GTM transformation: SEO to paid, LinkedIn to YouTube, email to Slack

The summer season is usually slower - which tends to be a great time for the type of infrastructure changes we do here.

Like week 2 on beehiiv since we moved over from MailChimp - cruising with upcoming transitions, launches, and integrations!

I’ll talk about the GTM transformation going this year and how no channel or platform is a complete dependency forever (and how complete pivots can happen within ~6 months).

But first, I want to acknowledge the value of the Growth Blueprint and why I’ll keep investing in this one.

The Growth Blueprint frameworks in use 🔥 

I keep stumbling on messages and questions around repetitive trends I’ve shared exclusively here. And detecting them in my Slack community, social DMs, and events I attend with readers.

• Pivoting into new offers

• Wrapping CRO into SEO plans

• Experimentation as a Service (our DevriX key weapon)

• M&A-driven diversification (buying estates to cross-sell or use as media channels)

• Other paradigms on personal branding (content strategies, type of messaging, ICP influence)

So despite the low response rate (albeit ~45% open rate), over 40 businesses have successfully adopted new models and drew inspiration from the Blueprint.

Or as Ben Chang from “Community” says:

So back to my lessons learned from managing DevriX, Growth Shuttle, Robust Branding, and a few other stealth businesses I don’t talk a lot about (like Premium WP Support, the parent company of WP-CRM, for example).

Omnichannel is the key to winning in business

My default state of happiness - and a major goal in life for me - is serenity.

The state of calmness, safety, security, peace, a trouble-free life.

Don’t misinterpret that as slowing down or slacking around. Instead, think about diversification (source: my 30 diversification lessons), enough cash in the bank, high profit margins, multiple businesses to withstand any crisis, diversified HoldCos, distributed capital storage mechanisms.

In business, that’s ensured by going omnichannel.

So at any point of time, we try to have all possible channels up and running.

Even if it’s merely keeping the lights on.

Take my own personal brand as an example.

I have my own blog, a newsletter (several), X, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Threads, paid ads, email automations, email courses, relying on SEO, my books, the Slack community, and even TikTok.

At any point in time, at least two channels generate 90% of the income.

Over the past few years, the winners were SEO and LinkedIn, followed by my email courses (the business accelerator automation).

And in November, both dried out. Hard.

1. SEO moved to paid ads. We leveraged our offers, service pages, community, newsletters to pipe customers back into that funnel.

2. LinkedIn’s efforts lasted for 6-7 months, and I slowly transitioned to YouTube again. Google launched a quick promote so I’ve been boosting my latest videos and relying on QUALITY over QUANTITY now that visibility is guaranteed if you press the button. Better than thought leadership ads (thanks LI)

3. The newsletters is slowly transitioning to Slack. This doesn’t mean that this medium will disappear - but lack of feedback (the echo chamber, too) has always been a problem, and the isolation post-Covid is showing. So Slack is designed to solve that and bridge the gap and warm up the conversations, still being first-party.

Now, platforms adapt and mistakes are rectified, sometimes. 👨‍🏫 

SEO is performing far better over the past 2 months than the 8 months prior. Thanks G - things look better (even though still messed up with some Overviews going on, and reddit or Indian sites ranking high, or Forbes displaying a myriad of popups and banners yet ranking on top).

3rd party cookies were dying for 4 years… And Google gave up on that. Woohoo! Ad accuracy is back in the game.

X performs a lot better than 2 years ago and is still a channel I like and use.

So whatever works right now is not guaranteed to work 3 or 6 months from now.

But if your main golden goose disappears, if you lack the framework to launch ads, email sequences, or first-party data to engage with, you may disappear off the face of the Earth.

This is where diversification and omnichannel is SO damn important.

This is what we execute on with our EaaS and GTM plans in DevriX.

This is what I help executives with during my advisory transformations when GTM, founder-led marketing, or social repurposing are utilized heavily.

No matter what stage you’re in, going omnichannel is the golden key to handling any storms.

The one variable I haven’t quite sorted yet is the virality mechanism. Sharing these secrets from our portfolio for free here makes it pretty valuable, and not really worthy of sharing with peers. When I discover a channel that’s super worthwhile, I’m reluctant to share with the world and limit my competitive edge, too. But we’ll sort this one somehow with reviews or testimonials or an upscale community or a larger cohort of students/accelerator startups joining at once at a discounted rate. Stay tuned while I figure this out.

Yours,
Mario

✍️ Building Effective Marketing Strategies From Day One - The past three years have been a boon for new businesses. In total, more than 16 million new business applications were filed, with 440,000 entrepreneurs completing applications every month. Here are three steps to establishing a marketing strategy to propel long-term startup success.

