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How we used System-Driven Word of Mouth to Break $30m Revenue

The inbound funnel, customer reference squad, and review email copy behind vFairs' growth from $1.7M to $30M+

Muhammad Younas · vFairs

Published September 1, 2022
About this resource

In two years, vFairs went from $1.7m in revenue to over $30m. Their secret?

A killer system to drive word of mouth referrals.

Muhammad Younas, CEO of vFairs breaks down exactly how they did it, 100% bootstrapped. Get the inside story of how they:

- Optimized their inbound funnel

- Scaled repeatable success

- Created a “reference squad”

Plus, the exact email copy they used to get over 1,000 reviews on G2.

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What you’ll learn

Muhammed Younas explains how vFairs grew with a measurable inbound funnel, detailed customer research, event-day customer support, and a referral engine driven by customer experience.

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Key moments

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Measure the inbound funnel

“those of you who don't know about vfares vfares is all in one events platform up until pandemic we have been helping companies out doing online events doing virtual events um companies of all sizes use V fair so again whether it's a startup company mid-sized company and then in most cases an Enterprise company they would run a conference or trade show a job fair an open day using a vfares platform and then you know post covet this year we also launched a couple of other”
Watch at 01:28

Research customer demand

“and that has helped us get 60 of our traffic so almost 58 to 60 percent of all of our traffic comes from those hundreds and thousands of keywords that we go and we research through the 750 plus interviews that we do every single month and again that has been the single biggest contributor to our growth over the years just because we had been doing this for the past five years you know ever since we launched back in 2016-17 the very first customer who came to us”
Watch at 04:48

Support event-day customers

“attending it and when it's virtual the stakes are even higher because then everything is happening online in your platform people are networking in your platform people are having fun on your platform the entertainment the sessions the exhibitors the speakers everything is on your platform so we knew from day one that we want to make sure that people who are using our platform they are being taken extremely seriously you know not just as a SAS vendor but also as a again you know just we just”
Watch at 08:12

Track customer sentiment

“virtual event is it X number of attendees what is that the core kpi that they're trying to achieve using our software can we help them achieve that end metric uh so that you know not only they just love that software but they also see that the software helps them be successful in whatever they're trying to do we actually documented each one of those things and every time we work with any customer we agree with what is their end goal of why they're they have signed up with the software”
Watch at 11:05

Turn customers into growth

“one we have been obsessed about customer support and our customers know that how much we care about uh their their feedback once once that particle event is over most of these customers then go ahead and would also give us video testimonials again you know we have we have a template for that as well that we use uh but you know with time what we have seen is that even without us asking them for that just because from day one in the very first onboarding call we would tell them that you know what okay here are things”
Watch at 14:30

vFairs inbound funnel

“Inbound Funnel at vFairs PAID MEDIA Google Ads / Bing OWNED/EARNED MEDIA Organic / Content / Social ACQUISITION INQUIRY DEMO SALE $30 Million In overall bookings”
Read slide 7

Paid and organic lead generation

“Kept it Simple: Paid + Organic Paid Media 42% of lead gen Minimum $10K/month Brand-protecting KWs Targeting direct/indirect competitors Negative Keywording Organic 58% of lead gen SEO from Day 1 Long-form guides Topic Clusters/Pillar Pages Backlinks from our events Most popular long form guide: Hybrid Event Guide (2022)”
Read slide 9

Defining a seven-star experience

“1- Defining Delight Created Empathy: Ran our own events Asked ourselves: What would a 7-star experience look like? Give them the tech Tech + great onboarding Tech + do it for them + help them win”
Read slide 16

Using copy to get reviews

“3- Use this copy to get more reviews 1,000+ G2 Reviews Asking for a G2 Testimonial =>”
Read slide 20

Referral program and reference squad

“3- Distributing Evidence of Delight Shower them with love Gave them awards Launched Referral Program Created a Reference Squad”
Read slide 23

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  • How to set up funnel that drives $30m ARR

  • How we used System-Driven Word of Mouth to Break $30m Revenue - Slide Deck

About the speaker
Muhammad Younas

Muhammad Younas

CEO & Founder · vFairs

LinkedIn

As the CEO and founder of vFairs, Muhammad Younas is on a mission to provide innovative and scalable solutions to businesses around the world and help vFairs become the world’s most loved technology to power events. With over 15 years of experience in the technology industry, he has a proven track record of building successful products and businesses that drive growth and innovation.

