merging in material that will be folded in

SourceMaterial/growth/marketing/blog.md

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+---
+title: Blog
+sidebar: Handbook
+showTitle: true
+---
+
+The [blog](/blog) is for telling PostHog stories and updates around our product positioning.
+
+Accessible content with jokes, memes and gifs have done well.
+
+## Successful Hacker News topics
+
+A successful post on Hacker News can currently increase traffic by 5-10%.
+
+Stories about PostHog's early hustling days have done well.
+
+- Feb 20, 2020 [Launch HN: PostHog (YC W20) – open-source product analytics](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22376732)
+- Feb 28, 2020 [Our experience moving to SF to do YC](https://posthog.com/blog/moving-to-sf/)
+- Jun 2020 [How we raised $3M for an open source project](https://posthog.com/blog/raising-3m-for-os)
+- Jan 2020 [A story about pivots](https://posthog.com/blog/story-about-pivots)
+
+## Future topic areas
+
+We want to start writing stories about our team, customers and community.
+
+To view and contribute blog post ideas join our #ideas-for-blog-post Slack channel.
+
+Todo: organize the blog post ideas into topic categories and priority list.
+
+## Publishing
+
+Submit a PR to [posthog/posthog.com](https://github.com/posthog/posthog.com) with the following content:
+
+- with a new Markdown file (md, mdx) in `/contents/blog/`
+- any assets [optimized]((/docs/updating-documentation)) and added to a new folder under `contents/images/blog/`
+- the post added to relevant sidebar in `src/sidebars/sidebars.json`
+
+Create an annotation on [app.posthog.com](https://app.posthog.com) for the content to track the effect.
+
+Share the live content with out PostHog Users Slack group first, in the `#editorial` channel.
+
+Arrange further promotion via the newsletter, social channels and 3rd party communities.
+
+## PostHog Array
+
+The PostHog Array is our product release series.
+
+It's named the PostHog Array, because hedgehogs are collectively known as an *array* of hedgehogs.
+
+Yakko adds new items to the Array ;) by gathering changes and highlights from PRs and the engineering team.
+
+Each array includes:
+- a community MVP
+- a summary of new features, improvements and fixes
+- important announcements e.g. deprecations
+- detailed overview of each change with an image/video
+- community shoutout for other contributors
+- open roles
+- complete list of PRs included
+
+Before merging and distributing the release post, check with Tim that the new version has been released.

SourceMaterial/growth/marketing/community.md

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+---
+title: Community
+sidebar: Handbook
+showTitle: true
+---
+
+See [./](Marketing) for community goals.
+
+## Replying to the community
+
+- Be kind, concise and direct
+- Do not promise delivery dates
+- Ask people to create GitHub issues for bugs and feature requests
+- Provide a links to relevant GitHub issues and/or pull requests
+
+## Discussions
+
+Questions to consider about the platforms we use:
+
+- Does it align with our mission and values, e.g. open source and its implications
+- Does it exclude people
+- How does it compare in terms of accessibility
+- How does it compare in terms of ease of use
+
+### Chat/Forum
+
+We use Slack for our [community chat](https://posthog.com/slack) and share new content in *#editorial* before other non-Slack channels.
+
+### GitHub
+
+Community discussions can take place in GitHub issues and pull requests.
+
+The engineering team can people in rather than having to following everything.
+
+### Social
+
+Speak to James for access.
+
+**Channels:**
+
+- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/posthoghq)
+- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/posthog/)
+- [YouTube comments](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn4mJ4kK5KVSvozJre645LA)
+
+**Content sources:**
+
+- Original content from our blog, YouTube, GitHub and other channels
+- Reply to discussions on our content
+- Engage with wider community topics TBD
+
+**Communities:**
+
+Discuss sharing specific content with relevant communities:
+
+- Startup School
+- Hacker News
+- Indie Hackers
+- Reddit:
+  - [/r/analytics](https://www.reddit.com/r/analytics/)
+  - [/r/businessintelligence](https://www.reddit.com/r/businessintelligence/)
+  - [/r/opensource](https://www.reddit.com/r/opensource/)
+  - [/r/programing](https://www.reddit.com/r/programing/)
+  - [/r/python](https://www.reddit.com/r/python/)
+  - [/r/django](https://www.reddit.com/r/django/)
+  - [/r/startups](https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/)
+  - [/r/entrepreneur](https://www.reddit.com/r/entrepreneur/)
+  - [/r/business](https://www.reddit.com/r/business/)
+  - [/r/marketing](https://www.reddit.com/r/marketing/)
+  - [/r/dataisbeautiful](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/)
+
+### Events
+
+Speak to James for access.
+
+We use Eventbrite to organize events.
+
+### Contributors
+
+We created a [contributors platform](https://posthog.com/contributors) to recognize the community's work.
+
+Merch is automatically awarded to people who contribute to any PostHog repos.
+
+Notable PRs can be manually tagged with `extra merch` to reward large contributions.
+
+### Merch
+
+Speak to James, Yakko or Paolo for access.
+
+We use Shopify for our [merch store](https://merch.posthog.com).
+
+Note: a large portion of the vouchers will cover shipping.
+
+### Orbit
+
+We use [Orbit](https://app.orbit.love) for community analytics.

