GitLab Weekly Inbound Marketing Recap, 5 Nov 2020

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From YouTube: Growth Marketing Weekly Recap 2020-11-05

Description

First week of the quarter, let's go!

A

What's up everybody, it is november 5th uh 2020., I'm shane rice. This is the growth marketing.

B

A

Call and uh we're gonna kick it off and go right into uh metrics. So let me let me pause my music before we get another uh copyright hit on our unfiltered channel so um going into metrics. Let me just share my screen uh to go over where we're at right now.

A

I know the suspension's killing everybody on this call. So looking at the metrics here. So when you look at users and page view, growth, um we're still uh positive for the year, but um with you know, uh as we enter the holiday season, we're gonna expect. You know these numbers the overall page view numbers to dip a little bit. So we're gonna see some volatility here over the next few weeks.

A

um You know uh strategic marketing buckets breakout is there, um you know we are seeing some uh some numbers start to tick back up in comparison, some other areas there so so encouraging numbers there. I want to get right into mqls, though I mean we are four whole days into the quarter, um and so um you know like, as you see here, it's like 3.3 of the way through the quarter, um but I'm really excited about the mql numbers that we're seeing here. um We're actually green all of our pace.

A

Right now is over 100 um yeah. I think the most encouraging thing here to see is you know when we look at uh mid-market and smb we're so we're far enough ahead of pace. If this continues we'll be well positioned, as we go into the holiday season and start to see some mql dips related to that, so that when we come back into january, we won't have to make up a bunch of what we're missing in december, we may be making that uh making headway now.

A

So as we enter the holidays, we won't be uh as far behind when we start back in january at the end of the quarter. um So I see danielle's adding a question here.

A

Okay, so I'm gonna stop sharing my screen danielle. Do you want to verbalize your question.

C

Yeah I was- and this is a total softball. um When are we going to start talking about inquiries which we know is our metric starting for next year uh in this call, when do you think we'll start so.

A

Yeah, I think, we'll start uh sorry, you broke up a little bit. I thought you're done um so yeah as far as what will start talking about inquiries on this call. I think um we'll start talking about that, probably in the next couple weeks, maybe next week, depending on when we get uh some definition set around what we'll be looking at as we enter into quarter one and so we'll continue to report on mqls and we'll start to report on inquiries.

A

It's kind of a bridge this quarter, so we can have both those numbers to gauge our progress.

C

Thank you by the way I've added a question section for this um going forward. Shane because I feel like it would be great for this to be more of a discussion. If anyone doesn't understand these metrics, don't worry you're, probably not the only person.

A

Yep, that makes sense, oh, and there is one other thing I wanted to share um since we're still talking about this. I did want to look at last week. You know we didn't really talk about where we ended the quarter, and so I think it's important to share.

A

You know where we ended up there as well, and so you can see I'm here, for you know the large attainment uh we were just under 75 uh 93 for uh mid market and then 85 for smb, and I think the encouraging thing here too is you see that you know with this pace picked up? uh As you know, we looked at the week week over week, change from last week's calls. We ended the week, um so this this pace still picked up as we ended the quarter.

A

So I think that's why we're seeing such strong numbers when we look at mqls right now as well.

C

Awesome, thank you so much for that shane and just for everyone here might be wondering like what are the consequences when we miss these numbers, no one gets in trouble, but I think there's a definite. You know strain potentially sometimes on our relationship with sales. Since they're downstream of this, the good news is our average deal. Size was significantly larger.

C

So as far as the pipeline we committed to delivering through mqls, we outperformed in all three buckets, um so that's not really felt in sales, which is great, and you know we're just going to try to do better next time. So we set these goals pretty high so that if we don't hit them all the way, we're still in a really healthy place. So it's not something that you need to be worried about. Sales is having or just had, I think their best quarter ever and we'll get the final numbers here in a couple days.

C

So just so, you understand how that all fits together, all right um cool. Well, are there any other questions for shane.

C

All right, luke, show and tell take it away, is luke on the call, no just kidding steven. Why don't you go ahead and show your first item.

C

I'm also not on the call michael, do you.

D

Wanna even stephen's there, oh.

C

D

Yeah, I think, he's just getting the mute button working or something.

C

Oh there, you are it's: okay, sorry.

E

C

F

uh My item uh just a second, I kind of got caught off guard a little bit and apologies for the tardiness.

E

F

D

Sorry always reminds me, I played on a beer league, softball team, and we had a thing on our team. There's no stories in softball so no need.

E

C

B

Were you were playing in canada, so there's a ton of stories in softball.

D

Well, yeah, I think that that phrase was said a lot because we were canadian.

F

There is also no softball in ireland because it's even more difficult so just like I'm almost there.

E

I'm sorry, michael just to confirm one shot of the homepage here: yeah. Okay, sorry, I have the I.

D

Can't hear you I can.

F

Fire you, the link.

D

F

E

F

F

Can everybody see my screen.

D

F

D

F

D

Look like in the skinny mobile view, since we're gonna start training on mobile first reviews.

F

Let's see how safari holds this.

E

Probably looks beautiful, it'll be right. Yes,.

F

Yeah, it works surprises getting better for all you, people who hate! Surprisingly, I'm still a bit else too, when it comes to this type of stuff stuff.

B

They also have a responsive mode where you can switch between different devices and mobile operating systems built in. If you enable the developer tools.

F

Sweet um okay, so this was a very quick sprint and we basically took the home page as a test case and devised a very quick way of going about testing a few ideas that we had when it came to existing design system assets, I.e pajamas in the realms of at least ui for the home page website and jess also, who was nominated, had a quick run out and some of the ux of the page and and have he also had built this a little bit separate from the way that we would normally build it just because of the dependencies where the homepage pulls in a few different things.

F

So we've taken that as our base case and sort of applied that and then we're going to begin to refine this as we further on as we move. But um we haven't really, you know reinvented the wheel so to speak, but it's more of a reskin and a very quick ux update and in terms of what you see here.

F

um So yeah there's nothing too groundbreaking. But as you can see, it's got the information that we've had there before there's a. If, in two weeks we would have, it would have been brave, was to really attack this home page head-on, as maybe some people would have probably expected, but that wasn't the purpose of this and, as michael had maybe has or hasn't said before, but um yeah just some familiar familiar aspects on this with changes.

F

There's always a sort of better way to go about things rather than just big bang, surprise and contrary to popular beliefs, people don't love surprises. I've found them. In my experience, depending on the surprise and so yeah we've taken in the existing content, that's there and sort of reskinned and refactored it, and so nothing too drastic in terms of change. For for the time that we had to do this, it's it's quite a big change so and yeah any any questions or comments. I'm sure this feedback is matte on the top.

D

Yeah, I think it's I think it's great just for um for more context too, on, like the kind of product management-ish kind of front, is we just said: why did we set such an ambitious timeline? It was mainly just learn what is possible within that period of time, so by working and delivering we're starting to learn.

D

You know how we can more accurately predict how much time other pages will need, and one of our big takeaways from this first initiative was just the sheer amount of work that we have to do to actually do the work, um and what I guess I mean by that is.

D

It would be great if we lived in a world where we'd be like okay, let's redesign the home page, and we can do that but redesigning the home page is like okay, let's make the home page, let's fix everything and make all the code modular, so we can actually start working on it.

D

So I have a feeling that every page we get after this quarter is going to be like that. But the good thing is is because we're taking a systemized approach to this project is, we will never have to do that again.

D

So it's kind of I've been verbalizing a little bit like taking our medicine like we can keep kicking it down the road, but I think this quarter, if we don't take our medicine and you know clean up our room a little here, it's just we're just kicking it down down the line, but yeah really well done by uh steven heavy and jess, like the that's like a week and a half basically like we say a two-week sprint, but basically half of the week is planning and organizing.

D

So it's uh totally bonkers what you all got done.

C

Hey michael since you and I chatted about this a little bit, can you help uh maybe just share how this connects with our iterate value or just like how we're gonna continue to go forward with these.

D

Yeah, absolutely thanks um for queueing that up um and the conversation we had on on slack helped me gain clarity too, because I wasn't entirely sure if we make the mr get feedback and then put it live, um because our approach now on the digital experience time is we're going to be doing releases every two weeks, um we're going to have a kind of like uh results, videos and and retro videos that we'll share broadly so it's an immovable date, so um we'll figure out, it's probably gonna, be a wednesday and we're just gonna work towards delivery.