Company revenue
$34M
Team size
222

More founder interviews

Slide text

Find a passage in the slides and open the original deck.

27 passages

vFairs and the word-of-mouth premise

  1. Slide 1Open deck

    Muhammad Younas CEO of vFairs Founder500, Sept 2022 How we used System-Driven Word of Mouth to Break $30m Revenue … without hiring any outbound sales team (and 100% bootstrapped!)

  2. Slide 2Open deck

    Quick Intro Muhammad Younas Started career at IBM after UT Austin Grew up ranks at Bayt to Chief Revenue Officer Took reins of vFairs as CEO in 2016

  3. Slide 3Open deck

    Over the next 20 minutes: No outbound outreach I’m going to show you $0 TO $30M CS PLAYBOOK 1,000+ REVIEWS Inbound marketing practices we used How we optimized the inbound funnel How we defined a 7-star experience How we scaled repeatable success Referral Program Copy we use to get reviews How to get customers to do video You need a reference squad

  4. Slide 4Open deck

    What We Do At Setting The Context Event platform that powers virtual, hybrid & in-person events with white-glove customer support.

  5. Slide 5Open deck

    vFairs Revenue Growth

Building the inbound funnel

  1. Slide 6Open deck

    Laying Down an Inbound Funnel Section 1

  2. Slide 7Open deck

    Inbound Funnel at vFairs PAID MEDIA Google Ads / Bing OWNED/EARNED MEDIA Organic / Content / Social ACQUISITION INQUIRY DEMO SALE $30 Million In overall bookings

  3. Slide 8Open deck

    Our Actual June 2022 Results PAID MEDIA Google Ads / Bing OWNED/EARNED MEDIA Organic / Content / Social ACQUISITION INQUIRY DEMO SALE 82,362 Web Sessions 486 65% Take Demo $1.1 Million New ARRBookings (avg $15k ACV) 752 1% Inquire 72 15% Pay $30 Million In overall bookings June 2022 June 1st-June 30th

Paid and organic acquisition

  1. Slide 9Open deck

    Kept it Simple: Paid + Organic Paid Media 42% of lead gen Minimum $10K/month Brand-protecting KWs Targeting direct/indirect competitors Negative Keywording Organic 58% of lead gen SEO from Day 1 Long-form guides Topic Clusters/Pillar Pages Backlinks from our events Most popular long form guide: Hybrid Event Guide (2022)

  2. Slide 10Open deck

    Organic Views hit 20,000 Last Month

  3. Slide 11Open deck

    Organic Keywords

  4. Slide 12Open deck

    Paid is 42% of our lead gen Minimum $10K/month Brand-protecting KWs Targeting direct/indirect competitors Negative Keywording Most popular long form guide: Hybrid Event Guide (2022)

  5. Slide 13Open deck

    Kept it Simple: Paid + Organic Most popular long form guide: Hybrid Event Guide (2022) Organic: 58% of lead gen SEO from Day 1 Long-form guides Topic Clusters/Pillar Pages Backlinks from our events

The delight engine

  1. Slide 14Open deck

    Section 2 Creating the Delight Engine

  2. Slide 15Open deck

    Delight Engine DELIVER DELIGHT DEFINEDELIGHT DISTRIBUTEEVIDENCE OF DELIGHT

  3. Slide 16Open deck

    1- Defining Delight Created Empathy: Ran our own events Asked ourselves: What would a 7-star experience look like? Give them the tech Tech + great onboarding Tech + do it for them + help them win

  4. Slide 17Open deck

    1- Defining Delight: 4 Pillars Super fast response times. Custom 3D visuals. Flexible platform. Done for You. + A protocol for when things go south

Delivering and measuring delight

  1. Slide 18Open deck

    2- Delivering Delight Speed + Flexibility? Beefed up the Backend. Custom 3D? Hired in-house 3D Designers. Done for you? Codified Process + Train via LMS

  2. Slide 19Open deck

    2- Delivering Delight: Measuring it How do we know we delivered? Asked Customers Post-event surveys Ran NPS (using Survicate)

Reviews and distributed evidence

  1. Slide 20Open deck

    3- Use this copy to get more reviews 1,000+ G2 Reviews Asking for a G2 Testimonial =>

  2. Slide 21Open deck

    3- