Constant Contact

Constant Contact restarted growth with in-person city workshops run with agencies. When its usual marketing channels were full, Constant Contact added a new kind of channel: in-person workshops in cities for small businesses. It recruited power-user agencies to help run them, and it was selling newsletters at about $20 a month.

The channel sounded uneconomic at that price, but it worked. The lesson is to add an entirely different type of channel when marketing is full, rather than squeezing the old one. HubSpot's agency channel is a comparable case: it became about 50% of its revenue after four or five years, and WP Engine also sells heavily through WordPress agencies.

Lenny's Podcast▶ 1:14:48