61: Unconventional Growth Tactics with Julian Shapiro

Ben is working on marketing plans for Tuple and it’s associated Pair Programming Guide. So, what does someone he admires think of his growth and content marketing plans? In this episode, Ben’s special guest is Julian Shapiro, who shares lesser known growth tactics he has used in his content marketing to be successful. Today’s Topics Include: • Write content that’s best for your target audience; what do you want them to get out of it? • Goal: To have people read your content or buy your product • Content marketing in the form of in-depth guides is effective in building a presence and getting people to trust you to pay a high price for your product • An audience is an asset; you can identify how much they can be monetized for whatever you want to build in the future • Content needs to be more than good; establish credibility, awareness, and knowledge • Focus on getting new email subscribers or prepare for the launch of Tuple? Capture people’s interest when you have it • Tuple’s Approach to Growth: Release product to a small group to get feedback, release to another group for further testing, repeat, and then expand scope of growth efforts • Push content to address objections; why customers need/should care about something • How do you apply growth marketing to a giant piece of content? Ads don’t work; A/B test to optimize content; pitch a product, but don’t jeopardize your integrity • Non-paid promotion of content - get on Hacker News; never ask someone to upvote, but use a title that expresses deep annoyance and grief about the state of tech • SEO is easier with small pieces of content; don’t go for low-hanging fruit, but head turns • Part of the magic of Tuple - making it fast to address latency and not feel like a hack • Growth should be a core competency of any startup Links and resources: Julian Shapiro (https://www.julian.com) Julian Shapiro on Twitter (  / julian  ) Bell Curve (https://www.bellcurve.com/) Bell Curve Training (https://www.bellcurve.com/training) Gary Vaynerchuk (https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/) Tim Ferriss (https://tim.blog/) Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/) TechCrunch (https://techcrunch.com/) Screenhero (https://screenhero.com/) Superhuman (https://superhuman.com/) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (  / derrickreimer  ) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide)