #3) Use email a lot


Drip campaign = when you send pre-written emails at preselected intervals (eg. day 1, 3, 7, 14, ..) Use this to introduce people to your product, share testimonials, inspirational reasons to use your product, etc.

Event-based notifications = someone retweeted your post. A new friend request on Facebook. A new response to your blog post on Disqus. “You’ve been outbid” on eBay.

General Updates = new features, behind the scenes look of your company, etc.

Force people to click by not giving them all of the info in the email

Ex. Facebook sends an email that tells you that someone liked a photo was in, but I need to click in order to see the photo.

Kinds of emails

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Retention #3) Use email a lot


A/B test every email – focus on subject lines

Segment your audience and see if they perform differently

Use Customer.io to follow up with people that bail out of the sign-up process

Focus your energy on the time period when they

are most likely to convert

Optimizing emails

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Retention #4) Alerts and notifications


Especially relevant to mobile apps

People can turn them off so you need to be careful not to abuse

Very effective to send notifications from friends that try to get user active again

Also very effective to send special offers

Alerts that you send

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Retention #4) Alerts and notifications


Alerts that you encourage your users to send

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Retention #5: Use surveys


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Retention #6) Exit Interviews


Learn from customers that leave you

Ask them the what made them cancel. Be funny about it.

Offer them a discount to come back… oftentimes they cancelled not because they don’t like your product but because they didn’t see that they were getting enough value to justify paying the full

price

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Retention #7) Roll out the red carpet


Send 100 free gifts to the first 100 customers

Provide backlinks to your best customers or mention them in your email

Keep a list of your best users and retweet them often

VIP access to exclusive content

I’m a paid monthly subscriber of GrowthHacker.tv and like the fact that they often retweet my Tweets

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Retention #8) Continue to add value


Ensure your product continues to add value.

Some products have a network effect and do this naturally. In cases like this you can increase price to reflect the increased value.

If value is decreasing then look to add important features. But beware of “feature creep”

Subtract features. Sometimes the best way to increase value is to get rid of distracting features and focus on the things customers care most about.

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Retention #9) Community Building


People who feel they are part of a community stay longer. So work on building a community.

Customer support – provide great customer support. Eg. Zappos empowers their support to make sure customers are delighted.

Customer support as a tool

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Retention #9) Community Building


Documentation / FAQ – make sure support topics are easy to find and understand.

Social features – how can you let your users to interact with each other. Eg. One of the most valuable features of Growthhacker.tv is the ability to interact with the community.

Documentation & Social Features as tools

April 7, 2023 106Source: Ken Leaver’s email

Retention #10: Follow up with a personal touch

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Chapter 10: Summary

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Funnel optimization = improving each step of the conversion funnel


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Let’s try a real example of optimizing conversion

A Blogging Product (version 1)

Source: Andrewchen.coOptimizing Conversion Example

April 7, 2023 110Source: Andrewchen.coOptimizing Conversion Example

April 7, 2023 111Source: Andrewchen.coOptimizing Conversion Example

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Next, measure…

Measure conversion between steps using Google Analytics or KissMetrics

Your baseline conversion is 5.6%. This is your starting point.

Examining the above chart, you can see exactly where people drop off!


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Now its time to optimize

Think about what you can do to improve on the 5.6%

How you can shorten the funnel?

Try to rearrange the flow so the receiver receives a lot of value upfront. (nobody likes to start by giving their email address)

Think about how to improve conversion on each step of the funnel

Try different types of landing pages (A/B testing using Unbounce and Optimizely)

Try different types of logins (eg. Facebook, Twitter, email, etc)

Remember… no matter what, get users to sign up so you can target them later.


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Let’s see what this looks like in an example

A Blogging Product (version 2)


Essentially you have:-combined the first 2 pages into one

-removed the ‘Choose Template’ page

Optimizing Conversion Example

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Finally forecast and test

Now forecast what the result might look like…

Why bother forecasting?Because it helps you think systematically about your decisions!

After forecasting, build it and see if your forecasts were correct

If they were not, figure out why. Then optimize and repeat.


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Now let’s try using the funnel approach to decide how to monetize our product

Let’s imagine we have a SAAS startup (like KissMetrics or Mailchimp) that is determining how to price our product.

You are not sure whether you will make more money by charging right from the beginning or whether it is better to offer a free trial

Optimal Monetization Example

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Convert Now

Source: Andrewchen.coOptimal Monetization Example

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Convert Now

Assuming CPC of $0.60 the cost of a customer (CAC) would be $200


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Free Trial

Now let’s see what it would could look like if they offered a free trial

First hypothesize what the funnel will likely look like using a Free Trial conversion funnel

Assuming CPC of $0.60 the cost of a customer (CAC) would be $44 (much less than $200)

Now let’s test our hypothesis


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Free Trial

Did you achieve the 1.35% conversion rate?

If not, optimize and test until you do. Or until you figure its not possible. Decide… better to stay with Free Trial or return to “Convert Now”.


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Chapter 10: Summary

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So to conclude, if you wannabe a growth hacker…

Keep experimenting and learning. Every day.

There are rarely huge breakthrough moments. Often you find lots of pockets of growth that eventually result in a big whole.

Be obsessed about growth. Live it, breathe it, dream it.

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Global markets it_strategy & growth hacking 2014.6

Presentations & Public Speaking

Transcript of Global markets it_strategy & growth hacking 2014.6