✍️ The New Normal in B2B SaaS - Learn how businesses adapt to solve specific problems and improve ROI. Let’s talk about handling retention and pricing challenges in today’s market, along with shifts in service-based value propositions.

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📧 Seeking Alpha - @SeekingAlpha is phenomenal when I’m actively hunting for stocks. This is a crowdsourced community for top picks, dividend stocks, pennies, tech, bonds, and crypto. You can sign up through here.

📧 Yahoo Finance - @YahooFinance covers a few long-form stories. You can rely on The Morning Brief to provide the top news stories which are a synopsis of what trends to watch in markets. Sign up from this link.

📃 Pfizer’s earnings beat estimates - Pfizer reported second-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings that blew past expectations and raised its full-year outlook as the drugmaker works to slash costs. The results come as Pfizer scrambles to stabilize its business and win back Wall Street’s favor following the rapid decline in demand for its Covid products.

📃 Apple jumps on the AI train - Apple revealed its first set of AI features, powered by Apple Intelligence (its new AI platform), at its developer conference in June. They include Siri updates, writing tools, mail features, “Focuds” mode, and photo features.

📃 US government for more “open” AI - The US Commerce Department has released a report which supports the release and use of ‘open-weight’ AI models but asks for better risk assessment methods. The report says the government shouldn’t restrict open-weight models, because they allow independent developers, researchers, and small companies to build new, innovative technology, that they couldn’t otherwise afford to build

📃 Google integrates Merchant Center-Ads - Google is rolling out a new feature that bridges the gap between Google Merchant Center and Google Ads, enhancing the ad creation process for e-commerce businesses.

📃 McDonalds keeps dipping in sales - McDonald’s earnings release on Monday was less ba da bing than it was ba-da dun dun dunnn. The ominous notes are another sign that consumers with less cash have even less willingness to spend it after prices on menus and across the economy have climbed in recent years.

📈 Three of the world’s most significant central banks this week will deliver monetary policy updates in the space of about 32 hours.

The Bank of England might trim borrowing costs on Thursday, the Federal Reserve is likely to stand pat on Wednesday, but signal a cut in interest rates might be coming in September.

But arguably the most important decision will come from the Bank of Japan. Why? Well, the recent wobble in stock markets, when large technology stocks faced heavy selling, coincided with a rally for the beleaguered Japanese yen.

• S&P 500: $5,436(-0.50%)

📈 Mortgage interest rates fell on all loan terms from a week ago, according to Bankrate data. Rates for 30-year fixed, 15-year fixed, 5/1 ARMs and jumbo loans all moved lower.

• 30-year mortgage rate: 6.88%(+0.01)

• 15-year mortgage rate: 6.33%(-0.00)

📈 The Fed is scheduled to meet on July 30-31, with Chair Jerome Powell set to discuss the bank's rate decision at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday. After this week's session, the Fed will next discuss its benchmark federal funds rate at its September 17-18 meeting. 

📰 Here are some of the most prominent headlines this week:

• VP Harris is expected to meet with Israeli PM Netanyahu on Thursday, the White House says, a day after Netanyahu's address to Congress.

• Text messages and radio chatter show officers lost sight of Donald Trump's would-be assassin, illustrating the confused communications around tracking him.

• FDA approves blood test for colorectal cancer, expanding screening options available among average-risk adults 45 and older

• Spark Generation - raising €600,000 to help businesses make impactful sustainability decisions. Founded by the experienced UiPath team members, that previously exited Kubeark.

• CO2Later - raising €600,000 to empower businesses to make impactful sustainability decisions. It has an experienced founding team coming from the UiPath mafia and successfully exited Kubeark, the largest pre-seed round in Romania.

• Maskots - raising €200,000 to expand its pet care app, helping pet owners keep their animals happy and healthy. 

Note: Got a round going that you want to feature - your own business or a portfolio company? Get in touch.

Now let’s have a look at the latest top Flippa offers

Software License Ecommerce - This quickly-growing ecommerce store sells software licenses for Windows products, antivirus software, and Office products.

• Monthly profit: $43,841

• Profit margin: 88%

• Business age: 2 years

Digital Marketing and Development Agency - This agency offers services including SEO, social media, and web development.

• Monthly profit: $3,713

• Average order value: $257

• Business age: 5 years

Tax & Fintech Consulting Service - This service-based business helps clients launch online banking and investment services.

• Monthly profit: $12,273

• Profit margin: 96%

• Business age: 4 years

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💡 Eager to incorporate my recommended solutions? Track my angel investments. Sharing, applying for open roles, or writing reviews helps a ton.  And anything else I try to publish on my blog and my courses here!