[Customer case] Growth Marketing with Shortcut

In other words: How we supported Shortcut in their growth journey with a little help from good old growth marketing — with the shared goal of acquiring PQLs. 🚀

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Shortcut is a project management tool sans all the management. It was built by a software team for other software teams, so it really makes project management for software teams easy as pie.

We at Advance B2B love pie, so we were super excited to get on board! 🍰

When we initially started working together, the idea was to help them fine-tune their customer acquisition process using great content and paid channels and experimentation. 

In September 2021, Shortcut went through a full rebranding process. We supported them in the process and created a lot of top of the funnel content to help the new brand get up and running. 

What else did we do? Read on to find out!

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The starting point ⚡️

Things Shortcut wanted us to help with:

  • When starting out, the Shortcut team was a two-person team. That's where Advance B2B originally came in! 
  • They wanted to grow
  • They wanted to uncover a more systematic approach to growth marketing
  • They were looking for new content ideas, strategic guidance, as well as great content
  • They wanted to formulate their acquisition in the best way possible
  • They needed a more systematic approach to paid advertising and campaigns
  • They wanted a strong focus on brand awareness, with detailed tactics and new channel recommendations

Why they chose to work with us 🙏🏼

  • The Advance B2B approach to customer research and our vast experience in conducting customer research in general
  • Our structured way of working and a clear and easily understandable sprint and credit model
  • Our content expertise, and having a knowledgeable and seasoned content strategist present already in the initial sales meetings 🧠
  • Our deep understanding of paid advertising, SEO and growth marketing

Here are some examples of work we have done for Shortcut:

During our cooperation, we had the chance to do many awesome things. For example:

  • We helped them clarify the right terminology for their marketing and communication
  • We researched the right messages that resonate with the right audience segments in their target markets
  • We ran many experiments

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  • ☝️ As an example: In this ad experiment, we discovered that usability-related messages resonate better with both the European and North American audiences than visibility-focused messages
  • On the content side, we built a comprehensive content strategy that relied heavily on the topic cluster framework, with concrete content ideas for every stage of the funnel moving forward
  • To support the content strategy, we gave recommendations based on comprehensive keyword research. We planned and wrote blog posts, as well as blog and website optimizations and SEO updates.
  • And, before parting ways, we created a personalized content optimization guide Shortcut can use in the future 🤓
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KPIs

  • The number of PQLs, and other indicators like conversions for paid advertising
  • For SEO: Keyword rankings and positions in US, and what keywords are ranking well in each space
  • Website traffic per country for brand awareness

Results 🎯

  • Increase in PQLs and MQLs
  • We discovered new channels to target to acquire new users
  • We helped them switch to a new domain with no hassle
  • We passed them a good understanding of what SEO optimization is
  • We discovered the best messages that resonate with both their European and North American audiences

rudan

Advance B2B has been an invaluable resource in our growth journey. They really spent time learning about our target audience and our specific growth needs, assembled a great team that filled the skill gaps of my in-house team, and consistently delivered high-quality work week after week.

I have been impressed with the level of professionalism and the sense of true partnership the Advance B2B team brought, and my in-house team has learned many best practices from the AB2B team.”

Rudan Zhang

VP of Marketing, Shortcut

Top highlights ✨

We worked together from January to November 2021. ❤️

Everything was smooth sailing from start to finish, but of course, we have to mention a couple of special highlights. ⛵️

Our SEO work and content cooperation were always awesome and super smooth, and we also had a lot of room to experiment and test out new ways of doing things.

These experiments resulted in many successful campaigns with concrete results like new sign-ups, conversions, and customers. 

The cooperation ended because the in-house Shortcut team grew significantly, from two to a 10+ person marketing team. However, we'd be super stoked to be able to continue working together in the future. 👀

Want to try it too?

If you’d like to talk to us about working together, your best bet is the chat window on your right.

Alternatively, you can fill out this handy little form and we’ll get back to you within the next 24 hours (unless it’s the weekend or a national holiday, in which case we might take a tad longer.) 🎅🏻

You can also book a time directly from our calendar. ⬇️