SourceMaterial/growth/marketing/index.md

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+---
+title: Overview
+sidebar: Handbook
+showTitle: true
+---
+
+**The Marketing/Acquisition Team**
+
+Philosophy: Be kind, concise and direct.
+
+
+## Product positioning
+
+An **open source product analytics platform** addresses the lack of choice and control amongst disconnected analytics solutions by offering a **unified platform** with **control** over hosting, pricing, source, data, privacy and security.
+
+**Free PostHog** is positioned to solve product analytics problems for small non-enterprise teams.
+
+**Enterprise PostHog** is positioned to solve product analytics problems for larger teams and enterprises.
+
+**PostHog Cloud** is positioned to service clients who need less control.
+
+**PostHog Self Hosted** is positioned to service clients who need more control.
+
+
+## Target audience
+
+*Innovative technical teams*, more commonly found in startups, who care about:
+
+- a unified product analytics platform
+- open source
+- control: hosting, pricing, source, data, privacy and security
+
+We will expand to non-technical teams when we have achieved technical awareness saturation.
+
+### Goal 1: User acquisition
+
+Increase:
+
+- Open source self hosted installs
+  - Tracked in [AARRR dashboard](https://app.posthog.com/dashboard/2973)
+  - Page views tracked in [Marketing dashboard](https://app.posthog.com/dashboard/2881)
+- Premium self hosted leads
+  - Todo: needs consolidated tracking
+- Free cloud signups
+  - Todo: needs consolidated tracking
+- Premium cloud signups
+  - Todo: needs consolidated tracking
+
+### Goal 2: Community growth
+
+Increase:
+
+- GitHub stars
+  -  Tracked in Orbit
+- GitHub contributors
+  -  Tracked in Orbit
+- GitHub contributions
+  - Todo: needs consolidated tracking
+  - Plugin contributions
+    - Todo: needs consolidated tracking
+
+See [Community](./marketing/community) for community function.
+
+### Requirements
+
+#### Achieve complete tracking
+
+Tracking marketing efforts that contribute to acquisition and growth.
+
+Going beyond marketing, tracking through the funnel to improve targeting.
+
+#### Reduce effort to contribute
+
+Reduce the actions, time or complexity for us and our community to contribute.
+
+#### Reduce acquisition cost
+
+Reduce cost to acquire users and grow our community.
+
+
+## Functions
+
+Functions that contribute more to *Acquisition* than another metrics are owned by Marketing.
+
+Documentation contributes more to *Activation* and *Retention* than *Acquisition*. Marketing is a stakeholder in coverage and completeness.
+
+*Activation* and *Retention* contribute more to *Referral* than *Acquisition*.
+
+- Product marketing:
+  - research: market, competitor
+  - product positioning
+  - buyer personas
+  - messaging: website, careers, channel bios, README.md
+- Content marketing:
+  - [Blog](./marketing/blog): product releases, stories (team, product, customer)
+  - Audio: audio stories, podcast series
+  - [Video](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn4mJ4kK5KVSvozJre645LA): video stories, vlog series, showcases, tutorials
+  - [Newsletter](./marketing/newsletter): general, investor
+  - Handbook: team, culture
+- [Community](./marketing/community):
+  - social: Twitter, LinkedIn
+  - discussions: Slack, HN, StartupSchool, Reddit
+  - [onboarding](https://posthog.com/handbook/growth/sales/yc-onboarding): YC startups
+  - events: online, in-person
+  - networking: open source, analytics
+  - sponsorship: open source
+- [Press](./marketing/press):
+  - relationships
+  - announcements
+  - media packs
+- [Paid](./marketing/paid):
+  - search
+  - social
+  - communities
+  - newsletters
+  - websites
+  - podcasts
+  - events
+  - video
+- Technical:
+  - reporting
+  - tracking
+  - tooling
+  - SEO
+- Design:
+  - visual identity
+  - web properties
+  - channels
+
+### Team
+
+Prioritizing hiring for functions based on acquisition success and capacity in relation to other functions.
+
+- Product marketing: currently hiring
+- Content marketing: Mo
+- Community: hiring next
+- Press: 2022
+- Paid: 2022
+- Technical: hiring next
+
+Design provided as a service by the Design team.

