- \n
- A growth team is not <\/em>the same as sales, marketing, or product teams. <\/strong>Rather, it’s a team of its own that works alongside all of those departments, fills in the gaps, and helps all other teams work in greater unison. The growth team will work to improve the processes of these other teams through their problem solving.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- \n
- A growth team should be diverse.<\/strong> It’s a hybrid team made up of people with different backgrounds, such as engineers, product managers and designers, marketers, data analysts, developers, and UX\/UI specialists. This diversity is key, since a growth team must examine ways to drive growth<\/a> in all departments of a business.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
What does a growth team do?<\/h2>\n
The main role of a growth team is to perform growth experiments, or tests to find solutions to a company\u2019s problems in a given part of the buyer\u2019s funnel. They perform these experiments by temporarily altering the processes of other teams, like the sales team or the marketing team.<\/p>\n
- \n
- Growth teams constantly look for possible experiments to perform.<\/strong> What problems is a company facing with moving customers through the funnel? How can existing processes of other teams be improved?<\/li>\n
- Growth experiments usually involve changes to processes.<\/strong> They are conducted with a specific, measurable goal in mind, to see if they’ll help achieve that goal. Measurable goals could include increases in conversions, email signups, email opens, retention rates, referral rates, and more. Teams will usually run multiple experiments at once, each directed at its own goal.<\/li>\n
- Although many of these experiments are executed quickly, experiments often vary in length.<\/strong> An experiment could take days, weeks, or months.<\/li>\n
- A growth team usually aims for incredible results.<\/strong> But they often come up with smaller incremental solutions that work together to achieve those results. It’s not always about making one big sweeping change.<\/li>\n
- If it works, the optimization usually becomes long-term. <\/b>If a growth initiative is deemed successful, the company will likely add the processes involved to their overall growth strategy, to hopefully promote sustainable growth.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"what](\"https:\/\/referralrock.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/what-growth-teams-do.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nSource<\/a><\/p>\n
What parts of the funnel does a growth team focus on?<\/h3>\n
A growth team either focuses on improving all parts of the funnel (AARRR metrics: acquisition, activation, revenue, retention, and referral<\/a>), or takes a deep-dive into one funnel part at a time (according to Alistair Croll\u2019s notion of the One Metric That Matters<\/a>).<\/p>\n
Easily measure your growth rate with our free growth calculator!<\/a><\/div><\/div>\nWhat roles make up the ideal growth team structure?<\/h2>\n
The ideal growth team will have members in at least these 4 roles: a growth head, a product developer, a customer\/user experience pro, and a data analyst. The team might also have a fifth member who specializes in creative copy and design. Let\u2019s dive into the responsibilities each team member will take on:<\/p>\n
Growth head (growth product manager)<\/h3>\n
The head of the growth team (sometimes called a growth product manager or growth PM) must be a jack-of-all-trades: a T-Shaped growth marketer.<\/a> Their skills will include everything from copywriting to coding, data mining to full-stack development, and UX to experimentation.<\/p>\n
You might have heard the term \u201cgrowth engineer,\u201d a methodical experimenter who designs growth solutions based on data, or a \u201cmature\u201d version of a growth hacker. Well, the head of a growth team is essentially a growth engineer on steroids.<\/p>\n
The growth head must be willing to take risks, be a master of analysis, and be a creative thinker. They\u2019re the one who leads the team in prioritizing areas of focus, generating hypotheses, implementing growth strategies, and capturing insights from each growth experiment. They\u2019re the charismatic mastermind who writes the roadmap, keeps everything on track, and moves the team through growth experiments at a fast pace.<\/p>\n
![\"the](\"https:\/\/referralrock.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/the-t-shaped-growth-marketer.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nProduct developer<\/h3>\n
This full-stack developer is all about delivering potential solutions quickly \u2013 their motto is \u201cdevelop fast, fix later.\u201d They don\u2019t care about failure, as long as they can learn from what doesn\u2019t work and apply their learning in the future. And like the growth head, they\u2019re a creative thinker who loves applying data \u2013 in their case, to improve the core product experience with new features.<\/p>\n
Customer\/user experience (UX) pro<\/h3>\n
The UX pro is committed to delivering what the customer wants and optimizing the customer experience. They\u2019re always empathetic to customers\u2019 needs, and they\u2019re a behavioral psychology expert. They make sure the rest of the team keeps the customer\u2019s perspective in mind <\/a>as the team generates and tests experiments. They\u2019re also data-driven and fast-acting, with no fear of failure, and they ascribe to the \u201crelease fast, fix later\u201d mentality. (Notice a pattern?)<\/p>\n
Data analyst<\/h3>\n
