Maryna Burushkina, Founder & CEO of GrowthChannel talks about how they’ve grown their programmatic advertising SaaS content past $1MN in ARR using content marketing. We talk about their top-of-funnel content strategy, middle-of-funnel lead magnets, lead nurturing process & sales cycle.

• How GrowthChannel makes it easy for businesses to plan, launch, & optimize programmatic advertising campaigns across 150+ channels from a single dashboard.
• How they have around 2200 business users across around 1000 customers & an additional 300 agencies on their platform
• How they’ve hit almost 1 million in ARR
• How content marketing is primarily responsible for their top-of-funnel
• How they use Slack community & email sequences to nurture their leads
• Is it advisable for new SaaS founders to start a Slack community?
• What does their content strategy look like?
• How their sales cycle looks like
• Team, external funding & future vision

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgwB7kjeStM

so we have many different lid magnets.

So for us, li Magnet is anything where we capture, uh, contact information.

So we have, uh, webinars, we have training materials, we have reports,

eBooks, white paper templates, all that.

Stuff.

Uh, where in order to get the free stuff, you know, leave us your email

information and we'll be in touch.

But overall, like, um, yeah, that's actually, that strategy

has worked really well.

Hello everyone.

Welcome to the B2B SaaS podcast.

I'm your host today we have Marina Burish with us.

Hey Marina, welcome to the show.

Hi, Pendra.

Thanks for having me.

Hi guys.

Hey Marina.

So let's talk about what your company does and why customers pay your money.

Yeah, great question.

So I'm the founder of Gross Channel.

Um, at Gross Channel, we combine data intelligence and marketing

activation channels to make your marketing decisions much more

smarter and more efficient, right?

Everyone spends lots of money on marketing, lots of budgets, and the main

question is like, how do I make results?

Right?

So this is exactly what we focus.

All right, so talk a bit more, right?

So I mean there are lots of tons of things in marketing, right?

So when, where exactly do you sit in a company's workflow?

Maybe you could just walk us through one of your example customers, right?

So, so that we can understand more.

Yeah, definitely.

So let, let's assume like one of our, um, customers are

actually startups and, um, SMBs.

So usually you're like f trying to figure out who shall I sell to and

what channels shall I reach them?

What's the best content?

And then, you know, what's the best channels and how do I actually

manage my campaigns properly?

So with Cross Channel, essentially speaking, you create

a quick business profiles.

You set your objective.

Your business industry budget.

A few other details around like who is your competitors, et cetera.

Our tool will generate personas for you, your I C P, uh, figure out the best

channels to reach them, uh, generate content for you, and then you can also.

Push your advertisements across multiple premium sites and apps, um, even like

TV for relevant, depending also on the budget, of course, um, for those specific

personas who are relevant for you on your budget with your messaging, and

then you have one platform to manage all of that and also optimize the results.

Okay.

That's very, very interesting, to be honest, right?

So what you're essentially saying is that if I'm a startup, I'm just starting out.

I've got a number of channels that I want to experiment and

figure out what's optimal for me.

I sort of know my icp, so I wanna do cold email outreach, I wanna write

some content, I wanna publish some video content, maybe I wanna run some

YouTube ads, some Facebook ads, right?

I wanna do a lots of stuff.

So is your , it's gonna fig help me figure out sort of, you

know, what's the best for me?

Is that what you're gonna do?

And if yes, how exactly are you gonna do It's, it's such a tough problem.

Yeah, so on our platform within the planning, uh,

module, so essentially speaking, we have like two, two products, right?

We have one for planning and help you figure out your strategy, and another

one for activation, which keeps on growing because marketing channels

are kind of unlimited in these days.

So on the, uh, planning side, yeah, uh, our platform will help you figure out

the best channels, the best content, you know, and, and maybe even learn

a little bit more about your acp.

So even if you know, like the demographics.

You know, our platform will can also tell you about their pain points,

what their goals are, what they like, what they don't like, what their

decision criteria, that other stuff.

That's still important for you to figure out your marketing campaign for them.

And on the activation side, we focus right now on programmatic advertising channels.

So think of it like.

Google display on steroids.

Um, so we connect with about 150 ad exchanges.

And there we don't just have Google display ads.

We have Microsoft, we have Yahoo, we have Zer, AppNexus, we have Native Ads, Vista

and Out Brain, you have access to tv.