SourceMaterial/growth/marketing/newsletter.md

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+---
+title: Newsletter
+sidebar: Handbook
+showTitle: true
+---
+
+Speak to James or Yakko for access.
+
+We use Mailchimp for our newsletter.
+
+## Lists
+
+### Newsletter
+
+Our general list which grows from:
+
+- Newsletter signups from the website
+- PostHog users who opt-in
+- Event attendees
+
+Sean sends a newsletter after every product release (2-4 weeks) and include a summary of the new version and and recent news.
+
+We aim to include at least one new blog post in every newsletter.
+
+Use few links and emojis, and 1-2 images.
+
+Users are automatically tagged to indicate where they came from e.g. Newsletter Subscribers, Deployed Posthog, Eventbrite, etc.
+
+### Investors
+
+List of interested investors.
+
+James manually manages this list.

SourceMaterial/growth/marketing/paid.md

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+---
+title: Paid
+sidebar: Handbook
+showTitle: true
+---
+
+We are running limited ads at the moment and will dedicate more resources after improving product marketing and various metrics.
+
+Todo: create a database of tactics and success.
+
+## Platforms
+
+### Twitter
+
+We actively use Twitter Ads with a small budget for awareness.
+
+### Google Ads
+
+We actively use Google Ads with a tiny budget to capture PostHog search keywords.
+
+### Reddit
+
+We've used Reddit for campaigns.
+
+### LinkedIn
+
+We've used LinkedIn for campaigns and hiring.