The data analyst\u00a0<\/a>is the master of deciphering both the hard data and the \u201cwhy\u201d behind a set of data, and drawing actionable insights from that data. The data they mine and translate will help the team learn more about customers, which experiments might work best, how successful current experiments are, and what insights should be applied to make future experiments more successful. \u00a0Ideally, they are also a whiz at back-end development<\/a>, so they can pull data out from anywhere they need to (including databases).<\/p>\n
![\"growth](\"https:\/\/referralrock.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/growth-roles.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nSource<\/a><\/p>\n
Creative growth marketer (possible fifth role)<\/h3>\n
A growth marketer who specializes in delivering creative copy, stellar layout, expert SEO content, and compelling images might fill a fifth role and supplement the growth head\u2019s marketing expertise. Or, if they\u2019re also a master of customer-centric design, they might occupy the UX pro role.<\/p>\n
Should you have more than one growth team?<\/h2>\n
Smaller businesses that implement the growth team model will have a single growth team with at least the first four roles described above. Very small startups might start with a single growth hacker, before assembling a whole growth team as the company increases in size.<\/p>\n
In a larger business, though, you may have multiple growth teams that focus on more specific sets of goals. For example, one team might focus on the activation part of the funnel, and another team might focus on retention. Each team will have its own head and its own specialists in product design, user experience, and data analysis. Commonly, if a business has multiple growth teams, each team will permanently specialize in a single part of the funnel.<\/p>\n
Example processes of a growth team<\/h2>\n
What processes does a growth team follow when designing and executing a growth experiment? Here\u2019s an overview of proven growth team processes, based on the ones Uber\u2019s growth team <\/a>uses:<\/p>\n
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- Establish the funnel part you want to focus on, specific KPIs and metrics you want to improve, and qualitative goals you want to accomplish.<\/li>\n
- Brainstorm solutions that you think will best achieve these goals, based on the existing data you have.<\/li>\n
- Choose a solution to be your experiment, and design the experiment in detail.<\/li>\n
- Test the design, either roll it out to all of your users or a portion of your users.<\/li>\n
- \u00a0See how your users respond to the experiment, and carefully track the key metrics you established.<\/li>\n
- If your experiment is successful, apply the design as a long-term change to your company\u2019s processes.<\/li>\n
- If your experiment doesn\u2019t achieve the results you want, think about what insights you can take away from the process, and apply those insights to future experiments. Don\u2019t fear failure, learn from it!<\/li>\n
- Always use proven data from past experiments to make decisions in future experiments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
And here are some process tips based on Uber\u2019s methods:<\/p>\n
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- Consider running A\/B testing to try different variations on a solution at once. Keep elements of the stronger solution as you go, and continue to refine your solution with the data you collect. Don\u2019t stop with just one test!<\/li>\n
- Stay efficient: look for simple and small solutions that will deliver a large impact, as opposed to sweeping overhauls. A simple wording or formatting change can often deliver significant results.<\/li>\n
- Move through processes as quickly as you can, so you can gather insights rapidly. But carefully analyze the data you collect, and refine processes deliberately and based on data. Always think deeply, even at the rapid pace!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Examples of growth experiments<\/h2>\n
Now that we\u2019ve gone through example processes of a growth team, let\u2019s break down some examples of growth experiments that growth teams have performed.<\/p>\n
A\/B testing of landing pages<\/h3>\n
This is one of the most popular growth experiments.<\/p>\n
A growth team might simultaneously test two different landing pages,<\/a>\u00a0each with their own distinct layout, to see which one drives more conversions. They might trim down the length of one lead form, to see if the shorter one results in more conversions. Or, they might try two different freebies as lead magnets.<\/p>\n
![\"a](\"https:\/\/referralrock.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/a-growth-experiment.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nSource<\/a><\/p>\n
CTA button testing<\/h3>\n
A growth team might test out new wording on a call-to-action button,<\/a>\u00a0to see if they can increase the number of customers who perform a desired action.<\/p>\n
- Growth experiments usually involve changes to processes.<\/strong> They are conducted with a specific, measurable goal in mind, to see if they’ll help achieve that goal. Measurable goals could include increases in conversions, email signups, email opens, retention rates, referral rates, and more. Teams will usually run multiple experiments at once, each directed at its own goal.<\/li>\n
- Growth teams constantly look for possible experiments to perform.<\/strong> What problems is a company facing with moving customers through the funnel? How can existing processes of other teams be improved?<\/li>\n
- A growth team should be diverse.<\/strong> It’s a hybrid team made up of people with different backgrounds, such as engineers, product managers and designers, marketers, data analysts, developers, and UX\/UI specialists. This diversity is key, since a growth team must examine ways to drive growth<\/a> in all departments of a business.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n