Audio even did like digital out of home, all of that with no

minimum ad spend requirements.

Mm-hmm.

So you don't need to sign any long-term contracts, do this

boring media buying work.

Their platform is just like as simple as Facebook ads.

Uh, essentially speaking.

Okay.

Uh, so I, I, I sort of wanna close this conversation, but

it's sounds very interesting.

So are you also gonna help me do stuff like cold email outreach,

all of those outbound, or do you do that on your platform as well?

Or do I have to buy those tools?

You can generate, like, let's say for example, the

content for it, if you wanna do cold calling, um, still like, You know, uh,

and without us suggesting you, Hey, this is even the right channel for you.

Um, but yeah, for example, if you already know, hey, I wanna do call

calling and I need content for my script, for example, what I should

be telling, uh, to the person during call, calling conversation, you can

definitely generate that on a flower

platform.

So it's, it's essentially a content creation engine as well as, uh,

you know, ads sort of platform combine, something like that.

Yes.

But I would say more like audiences.

You know, figuring out strategy and channels, tactics, all that stuff, uh,

your content is of course a part of that.

And then you have the programmatic

advertising.

Got it.

Alright.

So yeah, let's, let's move on to your customer base.

And I'll come back, you know, after a while to sort of understand how

you're positioning this, right?

Because you're doing a lot of things right.

So I really wanna understand that.

But just help me explain how many paying customers do you have on your platform as.

Yeah, so if you have about 2,200 business users right

now, and then we also have about 300 agencies on the platform as well.

We work a lot with agencies, consultants, and freelancers in

addition to businesses directly.

And right now we are also in the midst of preparing, uh, or like extending, I

would say even our marketplace where we connect both parties and, you know, help

them find each other when they're looking.

Um, let's say if I'm a business owner or a startup founder

and I need someone to maybe.

Fix my GA four or fix my pixels or set up my Google tag manager or anything

like that, in fact, so that they can find then the freelancer, a consultant

or an agency, you know, based on their budget, location, or whatever other

parameters are important for them, um, you know, within our ecosystem.

And one question, is it a strict sa purely a SaaS

platform that you're selling to these businesses and agencies?

Or is there something more than just that?

Yeah, so we have like a three tier business model.

So one is definitely like a SA subscription where you can, you

know, generate your marketing plans on the other side.

Then we also have the advertising engine.

So we, we do have the, you know, ad spans and all that stuff, and then you

have add-ons, um, and that's usually for data credits, I would call it.

So for example, Let's say you wanna build a custom audience based on people who went

to specific event or specific locations, let's say 12 months in the past.

Yeah.

We are able to generate those custom audiences, you know, have more insights

around those exact people, and also launch ads across any channel, even

Facebook ads on to those specific people.

So that's an add-on for us, like customers.

Alright, but, but it's still a recurring plan

that you're typically selling to all of these customers.

Um, most, most the times, yes.

But, uh, you know, there are other options as well that they can, um, grade too.

All right.

So, so are you comfortable revealing like where you

are as a company in terms of revenue?

Just, yeah.

So

approximately, um, we're a sit stage company.

Um, right now we, I mean we already raised our first round, so we did

our preseasons in the last few years that we've been running.

So we raised 300 k.

Uh, right now we are raising also our next round.

Um, and we're really looking forwards to really scale, uh, from there as well.

So we are looking also to hiring more people.

Right now we are 12 people.

And then what's your approximate revenue?

Did you mention that I

missed?

Yeah, I mean, like, um, we have about 1 million right now, now, and

we are, and trying to hit 3 million, um, after the seed round as well.

Got it.

That's, that's wonderful.

Right.

So now, no, I sort of wanna go back to your, your own marketing strategy,

not your product se per se, right?

So, so what's your top of funnel outlook?

Like, so where exactly are you getting all of these leads from?

So talk about your last year's new leads, right?

So I just wanna understand what channels they've discovered you on, right?

So, and just talk about that process purely from a top of funnel per.

Yeah, definitely.

So, um, on our side, a lot of our leads coming from, uh, content

marketing, seo, um, and communities.

Uh, so that's, I would say a lot of our top of the funnel.

Mid-funnel, we have, uh, lots of, um, I would call it lead magnets.

We have published lots of reports.

We offer lots of templates.

Uh, You know, free, uh, guides and all that stuff.