SourceMaterial/growth/marketing/press.md

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+---
+title: Press
+sidebar: Handbook
+showTitle: true
+---
+
+## Press enquiries
+
+Any press-related enquiries should be directed to press@posthog.com. Only James, Tim or Charles should be talking to the press on PostHog's behalf. If someone from the press approaches you, please raise with one of them in the first instance. 
+
+## Managing press releases
+
+From time to time, we may have significant company news that we want to release via the press, in addition to our usual channels. This is usually for significant company milestones such as funding rounds.
+
+We have a simple process to ensure that any press releases go smoothly. 
+
+### First steps
+
+- [ ] Write up objectives and comms strategy - what is the purpose of the press release? What key message(s) are we trying to get across? 
+- [ ] Set an approximate target date
+
+### Two weeks before release
+
+- [ ] Confirm key messages and write first draft press release
+- [ ] Finalize target date
+- [ ] Pitch and secure a media exclusive - our investors can help with this
+- [ ] Secure approval for any third party involvement, e.g. quotes we want to use
+
+We currently prefer working with a single media partner on an exclusive basis, as we believe a single, high-quality story is more impactful than taking a broad approach, given our current early stage. 
+
+### One week before release
+
+- [ ] Finalize press release and share with exclusive media partner
+- [ ] Any media prep if interviews have been scheduled
+
+### On the day of release
+
+- [ ] *Wait for the media partner's story to go live first!* Check it carefully and ask for any errors to be amended before proceeding with the below...
+- [ ] Push out the press release via BusinessWire
+- [ ] Submit via YC's social media request from
+- [ ] James to post on his personal LinkedIn (and tag all relevant people)
+- [ ] Post in our PostHog Users Slack
+- [ ] Post in YC Slack
+- [ ] Write post on our blog about the news
+- [ ] Post on PostHog Twitter (and tag all relevant people)
+- [ ] Share links to all of the above to the PostHog team so they can share
+
+## Press release template
+
+Include media and quotes from James, Tim or influential people.
+
+```
+# Headline
+
+News
+
+## About PostHog
+
+PostHog is an open source, product analytics platform. PostHog enables software teams to understand user behavior – auto-capturing events, performing product analytics and dashboarding, enabling video replays, and rolling out new features behind feature flags, all based on their single open source platform. The product’s open source approach enables companies to self-host, removing the need to send data externally.
+
+Founded in 2020 by James Hawkins and Tim Glaser, PostHog was a member of Y Combinator’s Winter 2020 batch, and has subsequent raised $12m in funding from GV, Y Combinator and notable angel investors including Jason Warner (CTO, GitHub), Solomon Hykes (Founder, Docker) and David Cramer (Founder, Sentry).
+
+## About Y Combinator Continuity Fund
+
+YC Continuity is an investment fund dedicated to supporting founders as they scale their companies. Our primary goal is to support YC alumni companies by investing in their subsequent funding rounds, though we occasionally invest in non-YC companies as well.
+
+Like YC’s early-stage partners, the entire YC Continuity team has strong operating experience. We work to create opportunities for founders to continue their personal growth and scale their companies successfully.
+
+We also run the YC Growth Program, which brings together founder-CEOs who are leading rapidly growing companies.
+
+```

SourceMaterial/growth/marketing/releasing-content.md

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+---
+title: Releasing Content
+sidebar: Handbook
+showTitle: true
+---
+
+<br />
+
+We aim to regularly publish content in the form of videos and articles as part of providing value [to build a big community](content). 
+
+As a result, we have formulated a loose strategy for how to approach publishing the content produced once it is ready to be exposed to the world.
+
+#### Suggested Workflow
+
+1. If the content requires a visual element, create a [design request](https://posthog.com/handbook/company/working-with-design) (more than 24 hours in advance) to have a graphic produced. For example, if the content is a YouTube video, we'll make a thumbnail image. If it's a blog post, we'll create a post image that is featured at the top of the post.
+1. Make sure the content is actually live: If it is an article, ensure that the changes are reflected on the website following the merge of the pull request, which might take 10 to 30 minutes.
+1. Post a link to the article/video on our `#editorial` channel in the PostHog Users Slack group. This group should always the first to hear about new content.
+1. Include the article in the **body** of an email and schedule it to be sent the next day via Mailchimp to people in the 'PostHog Newsletter' audience. 
+1. Schedule a tweet to be posted 1-2 days later with a link to the content.
+1. Consider making a post on HackerNews on the same day as the content goes live on Twitter. Not all posts should go on HN, only the ones that make sense for that specific audience. Videos generally do not do well on HackerNews, for example.
+1. Evaluate if the content can also benefit from being published in other mediums, such as LinkedIn, Reddit, or Medium. If unsure, you're generally better to publish it and see what happens.
+1. Create an annotation on [app.posthog.com](https://app.posthog.com) about the content release, so that we can determine if it was the cause of any changes in our metrics.