We’ve sifted through literally thousands of pieces of content and curated this list of the best articles to read to get up to speed with the latest growth marketing trends.

Growth Resources

Strategy & Process

• Ultimate guide to growth marketing https://www.advanceb2b.com/thegrowthhub/growth-marketing
• Brian Balfour on avoiding marketing channel diversification https://brianbalfour.com/essays/what-blackjack-strategy-teaches-us-about-growth
• Growth Marketing Handbook https://www.julian.com/guide/growth/intro
• Marketing Needs Growth Planning Not Media Planning https://blog.growthhackers.com/marketing-needs-growth-planning-not-media-planning-43e7b6b30749
• How to build an always-on marketing machine https://adage.com/article/digital/spotify-s-mayur-gupta-building-marketing-machine/307516
• Foundations And Frameworks For Driving Sustainable Growth https://news.greylock.com/foundations-and-frameworks-for-driving-sustainable-growth-3135d621e966
• Managing Your Growth Team’s Portfolio: A Step-by-Step Guide https://jwegan.com/growth-hacking/managing-growth-teams-portfolio-step-step-guide/
• Marketing Measurement Done Right https://www.bcg.com/publications/2019/marketing-measurement-done-right.aspx
• Your marketing org is slow, here’s a framework to move faster https://review.firstround.com/your-marketing-org-is-slow-heres-a-framework-to-move-faster
• Tactic Hell | Strategic Heaven https://medium.com/@genevievebeloin/tactical-hell-strategic-heaven-dc4a04c58a2b
• A marketing strategy or just a list https://www.blog.startupcorestrengths.com/post/a-marketing-strategy-or-just-a-list
• Deactivate your digital-marketing autopilot https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/deactivate-your-digital-marketing-autopilot
• Growth is about systems not hacks or ideas https://blog.growthhackers.com/growth-is-about-systems-not-hacks-or-ideas-b4e245f457e
• State of Agile Marketing Report https://www.agilesherpas.com/stateofagilemarketing
• Speed as a habit https://review.firstround.com/speed-as-a-habit
• Speero blueprints https://speero.com/blueprints

Customer Acquisition & GTM

• How do people discover new products https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-people-discover-new-products
• Drive growth by picking the right lane – a customer acquisition playbook https://review.firstround.com/drive-growth-by-picking-the-right-lane-a-customer-acquisition-playbook-for-consumer-startups

Metrics & Goals

• The Big Project Syndrome https://itamargilad.com/big-projects/
• The only metric that matters https://medium.com/@joshelman/the-only-metric-that-matters-ab24a585b5ea
• Don’t Let Your North Star Metric Deceive You https://www.reforge.com/blog/north-star-metric-growth
• What is OKR? A goal-setting framework for thinking big https://www.cio.com/article/3302036/okr-objectives-and-key-results-defined.html
• Measuring What Matters: From Outputs to Outcomes https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/02/27/measuring-what-matters-from-outputs-to-outcomes-part-2/
• It’s Not Just Semantics: Managing Outputs Vs. Outcomes https://hbr.org/2012/11/its-not-just-semantics-managing-outcomes
• The Power of Incentives: Inside the Hidden Forces That Shape Behaviour https://fs.blog/2017/10/bias-incentives-reinforcement/
• 5 Principles For Goaling Your Growth Team https://jwegan.com/growth-hacking/growth-team-metrics-and-goals/
• Felipe Castro Beginners Guide to OKRs https://felipecastro.com/en/okr/what-is-okr/
• 5 Principles For Goaling Your Growth Team https://jwegan.com/growth-hacking/growth-team-metrics-and-goals/
• Choosing Your North Star Metric https://future.a16z.com/north-star-metrics/
• CRO vs. CXO vs. Experimentation https://speero.com/post/cro-vs-cxo-vs-experimentation

Customer Research

• Intercom’s Des Traynor, Steve Blank: How To Do Customer Research https://www.profitwell.com/blog/customer-research-steve-blank-des-traynor
• How to create an Ideal Customer Profile in 2019 https://www.hull.io/blog/ideal-customer-profile/
• Finding the numbers in qualitative research https://uxdesign.cc/finding-the-numbers-in-qualitative-research-e4f9f165c213
• Know Your Customers’ “Jobs To Be Done” https://hbr.org/2016/09/know-your-customers-jobs-to-be-done
• Testing product ideas handbook https://itamargilad.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Testing-Product-Ideas-Handbook.pdf
• SaaS Research: ‘Talk to customers’ is good advice but it’s not enough https://www.poweredbysearch.com/blog/saas-research