So that's more of our mid-funnel.

We do have also, um, nurturing process where we have email workflows, um, you

know, to nurture and qualify the leads.

Uh, make sure, you know, eventually they schedule a demo, at least most of them.

Uh, we schedule some newsletters.

Um, so that's, I would say the most, uh, successful channels that we have.

Yeah.

Um, of course as well, we, we do lots of events and partnerships.

That's another big, big component for us, especially when it comes

to agencies and consultants and freelancers I c p acquisition.

Um, but we also are present on other channels that I think is more of

a, kind of a long-term strategy.

Uh, for example, like different aggregators, directories, social media.

I would say it's more of our always on activities.

Yeah.

Um, but, uh, not necessarily the ones that we

All right.

So let, let's, let's, let's go to the top right.

Your top of funnel.

You mentioned SEO and you know, a couple of communities, right?

So which one of them, if you were to pick, is driving most of these leads?

Can you just put a number to that?

Yeah.

So content.

It's content.

Right?

So, and uh, I know you also run a Slack community.

I'm a part of that.

Right.

And I know regularly what you do.

I think that's how I'm also beingd, right?

So, so I So how much of your top funnel comes from your Slack community?

Can you just put a number to that?

Yeah, so I didn't specify Slack as a part of our

kind of core acquisition channels.

I would say Slack is more of our retention channel than an acquisition channel.

Mm-hmm.

We like to invite our users on a Slack channel.

Mm-hmm.

As well as we also have a few like private channels with our.

Let's say project related customers or managed service customers where

we communicate daily and stuff like

that.

So it's, it's, okay.

So it's, it's primarily being, being an, like a retention strategy for you.

It, it doesn't really drive new, new leads a lot.

Is that it?

Yes, that's, that's more correct.

Uh, we do have also a participate a little bit in a few other

Slack channels, however, where we occasionally drive, um, you know,

some, some traffic to our website.

Right.

So,

I'm, I'm you Yeah.

I'm specifically asking you this question because a lot of SaaS

founders said when they just start out, they wanna try a bunch of things.

And one thing that definitely comes to their mind is maybe starting a channel

for themself, and they're just looking at it from a top of funnel perspective.

Right.

Can you just give us some advice?

Right.

How worthy is it if you're just looking.

From a top perspective.

Talk about your Slack channel from that perspective.

I would

say

top of the funnel, um, if you have zero people to invite,

there isn't gonna be much, but you can

always find people, right.

New Slack channel, you can always find people, for example, I mean,

you invited me, but I'm not, I'm, I'm not a part, I'm not your customer.

Right.

So you can always invite like-minded people or people in that space.

Right, exactly.

Yeah.

But, but will it really work as a auto funnel channel?

I mean, will it help you generate leads?

Has it been working for

you?

Yeah, so for us, generating leads is like

having contact information.

So usually it's more like a nurturing channel and retention channel for

us on, on our own Slack channel.

However, we are also present on other Slack channels where you, which you

can use as an acquisition strategy.

So in other channels, participate in conversations, answer thread questions,

you know, like show, uh, yourself as a.

Leader in a space, um, and potentially offer a solution to existing problems

with whatever you are selling.

Uh, we're trying to sell, in fact, uh, with your product or service.

So would you, that would

work, would you advise a new SaaS founder to, let's say maybe

just go and start the Slack community?

Would you really advise them or maybe not.

What's your, what's your one, one word answer.

Uh, from beginning, I wouldn't start your

own Slack community, but I would definitely join existing communities.

Mm-hmm.

And re because some communities have like tens of thousands of members.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So use those, um, because if you're gonna start your own, it's

gonna be just like maybe a few hundred members in the beginning.

All

right.

And talk about your content marketing strategy.

You mentioned like most of your new leads are just coming from

the content you write, right?

So let's talk about how many people in your team are actually sort of writing

how many articles on a, on a monthly basis, and what's that strategy for

you and what, what's been your strategy right from the beginning, right?

So what have you been focusing on in terms of keyword strategy?

Just talk about that because looks like that's the one that's

really been working for you.

Yeah, so that's working

really well.

And these days you don't need to write the whole thing yourself, as you know.

So you can just go and check G p t and ask it for, for an article.

Of course, you still need to proof it, maybe add some graphics,

pictures, all that stuff.

Um, so there are a few strategies that work very well for us.

