How startups benefit by hiring a freelance growth marketer

You understand that marketing is an essential element to grow your business. So now you’re looking to hire the right person who not only knows how to promote your brand. But, someone who can help you scale. 

There comes your freelance growth marketer. 

They take more of a relationship-driven approach since they’re focused on building trust with your audience throughout each stage of the buyer’s journey. Unlike making short-term gains, growth marketing sets you up for success in the long run. 

But, is that the role your company needs? How exactly can they help and what type of value could you expect? 

We’ll go through everything you need to know before you finalise your decision to hire one.

What does it mean to be a growth marketer?

A growth marketer mainly focuses on improving two things:

• Customer acquisition
• Customer loyalty

This is achieved by providing more value to your audience. The natural consequence of being helpful is that it leads to business profitability and growth. 

Instead of just promoting the finished products with the intention of making quick sales, growth marketing leans more towards the long-term ROI. 

For example, building new relationships and fostering existing relationships with consumers. This moves them along from the top or middle of the sales funnel all the way to the bottom where they eventually make a purchase. 

In other words, it’s a sustainable marketing approach because the strategy revolves around your audience’s needs. As a result, it sets your business up for long-term growth.

The difference between growth marketing and traditional marketing

Traditional marketing has a strong focus on selling a company’s product and getting as many people to the top of the sales funnel. 

On the other hand, growth marketing has a strong focus on growing the business and optimising the entire sales funnel. 

The traditional marketing approach has an emphasis on brand awareness and sales. In contrast, growth marketers spend a significant amount of time ideating campaigns and running experiments to get results. Using the data from each test conducted, they can take a methodical approach to drive company growth. 

Where traditional marketing leans more into paid advertising, growth marketers can find ways to increase traction without increasing expenses, e.g. organic marketing. 

The winning formula comes from leading different experiments, and going through several trials and errors. 

How startups can benefit from hiring a freelance growth marketer

Growth marketers prioritise giving value to your audience. Building the strategy based on their needs is what leads to results. For instance, creating social media content that answers your followers’ questions can encourage them to engage with your brand. 

We’ll now look at the 4 key benefits of effective growth marketing. 

Increase sales revenue

There are different marketing strategies and activities that are directly tied to generating sales revenue. 

Here are a few examples: 

• Optimise the pricing page to increase the conversion rate
• Set up email campaigns to nurture leads and generate sales
• Use customer feedback to improve brand loyalty

Growth marketers take the entire customer journey into account. This means guiding potential customers every step of the way, which maximises sales throughout each stage of their journey. 

Since they’re taking a data-driven approach, they can identify how one marketing channel could perform to a good standard. Or, identify why it’s not performing well and where it's necessary to pivot. 

Attract more new customers

Customer acquisition is one of the main goals of most marketing strategies. 

To put it another way, it’s about bringing qualified leads into your sales funnel. Then, converting a percentage of them into paying customers. 

However, it starts with reaching the right people in the first place.

For example, put together a content strategy to attract unique website visitors and new audiences. This enables you to build trust with potential customers by giving useful information that helps them overcome a problem or get one step closer to achieving a goal. It’s also an opportunity to showcase how your product or service fits into the bigger picture. 

Another example includes conversion rate optimisation. This is the process of improving your marketing copy so that more visitors complete the action you want them to take, e.g. signing up for your email newsletters. 

Retain more customers

Customer retention is another success factor. 

Aside from getting new customers, part of running growth marketing includes serving your current customer base. It’s more important than focusing on acquisition because they’re the backbone of your business. 

For example, launch a re-engagement email sequence to motivate inactive subscribers to get involved with your brand again. 

The results gained through customer loyalty include:

• Brand engagement
• Upsales
• Referrals
• Repeat purchases
• Social shares

Improve business efficiency

Growth marketers eventually build a formula using everything they’ve tried and tested. 

They’ll know what works, what doesn’t, and what type of messaging is most effective for your target audience. Because the company’s growth is their main priority, they’re also determined to use resources strategically. 

Plus, they’re creative and skilled at finding solutions without compromising quality or increasing costs. 

The role of a freelance growth marketer

At this point, we’ve covered the meaning of growth marketing and what it can do for your startup company. 

The next question is – what exactly does a growth marketer do to achieve those results? 

So now, we’ll go into detail about their job responsibilities. 

Strong understanding of different marketing channels

Here are a few examples of common growth marketing channels:

• Content marketing
• Email marketing
• Paid advertising
• Search engine optimisation (SEO) 
• Social media

Growth marketers have an adept understanding of how digital marketing works, including each of the channels listed. 

Since they use the data of the performance of their strategy to influence their decisions, it’s one reason why they’re results-driven. 

But, the initial budget they’re given is allocated to different marketing channels depending on how they perform. If you’re still in the phase of figuring out what drives the most success, they’ll help you narrow down the options. 

