☝️☝️☝️CaaSocio co-founder Sarah at sTARTUp day 2022
We [CaaSocio] just turned 2! 🥳
You know we’ve been working hard, right? We aspire to become your most trusted SaaS copywriting agency. And we firmly believe that for that to happen—sustainable marketing growth is key.
So, attending an event where top marketers would come together is a great idea. And that’s Superangel’s Growth Marketing Summit at sTARTUp day 2022 in a nutshell.
As an attendee, let me say two things: the event was a huge success, and was a good learning experience!
So today, let me share a CaaSocio exclusive. My 7 takeaways from the marketing summit held here in Tartu Estonia last August 24-26, 2022.
First, what is sTARTUp day 2022?
Okay, sTARTUp Day is a three-day fest and is one of the flagships (biggest) business festivals of Estonia and Eastern Europe.
And when we say a big event, here’s what we mean:
And an official side event is the Superangel’s Growth Marketing Summit. This is where successful marketers from Estonia and the Baltics came together to share their insights on how to achieve sustained growth.
But why did CaaSocio attend?
Here’s our honest answer:
We started our SaaS copywriting agency at the beginning of the pandemic. And after two years, we haven’t even seen our local clients in person. 😞
So, when we learned about the event and realized that the festival’s objective aligned with our goal [plus me being in Estonia and CaaSocio celebrating our 2nd birthday], there’s really no reason not to.
Yep, we took sTARTUp day 2022 as an opportunity to meet some of our SaaS clients in Estonia as well as learn from different marketers, founders, and investors at the Growth Marketing Summit too.
Here are the clients we met (finally in person!):
Superangel’s Growth Marketing Summit
Superangel’s Growth Marketing Summit is the first big pan-Baltic learning adventure dedicated to startup marketers. It’s one of the well-attended side events of sTARTUp day 2022.
With unicorn-level speakers, 100 startup marketers (200 signups but they had to cut to 100 for the venue), and sharing of crowd wisdom, the Summit was the best way to learn from the experiences of successful marketers. They shared fresh growth marketing insights.
So here are my 7 Key Takeaways from Growth Marketing Summit’s generous speakers:
1. Growth loops should be scalable and repeatable.
Building a scalable playbook is a must-have. And it should be a repeatable growth loop as mentioned by Karola, Ott, and Sam.
So, I learned that it is important to develop at least 3-6 months of scalable and repeatable growth playbooks with different personas and segments.
2. Do marketing on a macro-level for early-stage startups.
Marketing Strategy should be synonymous with business strategy for slow-growth companies. As Karola mentioned, “It’s important to realize that marketing, brand, and product are intertwined. You can’t grow if one key aspect of your company is dysfunctional”.
So instead of focusing on multiple campaigns or missing out on marketing automation, take a step back and look at the macro-level view.
3. Dig deeper beyond benefits and sell the value.
Selling the features is one of the common mistakes of early-stage startups or SaaS companies. So, most startups with product market fit started selling the benefits instead.
But one thing that I learned from Ott is to not just sell the benefits but to dig deeper and sell the value by building scalable and repeatable growth models.
4. Early-stage startups need PR to build trust.
PR seems very expensive and the least priority of most early-stage founders. But Marek, an experienced PR marketer (ex-Skype, ex-Playtech, ex-Wise, and ex-Bolt), strongly suggests that PR is a must for early-stage startups. He shared how a money transfer company had to do some half-naked PR shots in London during their early days.
And I learned that in PR, “the smaller you are the lower you have to go”.
5. Don't discount offline media like TV.
It was refreshing to hear from Kęstutis of Vinted, that tv ads still work in this digital age.
And I learned that when done right, they are still cost-effective and generate better ROIs.
6. Marketing is also about finding new growth opportunities
Catchbox had a major roadblock when the pandemic hits. Sam of Whimsical (ex-Catchbox) shared how he had to help Catchbox find new opportunities.
And I learned that marketing is also about finding new product development or pivoting when sh*t hit the fan.
7. Use communities as a measurable growth and marketing tool
As they say, build an audience or community before selling anything.
Triin of Klaus, shared the most entertaining yet valuable presentation about cats, using communities as marketing growth rather. 🙃
Klaus has been a very successful CS quality management platform
And when in doubt, use cat GIFs. 😉
The Moomin and cat GIFs by Karola and Triin lightened the heavy data presentation by other marketers. This was definitely one of the more popular tips at the growth marketing summit! Why? Because everyone loves cat GIFs.
But seriously, using humorous images like GIFs can help your message stick and make a lasting impression on your audience. So, when in doubt use cat GIFs. 😊
Wrapping up
That's all I have to say 😄.
I hope you enjoyed (and took something away, too) my 7 key takeaways from the growth marketing summit on sTARTUp day 2022―a CaaSocio exclusive!
If you're also a marketer, entrepreneur, or investor, I’m pretty sure these insights will help you level up your growth game. But if you need help working with your SaaS marketing efforts, trust us to write for you—email, website copy, in-app copy, or even long-form blogs. Don’t hesitate to contact CaaSocio.
Book a call with us and let’s talk.