Um, we go through an extensive process.

Step number one, figure out the best keyword usually.

Highest volume, lowest competition.

You can check that on Google, um, or other SEO tools, whichever one doesn't matter.

Um, then the second one is usually okay, generate some, you know,

static contact that's always green.

It's something that's not very time sensitive.

Yeah.

Um, so that's the second step.

And usually like using, you know, auto generating AI tools, um, you know, you

can use chat G P T, which is most probably the best one out there these days.

Uh, some of you may be already subscribed to like tools like Jasper or

anything like this, which is fine too.

Um, then.

The next step is usually figure out where are the experts in a space,

uh, that we may wanna include to give a quote inside the blog article.

This strategy works perfect every single time, so definitely listen on.

So, so, so

can you talk about this part a bit?

I mean, as you're talking about battling, building.

Yeah, so you can definitely, um, use that

for backlink building as well.

But right now we're talking more about actually getting good piece of content

that's long form and that you don't need to spend too much time building.

Mm-hmm.

At the same time, you know, bringing lots of.

Uh, traffic to website.

So usually we would, um, ask like three to 10 people to contribute with quotes

on the topic that we're writing about.

And once the blog is published, we'll ask them to share with their community.

And usually we also look for people who have some decent follower base.

Are these guest post in, so are you inviting guest ex

who are experts in, in the field areas that you're looking at?

And are you asking them to write the content and then

go ahead and spread the word?

Is that what you're.

Uh,

not the whole post.

Mm-hmm.

Just a small paragraph for a quote.

Uh, maybe with some graphics that we are gonna then blend into that one

single block post, and then all of those 10 experts with their communities,

their companies, plus ourselves sharing that one piece of content.

It gives like 10 x, you know, exposure to this one piece of content and

drives.

What, what's the incentive for those people to sort of

contribute to your articles?

Yeah, so they

do get a back link to themselves, of course.

Um, and then just like we talk about credibility, visibility, we

are also gonna share, and of course other contributors will share.

So it's kind of a win-win situation

for everyone.

Got it.

Uh, makes sense.

Alright, so look, let's, let's go go a bit downwards, right?

So talk about what happens after one, once somebody discuss your product, right?

So how do you convert them to a paying customer?

What happens?

Is it a no-touch model?

Do you have somebody bugging them to sort of convert, you know, con con

to convert them to a paying model?

What happens after that?

Yeah, we usually back them only after they have had

the demo, until they have had a demo.

We don't back them at all.

Um, so we do have a workflow email sequence in HubSpot, for example.

Um, and we have a few different variations based on the task

content.

You put content, you put all of these leads to a free, like word trial, right?

So essentially you want them to start a trial or something, and then you start

doing all of this email nurturing.

Um, not

necessarily.

So first we collect their contact information, for example, via

the different lead magnets, which I mentioned earlier.

Let's say they downloaded our programmatic benchmarks report, right?

We have their email and we have their first name.

Uh, this one is actually our, our top lead magnet of the month.

Um, got the most leads from.

So in this case, um, you're, you're, you know, if you have lead nurturing

sequence about five steps as a follow up, um, you know, with relevant

content and also asking for a demo call if you're interested to discuss

solutions for programmatic advertising.

So something that is relevant to the content that you have actually downloaded.

Um, not all kind of, you know, sales talk, but also providing value in

addition to what you have already got.

Um, and then, um, yeah, that's usually five, five step sequence.

We also hire including people who, um, you know, downloaded anything,

uh, or maybe watched the webinar or anything like this in our newsletter.

And that's also biweekly newsletter.

I must say engagement on the newsletter is of course, much, uh, lower than

the nurturing emails, but still it oftentimes drives some nice demo.

So you, I, I've heard you talk a lot about these lead magnets.

So where exactly do they fit in your funnel?

Right?

Is it after somebody re read through your blog post?

Maybe do you divert them to a lead magnet and then you start

collecting contact information?

Is that how it works?

Yeah, so we have many different lid magnets.

So for us, li Magnet is anything where we capture, uh, contact information.

So we have, uh, webinars, we have training materials, we have reports,

eBooks, white paper templates, all that.

Stuff.

Uh, where in order to get the free stuff, you know, leave us your email

information and we'll be in touch.

But overall, like, um, yeah, that's actually, that strategy

has worked really well.