D

So this was like hey we're going to get something done, we're going to do a week's worth of work, we're going to re-meet and say: okay, our goal was here: where did we get okay? Well, let's tie it up and get it in a place that we can put it forward. So now this afternoon we have our retro and next sprint planning and we've decided we're going to spend another two weeks on the home page to add a little bit more like the flashy stuff um which is going to be.

D

You know more impactful, so yeah, it's just we're continually iterating we're keeping. We have a broad vision of the goal we want to do over q4 and you know I have an idea of where we should be in three quarters and we're just trying to take a two week window to get two week chunks to get there.

D

So the plan now for us to deliver this is I'm we're going to reconnect this uh afternoon and just see if we can live afternoon and then we'll collect feedback via mrs and address that in next sprints.

E

Sounds great sorry to.

B

Clarify is it feedback after the fact or before.

D

Yeah, like it's, it's feedback for to inform the next sprint, like one of the ways that I I've I've been having a little bit of success. Communicating this is like uh we have an opinion and we know what we're doing and we're gonna have a better opinion and do a better job with a lot of input from others, but just like, like think of fashion matt you're, a fashionable guy. This will land with you like uh right now, clothing brands aren't designing for, uh like spring summer next year, they're designing for fall winter.

D

The following year, like you, need to forecast way out there. So we want to have work. That's done in that fashion, like the work we're launching is for this sprint. The feedback we're getting is to pull in information to inform future work rather than having to not deliver stuff and just sit around and try and be like okay.

D

What does everybody think great and we're we're seeing a whole bunch of great improvements on the dev sites and our local builds, but our customers not feeling that so we're always going to be putting out stuff, knowing that we can and it's okay to be embarrassed of it, because we know collectively we're getting feedback and are continuously every two weeks. Putting things live to make it better.

B

So sorry, I guess I should uh I didn't clarify so like the growth marketing team. Are we providing feedback after the fact as if the rest of the company was looking at it after it's live yeah? Anybody can no not.

D

B

An opportunity before the fact, rather than opening it up to the whole company after the fact like I totally get that mentality of opening it up to the rest of the company after you know, because yeah it'll never get done. If you ask 1300 people, what do you think um yeah so just mechanisms internally for growth, marketing at least feedback um prior to launches? I'm just wondering if that was a consideration.

D

um It was, I can't really think of a way to make that work to have, because a two-week sprint is incredibly aggressive to be doing the large amount of work that we have to do so. Options like what we're going to set up now on our team is like working session meetings that are weekly um so for this body of work. This falls into the design system okr, so we haven't uh firmed up on the date, but in my head, it's like every tuesday from 10 to 11 30., the working group.

D

The people who are like dris on this project know they have an hour and a half know it's collaborative time to work and solve these big problems together. We don't know exactly what we're going to do in each one of these, but we know we need to make this productive and a good use of time, so everyone prepares leading up into it, sets the agenda.

D

If it's an hour and a half meeting, we only have 30 minutes cool great go, get it done, we're going to add you and anyone else who is interested as optional to attend and you'll see these on your calendar. So if you have feedback or have an idea, please anyone on this call just jump in like this is open, um co-creation time, so open invitation, that's how I'm hoping to address. I think what you're um trying to get in is that that work.

B

Yeah yeah, I'm curious to see it in in motion and uh yeah should be fun great and I'm still looking to play for a place to put feedback when I was asking for a few days. So so I'm anxious to jump in.

D

At this point, I think for that feedback. For a few days ago, from my understanding, what danielle and I were talking, is you would write, mrs d, do you have more clarity on that daniel? Do you want to met through that.

C

Yeah so one thing we try to do at gitlab in the handbook and on the product team and I'd love to do here is that feedback should be, mrs for the improvements themselves or, if you um like, in my case, I probably can't code some of the improvements that I would want to make.

C

But I would do my best to like comment the areas of the code where I'm, where I'm thinking of or write a really great description, but the idea would be like feedback should come in the form of starting an mr that could be collaborated on um and then we would work through those as a work in progress and some of ours don't get merged, and some do so. It might be that you start down that road and then you decide.

