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Hey Reader,

Racking my brain on how to start this week’s email, I came across John Bonini’s Good Content! newsletter that opened with:

If you know me at all, you know I immediately whispered baseball.

The Los Angeles Dodgers, in particular.

The Dodgers already have a great social media and content team, but that doesn’t mean I can’t find opportunities to write what I want to write about, which according to John, is imperative.

So for the 22nd issue of Growing Up, I’m taking inspiration from my favorite number 22, and applying a few baseball metaphors to SaaS marketing.

But why stop there?

In honor of baseball’s pitching GOAT (I will die on King Kershaw’s hill), I’m also going to drop the top 5 links we’ve shared since the first Growing Up as a little refresher on the things you all find most valuable.

Plus, we wouldn’t want new subscribers to miss out on the Greatest SaaS marketing tips Of All Time. 😉

​Moneyball for SaaS Product Metrics​

🗒️ The Gist: Moneyball is a book and movie based on the true story of how Billy Bean and the Oakland Athletics changed baseball with a metrics-based approach. Presented with a rag-tag team and a shoestring budget, Bean and crew put together a method that ultimately changed the way baseball is played.

To win the World Series, you needed to win games, to win games, you needed runs. And to get runs, you needed players to get on base.

In this article, Peter Pascale applies Billy Bean’s metric-based game plan to SaaS marketing, where getting (customers) on base is how you achieve your North Star metric.

⚡ Lindsay’s Take: I too love Moneyball. It’s one of the few movie adaptations of a great book that hit it out of the park (pun intended).

I also love this analogy, obviously.

What’s particularly important to highlight here is not only defining your North Star metric but understanding that North Star metrics are often trailing indicators, meaning you can only measure them after it has occurred.

In baseball terms, the North Star metric from Moneyball is winning games. In business terms, it’s getting customers to happily use your products.

So how do we get there?

In Moneyball, the A’s constructed a roster full of on-base machines.

They didn’t hit for power, they just hit. Or walked. Or bunted.

Winning games means scoring more runs than your opponent and the only way to score runs is to get on base first, and that’s exactly what the A’s did.

So how do you get your SaaS customers on base?

Peter shares an example from the ecommerce marketing platform, Drip.

In this example, Drip’s North Star metric was attributed revenue.

To measure revenue-driving customers gained through marketing, Drip had to figure out what set of activities customers needed to do to drive revenue, including connecting their store, sending marketing campaigns, building automations, etc.

These core activities are getting customers on base, then advancing to second, third, and ultimately crossing home plate (driving revenue).

❓If your North Star metric is revenue-driving customers, what is hitting a base hit, or the first core activity to becoming a revenue customer? Reply to this email or comment on our recap post on LinkedIn!

⚡ Brendan’s Take: “Rag-tag team and a shoestring budget” definitely describes a lot of our lives in SaaS.

Personally, I’m not sure that I’d have it any other way.

Do me a favor.

Pause.

Open your calendar in another tab.

I’ll wait.

I’m still waiting because you probably kept reading and didn’t do it.

Ok.

Block out 30 minutes this week to figure out what your base hits are.

Acquisition → If our marketing can help enough people to consume X content, or take Y action, we can start doing something.

Activation → If our marketing can help enough warm leads, or engaged trials, take a specific action, what is that and how can we see momentum there?

Then, we start thinking through how to help them do that thing.

PS - Put time on your calendar. You like this newsletter because you’re like me and you don’t like being told what to do so you probably still didn’t. I see you. 👀 😂

👀 Why it Matters: As Peter says, “Moneyball for SaaS is a natural complement to product-led growth and is especially valuable in onboarding and early-stage product usage.”

Top 5 SaaS Updates:

• ​‘Give Away Your Legos’ and Other Commandments for Scaling Startups​
• ​Google launches Generative AI across Google Workspace​
• ​The Episodic Content Creator’s Guide to Using SparkToro​
• ​​I love their marketing but what does their tool actually DO?
• ​What Makes a B2B SaaS Website Homepage Design Good?​

​4 Marketing Lessons Learned from Building a Bustling Baseball Fan Community​

🗒️ The Gist: TopRank Content Strategist and Twins Daily co-founder, Nick Nelson, shares four marketing lessons learned from building his baseball blog.

1. Hit the ground running
2. Feed your audience what it wants
3. Events fuel engagement
4. Do what you can with what you’ve got

⚡ Lindsay’s Take: “Do what you can with what you’ve got” feels like an attack on SaaS marketers.

As if comparing us to a “rag-tag team [with] a shoestring budget” wasn’t apparent enough, how many times have you felt completely stuck creatively because SaaS is, well, not sexy?

Heck, that’s why this email is themed around something I love to read and write about.

Like John mentioned in Good Content!, you have to be inspired to create inspired content.

MLB’s Opening Day is this week, and while I was initially stumped with what to write about, my excitement for the upcoming season gave me an idea.

And just like that, here we are with another crack at kicking the Sunday Scaries for good.

Do what you can with what you’ve got, and don’t be afraid to pull inspiration from the things you enjoy.

⚡ Brendan’s Take: The second point in this article is “feed your audience what it wants.”

No matter the channel, look for trend lines about what’s resonating the most and consider doing more of that on that channel and, if possible, if you can do that elsewhere.

If you have a YouTube channel, see what causes big drop offs in your videos. Do that less.

👀 Why it Matters: If you have a podcast, look at what types of interviews are most popular.

Lindsay and I are doing quarterly retros on what gets the most clicks in this newsletter, sharing those again, AND using that to think through what is most valuable to you!

Top 5 Marketing Updates:

• ​How to Run Brand Campaigns That Actually Generate Revenue w/ Kyle Lacey​
• ​Obvious Content Tells. Non-obvious Content Sells.​
• ​Planning your 2023 content strategy? Don’t skip video.​
• ​Emily Kramer’s GACCS framework for leading impactful marketing teams​
• ​How to be Easy to Remember and Hard to Forget​

• Sprout Social is hiring a Senior Manager, Customer Lifecycle Marketing. (remote)
• Semrush is building their freelance team with a Senior Content Writer (Organic Search Team). (remote/Spain)
• Classy is looking for a new SVP, Marketing. (remote)

• Thoughts on webinars for B2B SaaS in 2023? This thread has a lot of thoughtful insights!
• ​This is a doozy - how would you approach revamping your entire content strategy?
• ​Here’s what the community thinks can help you stand out in interviews and follow-up letters.

⚡Come join us to hop into these discussions!

• Nick Nelson, Senior Content Marketing Manager at TopRank, Co-owner of Twins Daily, 💼 LinkedIn 🐦 Twitter​
• Carlos Silva, Senior Content Writer at Semrush, All In Member, 💼 LinkedIn 🐦 Twitter​
• Nick Stein, Head of Marketing at CI HUB Connector, All In Member, 💼 LinkedIn

Ok, I have to ask - who ya got winning the World Series? Reply to this email, or even better, comment on our wrap-up LinkedIn post on Monday morning. (Go Dodgers!)

Don’t forget to follow our community happenings on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Slack!

Have a great week,

Lindsay (and Brendan)

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