{"id":36846,"date":"2021-07-07T03:48:39","date_gmt":"2021-07-07T10:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/?p=36846"},"modified":"2022-01-04T01:31:14","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T08:31:14","slug":"startup-growth-over-20-qualified-leads-90k-views-monthly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/startup-growth-over-20-qualified-leads-90k-views-monthly\/","title":{"rendered":"Startup Growth: Over 20 Qualified Leads &#038; 90K Views Monthly? Yes, You Can (Case Study)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-large\"><p><em>We partnered with BAMF 4 months ago to grow our brand from nothing. They increased our business contacts, our media &amp; press contacts. Since then we have grown to a full-fledged company.<\/em><\/p><cite>Jeff Houkal, CEO of Invincibowl<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Startup growth can be difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, it isn&#8217;t rocket science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have an innovative offer and a good strategy, getting a consistent number of leads can be achieved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s exactly what Jeff had to go through a couple of months ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He had an innovative product that was generating a lot of buzz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But he decided that it was time to strategize to take his growth <em>higher<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-ub-table-of-contents-block ub_table-of-contents\" data-showtext=\"show\" data-hidetext=\"hide\" data-scrolltype=\"auto\" id=\"ub_table-of-contents-7495ea38-9314-431f-94e2-9c5c2c28a0e6\" data-initiallyhideonmobile=\"false\"\n                    data-initiallyshow=\"true\"><div class=\"ub_table-of-contents-header-container\"><div class=\"ub_table-of-contents-header\">\n                    <div class=\"ub_table-of-contents-title\"><strong>Table of Contents<\/strong><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"ub_table-of-contents-extra-container\"><div class=\"ub_table-of-contents-container ub_table-of-contents-1-column \"><ul><li><a href=https:\/\/bamf.com\/startup-growth-over-20-qualified-leads-90k-views-monthly\/#0-who-is-jeff->Who Is Jeff?<\/a><\/li><li><a href=https:\/\/bamf.com\/startup-growth-over-20-qualified-leads-90k-views-monthly\/#1-what-was-the-challenge->What Was the Challenge?<\/a><\/li><li><a href=https:\/\/bamf.com\/startup-growth-over-20-qualified-leads-90k-views-monthly\/#2-heres-what-he-needed->Here&#8217;s What He Needed<\/a><\/li><li><a href=https:\/\/bamf.com\/startup-growth-over-20-qualified-leads-90k-views-monthly\/#3-how-did-jeff-and-bamf-pull-it-off->How Did Jeff and BAMF Pull It Off?<\/a><ul><li><a href=https:\/\/bamf.com\/startup-growth-over-20-qualified-leads-90k-views-monthly\/#4-client-website->Client Website<\/a><\/li><li><a href=https:\/\/bamf.com\/startup-growth-over-20-qualified-leads-90k-views-monthly\/#5-viral-content->Viral Content<\/a><\/li><li><a href=https:\/\/bamf.com\/startup-growth-over-20-qualified-leads-90k-views-monthly\/#6-press->Press<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><a href=https:\/\/bamf.com\/startup-growth-over-20-qualified-leads-90k-views-monthly\/#7-results->Results<\/a><\/li><li><a href=https:\/\/bamf.com\/startup-growth-over-20-qualified-leads-90k-views-monthly\/#8-jeff-houkal->Jeff Houkal<\/a><\/li><li><a href=https:\/\/bamf.com\/startup-growth-over-20-qualified-leads-90k-views-monthly\/#9-takeaways->Takeaways<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-who-is-jeff-\"><strong>Who Is Jeff?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Jeff Houkal is a man of many talents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He hails from an engineering background, is an avid entrepreneur, and is also involved in the entertainment industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For his clients, he is also the CEO of Invincibowl, a company that provides &#8220;invincible bowls&#8221; for cannabis aficionados.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Drawing from his expertise, he found a problem with bong bowls \u2013 they break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/bamf.lovelacecreative.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/Invincibowl-1024x441.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-36961\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>So he went out and designed an indestructible product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, it was well-received.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, launching a new invention is just the first part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"1-what-was-the-challenge-\"><strong>What Was the Challenge?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Bong bowls aren&#8217;t anything new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, he had a niche that was starting to develop a large following.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If he didn&#8217;t strike soon, it was only a matter of time before people started copying his product and marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There weren&#8217;t any active outbound campaigns generating him leads, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For him to succeed it was time for him to reach out to the &#8220;press&#8221; and make his product known to all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, we mean everybody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"2-heres-what-he-needed-\"><strong>Here&#8217;s What He Needed<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>What Jeff needed was a growth boost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li>He really needed PR contacts \u2013 this means cannabis influencers and other outlets<\/li><li>He needed to aim for virality with his LinkedIn posts to gain traction<\/li><li>A client website<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>We were essentially taking a startup and launching it centerstage because it deserved the spotlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"3-how-did-jeff-and-bamf-pull-it-off-\"><strong>How Did Jeff and BAMF Pull It Off?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"4-client-website-\"><strong>Client Website<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Jeff needed a website that would serve as his e-commerce base and he needed one fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, we mobilized both our creative and web development teams to get cracking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first order of business was incorporating his branding elements into his website, it needed to stand out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once we picked the themes, it was now time to focus on the user.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Drawing from our experience and the data that we&#8217;ve gathered in the past, we focused on a couple of critical elements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Customer experience and user interface<\/li><li>Site speed<\/li><li>Responsiveness<\/li><li>Mobile-first design<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Once we got this pushed out, it gave Invincibowl a permanent home online and prospects somewhere to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"5-viral-content-\"><strong>Viral Content<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t enough that there was content related to his product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He needed content that would establish him as a thought leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, we dived in and started talking to Jeff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We extracted his voice, his thought, and his heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We wanted to know what his message is and then we combined that with solid data and research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You see the cannabis communities have a lot of room for evergreen content, so we took his voice and merged it with content that would appeal to his target audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once