How Beehiiv Uses ‘Drop Marketing’ To Create Buzz

Summary

Summary of "Marketing Against The Grain" Episode: How Beehiiv Uses ‘Drop Marketing’ To Create Buzz

Podcast Information:

• Title: Marketing Against The Grain
• Host/Author: HubSpot Podcast Network
• Description: Kipp Bodnar (HubSpot’s CMO) and Kieran Flanagan (Zapier’s CMO) explore marketing trends, growth tactics, and innovations, uncovering unique strategies that offer a competitive edge.
• Episode: How Beehiiv Uses ‘Drop Marketing’ To Create Buzz
• Release Date: December 31, 2024

---

Introduction to Drop Marketing

The episode delves into the concept of drop marketing, a strategy where businesses intensely target specific demographics or audience segments for a focused period before moving on. This approach is akin to the "drop" concept popularized in the music and fashion industries, where timed releases create buzz and anticipation.

Notable Quote:

Tyler: "[00:01] I literally am thinking exactly about this topic today, Drop market and how you blitz a certain demographic and segment of your audience for a certain specific sprint and then move on."

Beehive's Drop Marketing Strategy

Defining the Product Roadmap

Beehive's approach begins with a well-defined product roadmap, planning features 90 days in advance. This meticulous planning ensures that every two weeks, the team knows which product feature will be introduced, maintaining a steady stream of updates that keep the audience engaged.

Notable Quote:

Unknown Speaker: "[01:31] So the first step is like, you define your product roadmap. I know at Beehive it's 90 days in advance..."

Internal Team Preparation

Before any external launch, Beehive ensures that all relevant team members are thoroughly trained. This preparation guarantees that the team can deliver the new product feature seamlessly, providing an excellent customer experience upon release.

Notable Quote:

Unknown Speaker: "[02:28] You prep the team internally. So basically everyone who needs to be trained on how to deliver the product and a great customer experience in that product is trained before the external launch."

Establishing the Drop Calendar

Beehive meticulously plans their drop calendar, selecting appropriate channels for each release. These channels include company and CEO social media accounts (Twitter and LinkedIn), company newsletters, personal newsletters, product hunt launches, and their digital community platforms.

Notable Quote:

Unknown Speaker: "[03:12] You have to establish your drop calendar... For Beehive, it's always been their company social on Twitter and LinkedIn, CEO Social on Twitter and LinkedIn..."

Creative Elements and Scheduling

Every drop is supported by creative assets, including animated shorts, social copy, blog posts, newsletter content, and product announcements. The scheduling follows a strategic timeline:

• Day Before: Teaser announcement (e.g., "something big is coming soon").
• Day Of: Major release ("the big drop").
• Day After: Amplification through employee and customer engagement.
• One Week Later: Reminder of the new feature.

Notable Quote:

Unknown Speaker: "[04:35] They usually do. Day before, they say something like, something big is coming soon. The day of is the big drop. Day after is amplification by employees and customers."

Results of Beehive's Strategy

Beehive's drop marketing strategy has proven highly effective. For instance, their audio newsletter drop on August 1 generated 283,000 free impressions through various posts and led to their biggest revenue day in the last 30 days. A key factor in their success is the active participation of employees and customers as evangelists, amplifying each drop's reach and impact.

Notable Quote:

Unknown Speaker: "[05:10] Just for context, when they did this audio newsletter drop on August 1, it got 283,000 free impressions from just all the different posts."

Story Arb's Implementation of Drop Marketing

Drawing inspiration from Beehive, Story Arb has adopted a similar drop marketing framework tailored to its offerings in content marketing. Their strategy includes:

Structured Content Drops

Story Arb schedules monthly content drops, each focusing on a different type of content service they provide, such as email newsletters, website copy, and social media strategies.

Notable Quote:

Unknown Speaker: "[05:55] We basically planned out for the next 12 months. Every month we're doing a drop of a different type of content."

Virtual Events: Comic Con

On the day of each content drop, Story Arb hosts a virtual event dubbed "Comic Con," merging content creation with a festival atmosphere. These events feature interviews with industry leaders and serve as a platform to showcase their content offerings.

Notable Quote:

Unknown Speaker: "[06:05] The day we drop it, we actually throw a virtual event. It's called Comic Con. The vision is content meets Coachella."

Multi-Purpose Content Utilization

Post-event, Story Arb repurposes the interview content into various marketing materials, including email newsletters, playbooks, and social media copy, maximizing the value derived from each drop.

Notable Quote:

Unknown Speaker: "[06:30] We also take all of the interviews from the event and we turn it into everything from an email newsletter to Playbooks to social copy for the next month."