C

Okay, maybe we don't want to do this, but that would still be the best way to do it um and we're going to have to enable there's, probably people who will have feedback, that we really want to take that can't necessarily write the code, so we'll probably have to enable them somehow. But that would be the ideal path.

C

We'll see how that goes with this team, it's a little different for the marketing website. So I don't like know if we'll stick with that, but I think we should at least give it a try. It seems to work pretty well for the gitlab product yeah.

D

And I think, like the whole point of this marketing design system, which we are calling slippers, which is a hilarious name that took me a second to get around, but you know we've got pajamas, but our marketing needs just needs to be just a little bit fancier. So what feels better than putting on a nice pair of slippers after you get your picture amazon um credit to steven for that cleverness. um So the idea is once we build this.

D

We do have a design system, a set of tools that for will enable people who don't have that ability to code at that level, so you'll be able to just copy and paste code snippets from the system we're building. So it we're just asking for a little patience to. Let us help everybody get us all there at once. It's just a pretty big job.

C

Awesome I'm going to ask if we can um stop here just to make sure we leave a few more minutes and whatever we don't get to in the agenda. We'll just do async, but next up is niall.

G

Yeah, I just uh want to quickly just verbalize some of the work that was done this week, um so I just included links in the comments here, because some of it is competitive for strategic information, so of didn't want to visualize it. But um we completed a competitive landscape analysis for keywords against some prime competitors. It's going to expand that just to inform the competitive strategies either on the way or rolling forward, and the second one was the content cluster research mapping. So this is for the devops and the devops platform strategies.

G

That's been rolled out in line with the content team. um So if anyone wants to view it or any feedback, you just please follow the links and you can see what's included and I'll, just pass it on to lauren.

H

Okay, okay, I'm next, um let me share my screen.

H

Okay, um I just wanted to share real quick, as we have I added this fancy. Logo banner vic's been doing these great um icons, and so, when you scroll down they pop up with some of the animation um that we also have on the features page, so that was really cool just pulling and stuff. We have elsewhere on the site.

D

That was the first. I saw that little video animation when you shared that link of the two people coding beside each other. I love that so much. I love that energy.

E

D

We need we need more of that on the home page, so uh more more more, please vic! Did you make that.

I

I think that was before I got here, but um I can refresh that definitely yeah.

E

I

Yeah everything I want to animate all the things. If I can cool.

D

um I'd love for you to get with steve and have me and jess on this next uh iteration, because I I don't know I saw that I was like. Oh my gosh. This is these exist. Awesome.

H

Yeah, whenever I visit a web page and there's animation, it always makes me happy and I'll pass it on to shane.

A

Thanks lauren, um so becky and I are working on the website refresh stats and I just want to share. We made this really quick dashboard to kind of share what we're seeing there as far as page views and how many people are entering the site on the pages that we've refreshed, um cta events, forum, events, all that and so becky's going to be doing a more in-depth video.

A

But I just wanted to share this really kind of uh first iteration on this dashboard for uh the website, refresh as we look at how those pages are performing so um and with that I'll pass it over to erica. For shout outs, oh erica, I don't she's not on the call. Oh no you're.

E

On the call and yeah on to the shout outs section- and it looks like matt- has the first item.

B

Yeah I want to thank luke monica and vic. We had our brand off site this week and it was.

B

It was great to hear what everybody honestly thinks about everything for better or worse, because we need to know everything before we can make anything better and uh it really opened our eyes to if we, if the four of us have these many opinions on everything, imagine what the other 1296 people think so we're anxious to start talking to all departments and gathering feedback in order to to know where we're headed with the brand next. So uh thanks for sticking with it for two days, it was great and we also destroyed the escape room.

I

Yeah I'll pick you back on that um just like sam, it was really good, and this is why I don't usually do calls when charlie's here um yeah. It was really good and everyone was like super into it and energetic about it. It was really nice. So thanks so much.

C

All right! Well, that brings us to the end of our agenda. So thanks everyone for a great week and I'll see you on the marketing strategy and tactics call in just a minute here. Bye.