I could not sleep last night. We went out drinking with friends. When I came back, the alcohol haze made me want to scroll through a late LinkedIn feed.
It was a fine morning in Canada when Alex Lieberman decided to publish his marketing playbook with Storyarb.
This is how he grew Morning Brew to 1 million subscribers within 4 years before selling it for 75 million dollars. He used the same playbook to get to $150,000 monthly revenue with Storyarb in 12 months.
I got so excited, I could not wait until the morning to start writing down our action plans to execute.
The Lieberman Marketing Machine is composed of 4 elements: your customer, your channels, your goals, and your metrics.
And next comes your 7-step marketing machine:
Step 1: Who is our ideal customer (and what proof is there of that?)
In Alex’s words, you should create your market of 1
Get as specific as humanly possible. Write a one-pager describing your avatar. What do they do? What do they need? What are their behaviors?
Have a real person? Even better. Pull their LinkedIn URL. Write down everything you know about them.
Our take:
This is where we struggle the most. We have had too many customer personas in my head, that I need to get out and educate our team. I also have the fear of getting the wrong customer profile. But the truth is you can have multiple and you can correct your profiles. Start with one as specifically as possible.
I notice that I like to preach that we need to get down on the details of a persona as soon as possible. But here I did not practice what I preach. I guess we all have a fear of spending time and money on the wrong things. Here is a reminder that bravery is a skill that one needs to practice.
And finally proof that they are our ideal customers. We can scout the user profiles that interact with our posts. People who inbox us.
Step 2: List out all of the hubs (marketing channels) that give us access to lots of spokes (our ideal customer)?
Examples: newsletter, digital conference, ambassador program, SEO, in-person event, channel partnerships, subreddits, product hunt, IRL activation, etc.
Our take:
Omnichannel is an exciting idea and everybody’s favorite lingo. But in the beginning, as your team is small. It is good to focus on 1,2 channels. You should focus on consistency of posting, process automation, and funnel optimization before discovering new channels.
Step 3: Calculate your marketing math.
- What are your 1, 3, and 6-month revenue goals?
- What is the average value of your ideal customer?
- How many more customers are needed in 1, 3, and 6 months to hit revenue goals?
- How do you define a qualified lead?
- What is the conversion rate of a qualified lead to a closed-won customer?
- How many qualified leads are needed in 1, 3, and 6 months to hit your closed won customer number needed to hit revenue goals?
Our take:
It is not often you meet a marketing strategist who talks about marketing math. At least in the circles that I run in. Perhaps I should curate my feed better?
But these few questions are providing a solid framework for us to plan our budget and growth in the next few months.
Step 4: What are the marketing channels you are going to prioritize & what is your prediction of how many qualified leads they will drive?
Prioritizing channels isn’t easy, especially when you have no historical data & resources (time/money) are limited.
A helpful way to compare & prioritize channels is by creating a simple matrix that allows you to compare channels across several categories:
- Cost
- Effort
- Predicted Effectiveness
Our take:
The most difficult factor in this equation is make measure the number of qualified leads/cost (to measure Effectiveness).
We also onboard new younger marketing executives who are more comfortable with TikTok than with our traditional format of Facebook. We enter the territory of TikTok eventually when we settle the dust with Facebook.
Step 5: Who will own each channel?
A channel owner is responsible for:
- Setting the specific channel’s strategy
- Tracking performance
- Reporting performance to the marketing owner
- Recommending changes based on performance
We only have 2 channels now - LinkedIn and Facebook. I own Linkedin mostly and train our new hire, Tra to head our Facebook initiatives.
I am glad that we have built a culture of ownership where new staff can propose new changes if they deem necessary.
The timeline to train a hire to own a channel makes us more aggressive when it comes to hiring.
Step 6: How long will you be testing the channels before looking at performance and making adjustments/prioritizing top performers?
Early on, I suggest quarterly. As your business matures, monthly.
Step 7: What were the results of the marketing strategy?
- Are we on/off track to hit our goals?
- What were the highest-performing/lowest-performing channels?
Step 8: Based on results what does the go-forward marketing plan look like?
Return to Step 4…
Our take:
Reflecting is like learning 100x. You cannot learn without thinking about your past performance.
This blog I am writing is one of the best investments that I have made for my learning and mental clarity.
I will keep you guys updated on our revenue goals.