Sponsorships and Revenue Streams

To monetize their drop marketing efforts, Story Arb is now selling sponsorships for their virtual events, integrating revenue generation into their marketing strategy.

Notable Quote:

Unknown Speaker: "[06:50] I'm also selling sponsorships against it now, so I actually want to get paid to be able to do drop marketing for our business."

Insights and Best Practices

Leveraging Evangelists

A crucial element of successful drop marketing is harnessing the power of employees and customers as brand evangelists. Their active participation in sharing and promoting drops significantly amplifies reach and engagement.

Notable Quote:

Unknown Speaker: "[05:50] Employees and their customers being evangelists is like really the amazing card that they pull."

Consistency and Planning

Consistent scheduling and thorough planning ensure that each drop is executed flawlessly, maintaining audience anticipation and sustained engagement over time.

Notable Quote:

Unknown Speaker: "[03:00] Functionally, how it works, like, I think their Employees and their customers being evangelists is like really like the amazing card that they pull."

Maximizing Content Value

By repurposing content from events and drops, companies can maximize the return on their marketing investments, creating a diverse array of materials from a single initiative.

Notable Quote:

Unknown Speaker: "[06:35] We just kind of manufactured drop marketing by putting some sort of structure around the menu of items we offer at our company."

Conclusion

The episode provides an in-depth exploration of drop marketing, illustrating how Beehive effectively uses this strategy to generate significant buzz and drive revenue. By meticulously planning product releases, preparing internal teams, leveraging multiple channels, and engaging evangelists, Beehive sets a benchmark for innovative marketing tactics. Story Arb's adoption of similar strategies underscores the adaptability and effectiveness of drop marketing across different businesses. Key takeaways emphasize the importance of structured planning, creative execution, and community engagement in achieving marketing success.

Final Notable Quote:

Tyler: "[06:41] Yeah, it's kind of like using your traditional product marketing, but as a much bigger kind of distribution, content merchandising strategy."

---

This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key discussions, strategies, and insights shared in the episode, providing valuable takeaways for marketers seeking to implement drop marketing in their own businesses.

Transcript

[Kieran]

Hey guys, real quick. You know we love building custom GPTs on the show and we love sharing it with all of you. Well, we wanted to kick that up a notch. We just developed this free guide that teaches you how to build your own custom GPT on chatgpt. We've taken the guesswork out of it. We've got templates, we've got a step by step guide to design and implement custom models. So you can focus on the part that's actually fun, the part we love actually building it. And if you want it, you can grab a link in the description below and go check it out now. Now back to today's show. Welcome to this week's episode of Marking against the Grain. Kieran and I are taking a we think well deserved break. But don't worry, we have something special lined up for you. We're diving into the archives and bringing one of our favorite episodes. Whether you're a new listener or a longtime fan, this is definitely one you won't want to miss. Let's get into today's show.

[Tyler]

I literally am thinking exactly about this topic today, Drop market and how you blitz a certain demographic and segment of your audience for a certain specific sprint and then move on.

[Unknown]

To me, it's a no brainer. Yeah, it's a no brainer.

[Tyler]

Can you teach me about it then? Because that's as much easier I was going to get on. I was going to start clawding my way through it today. So I, if you, you don't mind.

[Unknown]

Yes.

[Kieran]

While you're here, just go ahead and give us the five minute summary, please.

[Unknown]

