Would you create a separate homepage for .0042% of your customers?

Probably not.

What if they drove 33% of your revenue?

🧡
Coursera has over 77+ million users across the globe.

Yet, they drive 1/3rd of their revenue is from only about 3,000 accounts.

Who are these mega spenders?

Businesses!
It hasn't always been like this.

Coursera started by targeting basically everyone who wanted to learn.

Now they use a hybrid model that targets both businesses & individual learners.

They wanted to become a "university for companies" instead of just offering general courses
This might sound like a no-brainer, but Coursera doesn't direct their business users to their main homepage.

As you can see, the messaging, call-to-actions & more on this page is built for business users.
The Coursera for Business page focuses on creating "true business impact."

While the Coursera homepage wants to help someone "learn without limits."

One quick look at these pages illustrates exactly how different their customer bases are.

And how tough it is to balance them.
And once you land on the Coursera for Business page, it's pretty hard to get to the main site.

That is the point.

They want to keep business users in a walled garden, where the messaging & positioning are tailored directly to them.
From the Chatbots, to the CTAs, & eBooks, each pushes the users towards a salesperson or conversion.

Coursera knows that its business users have very unique needs.

And will pay A LOT of money to have those needs met.
All of the value propositions, features, content & more are perfectly positioned for a business user.

It almost feels like you're interacting with a different brand.

Some new business users might not even know they offer individual courses!
That's because they have split the two user bases SO WELL.

And not many brands have been able to do this right.

But Coursera has made a lot of deliberate steps to ensure each side of the business stays wholly separate.
Now if you want to see exactly how @coursera:

βœ… Creates effective B2B messaging
βœ… Leverages chatbots & salespeople
βœ… Matches search intent of decision-makers

First, follow @FoundationIncCo.

And then check out the whole teardown here: foundationinc.co/lab/coursera-b…

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More from @RyanMcCready1

9 Sep
A few weeks ago someone told me "marketing doesn't really matter as long as you have a great product."

So why does Sony, Nike & Apple even have marketing teams?

🧡
In 2020, Adobe was reported to spend $3.6 Billion on sales & marketing.

Even though they produce & sell "great products."

statista.com/statistics/122…
In 2020, Amazon spent about $22 Billion on marketing expenses.

Even though they produce & sell "great products."

statista.com/statistics/506…
Read 13 tweets
7 Sep
Coursera has over 77+ million users.

Yet, 1/3rd of their revenue comes from about 3,000 accounts.

Who are these mega spenders?

🧡
Businesses!

You might not have even known there was a @coursera For Business.

But it brought in a whopping $136M+ in revenue for last year.

From around 3k different companies.

And that revenue share is going to get even larger next year as the company doubles down. Image
It hasn't always been like this.

Coursera started as a strictly B2C business targeting individual learners.

However, with this model, they weren't going to be able to drive massive yearly growth.

Especially because their main market was students.

And students don't spend πŸ’°. Image
Read 16 tweets
1 Sep
I usually hate automated emails from brands.

But I recently got one from @Grammarly that was almost perfect.

It even made me move them to my Primary inbox.

Because it was actually valuable.

🧡
The first thing I noticed about this email was the subject line.

I mean, that's what got me to click the email in the first place!

It wasn't salesly or trying too hard to get your attention.

Instead, Grammarly starts the whole interaction on a positive & friendly note. Image
Next, they keep the positivity rolling with a writing badge.

I got ""Tolstoy-Like"" for writing 7 weeks in a row.

This gamification might seem silly.

But it's a great way to give your users a pat on the back.

Especially for super-engaged users, like myself & other writers. Image
Read 8 tweets
31 Aug
Shipping & Logistics is a VERY complicated industry.

So how did @ShipBob grow to:
βœ… 5000 e-commerce customers
βœ… $330 million in funding
βœ… $1B valuation

While appealing to small businesses owners?

And competing with Amazon?

They became master storytellers.

🧡
Shipping & logistics is complicated.

ShipBob makes it easy.

However, explaining that to a new user is VERY tough.

Especially when talking about their features would make a new user's head spin.

So to get around this, ShipBob has embraced social proof like no other company.
One of the first things you see on their homepage is a review from a customer.

The open white space, compelling design & friendly headshot make it impossible to ignore.

This is the point!

They want you to focus on the social proof & story, before getting lost in the features.
Read 10 tweets
25 Aug
In 2016, @hootsuite wrote a blog post that has led to:

βœ… 21M total sessions
βœ… 25k historical backlinks
βœ… 2k+ referring domains

And it's still going strong.

Traffic has even jumped 3x in the past few months.

How did they do it?

They just answered a few easy questions.

🧡
Let's be honest, if you work in social media, you've probably searched for the best time to post.

And you aren't alone:

πŸ”Ž28k per month: "best time to post on Instagram"
πŸ”Ž15k per month: "best time to post on Facebook"
πŸ”Ž7k per month: "what time to post on Twitter"
Hootsuite has done a stellar job answering those questions about posting time.

Which is why they rank at the top of all of them.

But ANY BRAND can answer a question like that.

So how does Hootsuite dominate ALL those searches?

With one blog post...from 5+ years ago.
Read 13 tweets
17 Aug
With one tool, @Shopify has been able to:

βœ… Rank on 18k+ keywords
βœ… Capture $6M in yearly traffic
βœ… Drive 400k organic sessions/month

AND convert qualified users.

So how did they do it?

It's crazy simple.

In fact, your brand could probably copy it in a few hours.

🧡
This tool is their Business Name Generator!

You enter a keyword & it will show you a list of potential business names.

Like I said, it's super simple.

But it's not about the features, it's how they have positioned it.

And it drives HALF of the traffic of their whole blog!
Trying to build out a ~Business Name Generator~ might sound silly to some.

But the rewards are HUGE!

Just ranking in the top spot for ""business name generator” will drive about 100k sessions a month.

That means that there are a ton of brands trying to capture that traffic.
Read 14 tweets

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