Taylor Jackson snuck in here while Jason wasn't looking last time. He's still in the GE gulag, so I am taking the podium next.

Two years in, and they finally handed me the keys. Jason's probably going to regret this.

Hi everyone 👋

My name is Marli, and I've been with Growth Experts for a while now. So why am I writing this newsletter today for you to read?

Because I’m going to let you in on something cool. Because I know you and I can be cool like that Reader.

Marketing is a pretty consistent field in terms of the approaches we consider solid. Send emails, write content, run ads, and bob's your uncle.

But what about the approaches no one is really considering?

We have been testing some of those in the past few weeks. And let me tell you, it has been an eye-opening experience.

Cold Email, By The Book

The good people over at Instantly have crunched the numbers, and reply rates on cold email average at 3.43%. Up to 10% if you’re nasty.

This fluctuates based on your A/B variant, the day of the week, the weather outside, how sport is going, whether traffic was bad that day, and whether Mercury is in retrograde. Ok, maybe that last one's a bit dramatic. But the point stands: timing matters, and ideal timing can change fast.

It works. It just takes a lot of patience and a bit of luck.

What We Did Instead

I have spent many sleepless nights this quarter thinking about lead generation. My husband thinks it's insomnia. It's actually pipeline.

How do we get results faster? For us, for our clients?

The answer turned out to be less about doing, and more about listening.

The Bait-And-Wait Is Dead

We have always cast the net and waited for the fish to come to us. With tasty bait, sure, but it was still a waiting game.

Now we are going straight to where the fish are already telling us they're hungry.

We have launched social listening, which lets us find opportunities directly from parties already showing buying intent.

When we signed up, it was an experiment. Now it's a core part of how we find new leads.

Our biggest win so far? Reddit.

The Part With The Proof

Not ads. Finding people with genuine questions and giving them genuine advice.

Last week alone, we hit an almost 30% reply rate and booked two discovery calls from it. From a handful of comments and DMs we casually sent between coffees during the day.

• In the past 7 days, we left 15 comments across ICP subreddits.
• 1 in 4 community comments sparked a real conversation.
• Half of those conversations converted to a booked call.

Turns out you catch a lot more when you stop guessing where the fish are and just read the sign they're holding up.

It's still cold outreach. But because social listening has already flagged these people as needing some kind of marketing or sales help, it's like having a foot in the door before you've said a word.

Me, watching the replies roll in:

It's Not Just Us

We run the exact same social listening tool for our clients. What they love most is that A) we handle the full setup and management, so they just get a notification when something is relevant, and B) the conversations they're walking into are big-time opportunities with a much lower barrier to entry.

Different industries, same result. Every one of them is seeing value from it. That's what some would call a common thread.

So here's my takeaway before Jason wants his podium back: stop shouting into the void. Go find the people already asking the question.

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See you in two weeks, assuming I don't end up in the cell next to Taylor.

Marli