So I'm going to tell you how like Beehive did it, but I'm also going to abstract it to like what is the process that they do and I'll even share like how I'm doing it at Storyard with our business. So just as a random example, Beehive recently dropped audio newsletters, right? That was their most recent drop that you could listen to your newsletter, you could just embed an audio version in your newsletter. And so basically here's how I think about the drop marketing process, which by the way, going back to like how B2B just lags. The hilarious thing is like drop marketing literally started. It's been around forever. Literally, like music drops have been around forever. It started with fashion and streetwear in Japan supreme. Like this is not new. But Tyler started doing this because Beehive did not have a lot of features in the early days and so a lot of people wouldn't sign up for their product because they're like, you don't have 80% of the features we need. And so his only way of building confidence that they would have the feature soon is show that they're delivering unbelievable product velocity. So people are like, oh, wow, maybe Beehive will have this feature in the next three months. So to me, the first step is like, you define your product roadmap. I know at Beehive it's 90 days in advance, which means every two weeks for the next three months, they know exactly what product feature they are going to be introducing to their audience. Then basically the second step that I know they go through is you prep the team internally. So basically everyone who needs to be trained on how to deliver the product and a great customer experience in that product is trained before the external launch. Then you move to step three. And to me, this is like the meat and potatoes of it, which is like, you have to establish your drop calendar. And there are a few things that go into it. One is you pick your channels. And the idea is you pick channels that every two weeks or every month or every quarter, you're kind of handpicking from this menu of channels that makes sense for your business. So for Beehive, it's always been their company social on Twitter and LinkedIn, CEO Social on Twitter and LinkedIn. And I joke on Instagram for Tyler, because that's where he posts thirst traps. In addition to Beehive product drops company newsletter, he has his own personal newsletter. Employees post on social, their customers post on social company blog. For every product announcement they do, which to me, every company should do this, they drop it on product hunt. So every new product, they do a product hunt launch for it. And they have an own digital community where Beehive customers are. So you pick your channels for your company. The second is you pick your creative. So they know every time they're doing it, there's an animated short they're making social copy, blog copy newsletter copy product on copy. Third, you pick your dates. And they usually do. Day before, they say something like, something big is coming soon. The day of is the big drop. Day after is amplification by employees and customers. And then like a week later is a reminder. And so just for context, when they did this audio newsletter drop on August 1, it got 283,000 free impressions from just all the different posts. They had their biggest revenue day in the last 30 days. And to me, every company should be doing exactly this. And by the way, like, functionally, how it works, like, I think their Employees and their customers being evangelists is like really like the amazing card that they pull. Because, for example, when Beehive posted about the audio newsletter drop on August 1, 18 employees all reposted or quote, reposted it. And so, like, for that day, everyone knew about this. If you were somewhere in and around the email marketing world, we're doing this at Story Arb also. So just for people who don't know, like, basically what Story Arb is, is it's you're out of house, Head of content or head of content marketing. My view is content only gets more important for B2B companies. They generally don't know how to do it well or it feels incredibly dry or robotic, like super SEO'd. But like, as you guys know, with the HubSpot Media network, like just great content, period, is what you want to create. And it will naturally act as marketing for us. We offer a lot of different types of content. Email newsletters, email marketing, website copy, company social, founder social. We basically planned out for the next 12 months. Every month we're doing a drop of a different type of content. And on the day we drop it, we actually throw a virtual event. It's called Comic Con. The vision is content meets Coachella. So it's like the best content festival in the world. And the idea behind it is I get the best speakers to talk about the type of content we're dropping. Which the funny thing is, is we're not really dropping anything. We already offer all of these things. We're just making it known to the world. Yeah, we're just packaging it. We do these virtual events where I interview. So like Brynna from HubSpot is. I'm interviewing her for the next one, which is on company social. Last one, we had 1500 people attend the last Comic Con. Say 1500 people join. 1500 people who clearly give a about company social, which means they're great leads for Story Arb. I'm also selling sponsorships against it now, so I actually want to get paid to be able to do drop marketing for our business. And then we also take all of the interviews from the event and we turn it into everything from an email newsletter to Playbooks to social copy for the next month. So my view is like, we just kind of manufactured drop marketing by putting some sort of structure around the menu of items we offer at our company.

[Tyler]

Yeah, it's kind of like using your traditional product marketing, but as a much bigger kind of distribution, content merchandising strategy.

[Unknown]

Yeah, my whole thing is like, if you're going to create products. Why not like squeeze as much juice as humanly possible out of them?

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Kieran]

I want to tell you about a podcast I love. It's called Created. It's hosted by John Ushaik. It's brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Creative gives an inside look at how to build businesses as a creator, improve your creative process and stay ahead of the latest content trends. John, an ex YouTuber and Instagram employee, breaks down the creator economy with guests Logan Paul, Paris Hilton, Jason Derulo, Jake Paul, George Lopez, and more. In a not so recent episode I loved was with Liza Koshay. Remember her? She was one of the fastest growing YouTubers and Viners, growing a fan base well beyond 25 million subscribers. But then she stopped uploading. So what happened? That's a smart woman who made a drastic career decision. You'd want to tune into that one. If you're looking for insights on entrepreneurship and creating a powerhouse business, then this is the episode you won't want to miss. Listen to Created wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Kip. If you listen to this podcast, you know how much I love keeping up with the latest and greatest in technology. But very few podcasts actually give you a dose of the future. The A16Z podcast is the exception. It's hosted by our friend and frequent guest Steph Smith. The chart topping show brings on movers with a track record of being both early and right, like Apple co founder Steve Wozniak, or the CISOs of OpenAI, Anthropic and DeepMind. Even the very first CTO of the CIA. From the science and the supply of GLP1s to drone delivery to the economics of deepfakes, go ahead and eavesdrop on the future. Check out the a16z podcast wherever you get your podcasts.