Optimise the sales funnel 

The general overview is that it starts by attracting new readers, then nurturing them into leads, and then converting them into paying customers. 

Growth marketers optimise all stages of the sales funnel, allowing them to maximise sales revenue by taking the entire customer journey into account. Therefore, it helps with putting together a plan that reinforces two things:

• Audience engagement
• Customer relationships

In other words, they strengthen the sustainability of your company’s growth by resonating with and meeting the needs of your customers. 

However, a freelance growth marketer operates more as a manager. This is because they’re focused on consolidating the strategy by doing tasks such as:

• Data analysis
• Identifying market opportunities
• Overseeing each marketing project

Conduct tests and experiments

It’s through trial and error that enables you to analyse what works best and rationalise your decision-making. Over time, this contributes to the development of a structured workflow and roadmap. 

Before conducting tests in the first place, it starts with building hypotheses and ideating campaigns. Hence, apart from thinking analytically, they’re also capable of thinking creatively to find ways to stand out. 

One common form of experiments growth marketers are familiar with includes A/B testing. 

The B2H (business to human) approach

While having a strong analytical ability is key, it’s also important to know how to connect with your target audience. 

That being said, empathy is vital for your brand positioning and messaging. 

The B2H approach makes it more likely for you to build and nurture your relationship with potential customers through authenticity and mutual understanding. As a result, it can lead to more consumers becoming loyal customers since they click with your company values on a deeper level. 

Find innovative solutions

Lastly, they find innovative ways to solve problems and optimise the workflow. For example, using AI software, or other tools to automate and simplify the work process. This can improve your efficiency and productivity while saving you money in the long run. 

Another way they can find innovative solutions is by identifying strategies that allow you to scale organically with minimal expenditure, e.g. guest posting.

Here are a few important KPIs to watch for:

• Annual recurring revenue (ARR)
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• Customer lifetime value (CLV)
• Churn rate
• Retention rate

Take these 3 things into account before hiring a freelance growth marketer

Use this as a guideline when making a decision to hire your next freelancer. This can apply to a range of job positions, not just growth marketing.

1. Your business objectives

Consider both your short-term and long-term objectives. 

What resources are you missing that are stopping you from achieving this within the desired timeframe? How much would it help if you had it in this current period of time?

One of your primary objectives could be to build a community on Instagram. This helps you improve brand loyalty by turning casual viewers or customers into devoted followers. But in this case, it’s enough to work with a social media specialist who knows the ins and outs of platforms such as Instagram. 

Alternatively, if you’re looking to develop and expand your business as a whole, then it’s worth looking into the expertise of growth marketers.

2. Your budget

Another important factor to consider is your marketing budget. 

If you have more that you could invest, hiring an in-house team member is one option. Or, you could partner with an agency to assist your current marketing team on various projects. In contrast, freelancers won’t cost as much and you get to skip the recruitment costs, which is an extra bonus. 

Freelance growth marketers offer a lower barrier to entry and are great assets for early-stage startup companies looking to scale.

3. Industry expertise

The ideal marketer to work with would be experts in your industry. Meaning, they have the skills and experience for scaling companies in your specific market. 

Before you even start working together, they’ll have already accumulated a lot of knowledge about what works and what doesn’t. 

If they can align with your company values, it’s another sign that they’re a good fit. 

Check the reviews to see if others were satisfied with the outcome of their work. How did they help their previous client? It’s also a bonus if they’ve helped organisations in the past who have faced the same challenges you’re currently experiencing.

Ready to get started? Here’s how to hire the top 2% of freelance growth marketers in 72 Hours

Finding a freelance growth marketer is one thing. 

But, finding the top 2% of freelance growth marketers with a proven track record of helping startup companies scale is another. 

Passionfruit has made it easier for startups to hire the top marketers without having to make a long-term commitment, giving you full flexibility. Their community is made up of the top 2% of marketing specialists and each of them operates as a freelancer. 

Here’s the process of how candidates in the Passionfruit marketplace are vetted:

• A thorough review of professional background
• In-depth interview to assess their specialty
• Trial projects are given to assess their expertise
• Conduct a background reference check 

Then, you’ll have ongoing support and monitoring from the Passionfruit team to ensure the work submitted maintains a high standard of quality. More importantly, you can rest assured that you’re working with the top talent to progress towards your goals and objectives. 

They’ve done the hard part for you so you don’t have to. All specialists are trusted to meet your needs. 

Key takeaways

Growth marketing excels when it comes to building a sustainable business. It helps you put the pieces together by connecting with your target audience and developing a system that leads to long-term growth. 

Despite knowing the value of a growth marketer, the next challenge is finding the right talent. 

Nowadays, it’s difficult to do that because of the current demand and competition in the workplace. Many organisations are on the lookout for skilled marketers, but only a few can actually deliver.