we were done with that, we added a lot of mobile optimization and used the BAMF recipe along with our in-house content hacking team to hack it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We got him the traction for his initial posts that led some of them to go viral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In just a month, traction was steadily rising, and it didn&#8217;t stop as you&#8217;ll see from our results in the next section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"6-press-\"><strong>Press<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The cannabis community is a community that&#8217;s well connected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Jeff was first starting out, he didn&#8217;t have enough collaborations going for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To add to that, he was still relatively unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This had to change fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this community, getting the right people to notice you made all the difference. Press outlets here are we received and had large volumes of traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We started with a photoshoot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was a new product after all and it needed a little glitz and glamor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We made sure that that we had a stock of photos that we could use for an extended campaign and still remain fresh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then it was time to create a targeted outbound campaign that prioritized certain segments of the cannabis news industry. This allowed us to create tailored campaigns built for each of the prospects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Using the content that we were releasing plus the follow-up messages that were tuned to each response, we were able to layer a lead nurturing campaign to push leads into conversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"7-results-\"><strong>Results<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Invincibowl had a lot of potential, and we wanted to make sure we unlocked every single ounce of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We had a brand awareness strategy that was tied into our content release campaign so we capitalized on the uniqueness of the product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the first four months, we were able to rake in an 11,864 percent increase in the number of LinkedIn views they were getting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/bamf.lovelacecreative.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jeff-Houkal-LinkedIn-Views-Results-5.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-36848\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>When we first started out with Jeff, he was already getting views, but that wasn&#8217;t enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By leveraging certain topics and using optimization techniques we got the number of LinkedIn views to steadily grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/bamf.lovelacecreative.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jeff-Houkal-LinkedIn-Views-Results-4.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-36849\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>But, it doesn&#8217;t just end with content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jeff also needed to get more connections to collaborate with more people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We put him on an outreach campaign that was tailor-fit for his needs. Using the techniques we talked about earlier, we were able to get him a connection acceptance rate of almost half of the invites that he was sending out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The reply rates were also astonishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More than a quarter of the people we were messaging were replying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This meant that the personalization was working and the messaging was resonating with his prospects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/bamf.lovelacecreative.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jeff-Houkal-LinkedIn-Views-Results-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-36850\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>All of this meant nothing if there were no calls coming through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In just 5 months, his startup got 113 qualified sales calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/bamf.lovelacecreative.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jeff-Houkal-LinkedIn-Views-Results-2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-36851\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And, some of these calls were with prominent names in the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/bamf.lovelacecreative.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jeff-Houkal-LinkedIn-Views-Results-3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-36852\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>For a niche within a niche, Jeff was steadily making progress and growing his brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, this was the plan from the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"8-jeff-houkal-\"><strong>Jeff Houkal<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-wistia-inc wp-block-embed-wistia-inc\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"wistia_responsive_padding\" style=\"padding:80.0% 0 0 0;position:relative;\"><div class=\"wistia_responsive_wrapper\" style=\"height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;top:0;width:100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"BAMF Testimonial - Jeff Houkal, Founder &amp; CEO of Xymetric and Invincibowl - LinkedIn Influencer, Web Design &amp; Development, PR, Media Buying [2020] Video\" src=\"https:\/\/fast.wistia.net\/embed\/iframe\/vjv01phy5w?dnt=1&#038;videoFoam=true\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen\" allowtransparency=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"wistia_embed\" name=\"wistia_embed\" msallowfullscreen width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><script src=\"https:\/\/fast.wistia.net\/assets\/external\/E-v1.js\" async><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"9-takeaways-\"><strong>Takeaways<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Startup growth is all about momentum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have an innovative product and people are genuinely interested you need to use that to your advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But first, you need to build some traction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Proper brand awareness campaigns and outreach will do that for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once there&#8217;s traction, building momentum becomes easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s when your growth propels you to new heights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, that&#8217;s exactly how Jeff did it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We partnered with BAMF 4 months ago to grow our brand from nothing. They increased our business contacts, our media &amp; press contacts. Since then we have grown to a full-fledged company. Jeff Houkal, CEO of Invincibowl Startup growth can be difficult. But, it isn&#8217;t rocket science. If you have an innovative offer and a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":36969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ub_ctt_via":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4536,539,112,136,3392,114,3380,3252,3253,3257,3379],"tags":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/New-BAMF-Blog-Featured-Image-Templates-2021-6.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Houston","author_link":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/author\/houston\/"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36846"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}