Build Your First Growth Marketing Canvas: Part 2 of 3

Designed to help ambitious marketers, a growth marketing canvas is an effective planning tool for long-term business growth.

Many businesses struggle to grow not because they don't have the money or resources, but because they don't have a good plan to guide them. A growth marketing canvas is an effective plan that increases a business's growth stability in the long run.

This is part two of the growth marketing canvas series. You can read the first one here. In this guide, I will discuss the following elements of a growth marketing canvas:

• Awareness
• Acquisition
• Activation

Let's get a closer look.

Awareness

When starting your business, you can get busy creating your goals and handling customers till you forget to build your brand awareness. However, it's essential to make your brand known even as you focus on the quality of your goods.

Brand awareness is all about how well your audience knows your brand. It is the extent to which your audience is familiar with the products or services you offer (familiarity of your brand to your audience). Companies with the highest brand awareness are considered popular in the market.

Why Brand Awareness Is Important

• It establishes trust, which translates to increased customer loyalty
• It increases the word of mouth marketing
• It improves your brand's equity because customers have a positive perception of your business

How to Build Brand Awareness

Brand awareness does not happen from a single business advertisement. It is a process that requires simultaneous efforts and well-thought decisions on how you would like people to perceive your business. Here are helpful tips on increasing your brand awareness:

• Socialize- try to connect with other people, both online and offline, and tell them about your business
• Start a referral program - a referral program increases your business reach through the people you know and trust
• Increase your social media presence to connect with your followers - You can hire a social media manager if you have a busy working schedule
• Guest blog on reputable websites
• Create shareable content and infographics
• Give something for free. For instance, if you offer a subscription service, you can include a free trial to encourage more subscribers.

Note: brand awareness doesn't have to be daunting or overwhelming. You only need to choose a few strategies which work for you and then find more with time. You should also evaluate your brand awareness methods and drop the less effective ones.

Acquisition

Marketing has two main goals: acquiring users and retaining existing ones. When your business is still new, your main goal is user acquisition to build an extensive customer base for your products or services.

So What Is User Acquisition?

In marketing, the acquisition is the process of using data-driven ads to create more business awareness and attract new clients to your business.

Unlike the conventional types of marketing, which nurture potential clients at different stages, the acquisition is designed to bring an immediate conversion impact.

How to Create Your User Acquisition Channels

Here are the basic steps to acquiring more users to your mobile app or platform.

• Identify Your Potential Users

These are the people who are likely going to consume your products. For instance, if you are acquiring users for a new Android app, your potential users will be Android users.

• Use The Right User Acquisition Channels

The channel you use is equally important as identifying the potential users. Examples of growth channels include email marketing (cold pitching), paid advertising, SEO, influencer marketing, and referral marketing.

• Do Giveaways

Sometimes, customers need offers other than empty promises. You can offer giveaways to the people who participate in your challenges or provide different types of promotions that work for your business.

There's no limit to the strategies you can use to acquire new users. However, you should only focus on the processes that reach, engage and convince more people to buy from you.

When coming up with your user acquisition strategy, you should consider things like:

• Your business goals
• Your budget
• Audience demographics

Also, you should continually evaluate your strategies and drop the less effective ones.

Activation

Now that you have acquired new users, the next step is to activate them. For instance, if you were promoting your new app and people managed to sign up for free trials, you now need to activate them to use the paid subscription service.

Ways to Increase Your Activation Rate

• Simplify the Process

Get rid of the glitches which might turn off your users. For instance, if users must sign up for a form to activate a service, the form should be simplified. You should avoid the unnecessary form fields, which only waste your users' time.

Additionally, you can simplify the activation process by using clear and concise language and reducing the steps users need to activate your service.

• Re-Engage Users

You may notice some users become dormant a few days after you acquire them, or they sign up for the free trials. You can send them personalized emails to confirm if they have confusion or hardships in joining your team.

• Track Your Users and Activation Rate

Among other tracking tools, Google Analytics can give you great insights into your user activation process and your users' actions regarding your marketing efforts.

• Repeat the Process

You cannot avoid repeating the user activation process, no matter how engaging it might be. Once you measure the yield of your efforts, you will need to measure the strategies you use, remove the less effective ones, and repeat the process with newer ones. The process never ends because you want something new and enticing every time to ensure customers stick by you at all times.

User activation is crucial because it helps your users realize the benefits of your business's products or services. If possible, you can reach out to the acquired customers that never become active users. By reaching out, you can learn what turned them off to improve your services next time.

The Takeaway

Awareness, acquisition, and activation play a vital role in your growth marketing canvas. They, however, require the most effort because you have to constantly check-up with your customers so you can retain them. When done well, awareness acquisition and activation processes can significantly improve the stability of your business.

Do you need help in creating a growth marketing canvas? Don't hesitate to reach out to me for guidance and helpful tips on improving the marketing of your business. You can also check my blog for more resources.

Cheers,

Keegen