Ideas & Prioritisation

• The Big Project Syndrome https://itamargilad.com/big-projects/
• HubSpot’s Growth Process and How We Prioritize Experiments https://davidlykhim.com/hubspot-growth-experiment-process/
• Evidence scores – the acid test of your ideas https://medium.com/@itamargilad/evidence-based-scoring-a-systematic-way-to-know-if-you-have-a-good-idea-44d39e166abf
• The Tool that will help you find better product ideas https://itamargilad.com/the-tool-that-will-help-you-choose-better-product-ideas/ (also at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/confidence-tool-help-you-find-winning-ideas-itamar-gilad/)
• Why Impact/Effort Prioritization Doesn’t Work https://medium.com/@itamargilad/why-impact-effort-prioritization-doesnt-work-57d141fafc2c
• ICE Scores – All You Need to Know https://itamargilad.com/ice-scores/

Hypotheses & Testing

• That’s Not A Hypothesis https://patreonhq.com/thats-not-a-hypothesis-25666b01d5b4
• Richard Feynman Teaches you the Scientific Method https://fs.blog/2009/12/mental-model-scientific-method/
• Andrew Anderson’s Blog https://testingdiscipline.com
• Use the minimum effective dose https://www.weskao.com/blog/use-the-minimum-effective-dose

Experimentation

• The Big Project Syndrome https://itamargilad.com/big-projects/
• Why Would I Ever Write a Growth Experiment Doc https://patreonhq.com/why-would-i-ever-write-a-growth-experiment-doc-6ef2649fd215
• The Surprising Power of Online Experiments https://hbr.org/2017/09/the-surprising-power-of-online-experiments (pdf at https://try.split.io/the-surprising-power-of-online-experiments)
• Not Running Experiments? You’re Falling Behind https://www.widerfunnel.com/business-innovation-via-experimentation/
• Widerfunnel State of Experimentation Report 2019 https://www.widerfunnel.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Widerfunnel_State_Of_Experimentation_Research_Report_2019.pdf
• Harnessing the experimentation mindset to drive growth https://www.widerfunnel.com/resources/experimentation-industry-research-2019/
• A/B Testing: 29 guidelines for online experiments https://www.alexbirkett.com/ab-testing/
• How to Set Up – and Learn – from Experiments https://hbr.org/podcast/2020/02/how-to-set-up-and-learn-from-experiments
• Wes Kao on marketing experiments https://www.weskao.com/blog/read-this-before-your-next-marketing-experiment
• How to use Experiments to Create a Diversified Portfolio of Growth Assets https://www.kieranflanagan.io/podcast/how-to-use-experiments-to-create-a-diversified-portfolio-of-growth-assets/
• Building a culture of experimentation https://hbr.org/2020/03/productive-innovation
• Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments https://www.amazon.co.uk/Experimentation-Works-Surprising-Business-Experiments/dp/163369710X/

Playbooks & Flywheels

• Why Marketing Flywheels Work https://sparktoro.com/blog/why-marketing-flywheels-work/
• Flywheel Effect: Why Positive Feedback Loops are a Meta-Competitive Advantage https://medium.com/evergreen-business-weekly/flywheel-effect-why-positive-feedback-loops-are-a-meta-competitive-advantage-6d0ed55b67c5

Team Culture

• Why digital experimentation programs fail (and three steps to get back on course) https://www.gogroupdigital.com/our-insights/why-experimentation-programs-fail-and-three-steps-to-get-back-on-course/
• Introducing: The 9 experimentation principles https://conversion.com/blog/introducing-9-experimentation-principles/
• Don’t Confuse Marketing’s Outcomes From Its Outputs https://medium.com/@inspiremartech/dont-confuse-marketing-s-outcomes-from-it-s-outputs-market-to-grow-f000ee28bea7
• Stop Controlling Start Creating https://medium.com/article-group/stop-controlling-start-creating-e5c51032720b
• How 1% Performance Improvements Led to Olympic Gold https://hbr.org/2015/10/how-1-performance-improvements-led-to-olympic-gold
• Creating a Culture of Experimentation – The Mozilla Story https://medium.com/@mgrimes/creating-a-culture-of-experimentation-the-mozilla-story-a6baf71c3714

Data & Analytics

• Data Driven Company Culture https://www.alexbirkett.com/data-driven-company-culture/
• Testing Discipline https://testingdiscipline.com/