Um, we also try to optimize those pages as well for keywords and make sure

we update it occasionally as well.

Um, it's usually also, you know, we have more content than just, you

know, sign up here kind of thing.

There is more content so that it actually ranks on Google as well.

So those pages drive direct organic traffic.

Plus we have, you know, we have Exit 10 popups.

We have related content links.

Uh, we have a part of navigation and, you know, our newsletters and

social and other channels as well.

Promotion where we get people towards those lead magnet landing.

All So, so Marina, one question here, right?

So, so you mentioned you had around 2200 business users.

Are these 2200 businesses or are these, you know, seeds

across a bunch of businesses?

Those

are seeds, but we do have a lot of the

small businesses and startups.

So I would say we have more than a thousand businesses on the platform.

All right.

So, so I just wanna understand, like, uh, in the past 12 months, right, how

many new businesses did you, did you man actually manage to convert to a customer?

What's that number?

Yeah.

So, um, I mean like in general we have around already like 1000, uh, businesses

directly on the platform, but we also have about 384, I think it was, uh,

earlier, like this week at least.

Mm-hmm.

Um, 384, um, agencies.

So, um, those are also interesting accounts.

For

us.

All right, so my question is, so, so whatever funnel that you've just set

up, right, so it's, it's a bunch of, you know, collecting them, collecting

data from lead magnets, and then you've got a bunch of nurturing sequences.

And so like, how exactly are you managed to convert such a lot of customers?

Right.

With just like 12, 13 people in the team I was giving, not even half of

them are actually doing demos and All right, so how, how, how, how,

how are you sort of managing all.

Right.

So is it primarily no touch model?

Are you primarily targeting big, bigger ones with your SDRs or your reps and

you're just leaving the rest to, you know, that no touch motion, like talk

about what's happening internally there.

Yeah, our sales panel is, um, still a lot through

demo, so sometimes we do have users signing up directly, but, uh, a lot

of the times it's really kind of showcasing the platform before you're

actually ready to go in full speed.

And that's because like I mentioned in the beginning, it's

kind of a lot of things, right?

Yeah.

It's not as straightforward.

There isn't exactly like same tool out there that you would use Yeah.

To compare even like, um, to have something, uh, side by side.

We usually do have demos with people before they're ready to kind of dive in.

Um, and usually we also have a few steps.

Um, it's usually on average about three, uh, three calls and three

Dutch points.

How many demos did you do?

Let's say last month?

We do have about 10 demos a week.

So, uh, it's And how many

people in your team doing those demos?

We have three people doing demos, something like hundred,

hundred and 20 demos a month.

And how, how many of them do you actually manage to.

So, I mean, like every month we have customers coming

up, so, um, but it's not that we have one month sales cycle, so usually the

sales cycle is a bit longer as well.

Um, so we have about like two, three months, sometimes sales cycle,

but of course occasionally it's, you know, people just sign up.

Sometimes people just sign up even without talking to us.

That happens as well.

Yeah.

And it's usually happens on a planning module versus advertising module.

Mm-hmm.

Or.

Um, so it really depends per product.

And as I said, like we have two different products, so it really

kinda changes, uh, based on that.

But it's about, um, I think last month we checked about 12% conversion

from demo call to the actual sale.

It looks like you've got a very powerful sales team, right?

I mean doing like 10, 12 demos a week and then also trying to nurture them

through those two month sales cycle.

I mean, it's a lot of work, right?

A lot

of it is automated, so that's the

best part.

That's fair.

All right.

So yeah, let's, let's, let's conclude this, right?

So what's the vision here?

Like, where do you see your company like growing in the next five years?

Like, what do you plan to do with this company?

Yeah, so we definitely wanna continue our, our journey here.

Right now, we focus a lot on, you know, the planning and the activation component

on the product side, on the activations, all the programmatic channels.

But we are working on adding social search and all the other, you know, more common,

uh, advertising channels, but also.

You know, other channels to help you activate upon your marketing plan.

So that's in terms of product, um, in terms of like general customers

and, and the market itself.

Right now a lot of our customer base is in the US and we definitely wanna

expand internationally, um, and more and, you know, go, go global in this space.

We do have customers outside of the US but I would say that's

just a portion of our users.

Right.

Uh, alright Marina, thanks for taking the time to talk to me.

Hope you scheduled channel to much greater.