Julian Shapiro, a growth marketing expert, told us this week that successful brand-building is about creating a company that customers will be upset to leave. They would no longer be the guy with Slack stickers all over him laptop. Or the woman who doesn't wear Nike shoes every day. They are both annoyed.Shapiro is a techie, having been a repeat founder of startups and an open-source web developer. He is now the co-founders of Demand Curve, a growth education company, and Bell Curve, a startup growth agency. He believes in telling your story from the heart. We spoke with him to learn more about his vision for marketing in 2021.We published guest columns on TechCrunch this week and Extra Crunch about the use of influencers in early stage brands, the global media spending trend, and spoke to Growth Folks, an Indian growth marketing agency.First, let's take a look at some of the top recommendations made by founders during our survey about startup growth marketers. (Please let us know if you have worked with a growth marketer who has been a pleasure to work with.Marketer: Bili Suele, alGROWithmFemi Aiki and Foodlocker recommend itTestimonial: Bili is a former vice president for Growth Marketing at Jumia Nigeria, and a senior growth consultant at Founders Factory Africa. She is able to cut through all the jargon and vanity metrics to find a way to engineer consistent and reliable growth for us. Bilis strategy goes beyond marketing. This is what makes Bilis unique. She is data-driven and uses an iterative, experimental approach to unlock growth across different business pillars.Jack Abramowitz, MarketerMarwen Refaat from GameFi recommended this bookTestimonial: Jack has a remarkable talent for both growth hacking and building an automated growth engine. Our team has found him to be extremely helpful.Ayush Srivastava, Growth Folks: India has a large and well-funded new generation. This is partly due to the increasing sophistication of growth marketing. Srivastava, a recent interviewee, stated that companies have begun to realize the importance of having a fully functioning growth team. Growth marketers are also experimenting and using data to solve problems. Many startups are now thinking outside the box and trying new ways to acquire customers. They aren't limited to traditional methods of acquiring users, which is why so many ideas go viral.(Extra Crunch). Early-stage brands need to harness the influencer power: Jonathan Martinez is an experienced growth marketer who breaks down influencer marketing. Martinez points out that reaching out to influencers is a numbers game. It's a tough task to capture their attention and pitch your brand. However, there are many ways to increase conversion.(Extra Crunch). What is driving the global surge of retail media spending? Cynthia Luo is Epsilo's head of marketing and discusses the future of modern marketing in 2021. Luo also discusses how businesses had to adapt during and after the COVID-19 epidemic. Luo states that e-commerce is becoming a dream channel for marketing, but only if the market provides the necessary tools and data to enable brands to reap the rewards of retail marketing.Julian Shapiro talks about the art of startup storytelling: Extra Crunch managing editor Eric Eldon spoke to Julian Shapiro about how companies communicate with their customers. Shapiro shared insights from his time as an angel investor. I am interested in companies with product-led growth and brand affinity moats. It is harder for larger businesses to compete with smaller ones.(Extra Crunch). Growth strategies that will jump-start customer base: Jenny Wang is principal investor at Neo. She shares insights about the challenges startups face in launching their customer base, and offers some tips to help them. Wang shares the five-year old playbook and explains why it is so difficult to get attention and achieve a breakthrough adoption trajectory.Salesforce State of Marketing: Salesforce published a report that used data from a double blind survey. Salesforce State of Marketing: The report is based on data from a double-blind survey. It has five chapters. 69% of marketers use mobile messaging. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of companies also use streaming media such as podcasts and streaming ads.Are you looking for a startup growth marketer? Fill out the survey to let us know.
