Now let’s take a look on what is the difference between digital marketing and growth marketing. This above image is from GrowthTribe updated pirate funnel of Dave McClure(500 Startups) explaining how the thoughts of growth team and marketing team differs. There is profession/career/job for you if you have studied digital marketing. The only thing I see there is limiting the mindset of a digital marketing people is plain thinking about marketing the business. When they think about marketing, they only think about how to bring traffic to the website or awareness to business. And traditional activities like running advertising campaigns to get users. They forget about a lot of other things.
In a physical world, you can compare two restaurants. Two restaurant posted a banner on street corner to promote their offering. See from this example what’s happening afterwards (read the journey of restaurant1 column first and the restaurant2, then imagine the comparison)
Stage of user journey | Restaurant 1 | Restaurant 2 |
Marketing (Apple vs Apple) | Banner Advertising | Banner Advertising |
User visited the shop | Open door, anyone can enter | Receptionist standing outside with menu card explaining the benefits |
User in Shop (before Order) | One simple to choose | Two Menu:Standard MenuOccasion Menu (Christmas offering) |
User in shop (While ordering) | User select the items and order | While User select the items, restaurant staff standing there explaining the speciality of each item. |
User in Shop (while eating) | No gesture | Restaurant staff come once without annoying asking anything extra they need (cross sell and Up sell wherever possible) |
After user had food | “Thanks for your arrival” | “Thanks for your arrival, here is the special coupons you could pass it to your friends. You can also use for your next arrival using this loyalty cards” |
RESULT | One user = one customer(John) and journey finished | One user = One customer (Peter) + he passed his coupon to his friends + Pieter posted in his social media about this restaurant |
APPROACH | Traditional Marketing | Growth Marketing(look for ways to increase customer base on every touch point) |
This above table is just for explanation and to get an understanding. That’s not the 100% correct definition. Also don’t worry too much about definitions. Learn what needed, apply what makes sense in your career.
From the above activity, here is the below explanation of funnel/marketing term perspective what does digital marketer does and how growth marketers approach the same situation.
Restaurant 1 | Restaurant 2 | |
Marketing (Apple vs Apple) | AWARENESS | AWARENESS |
User visited the shop | TRAFFIC/FOOTFALL | ONBOARDING EXPERIENCE & ENGAGEMENT |
User in Shop (before Order) | NO PERSONALISATION | PERSONALIZATION |
User in shop (While ordering) | NOTHING | ACTIVATION THROUGH NURTURE |
User in Shop (while eating) | NOTHING | REVENUE (LTV INCREASE) |
After user had food | NO GROWTH ELEMENT | RETENTION & REFERRAL |
RESULT | ONE CUSTOMER | MANY CUSTOMERS FROM ONE |
APPROACH | Traditional Marketing | Growth Marketing(look for ways to increase customer base on every touch point) |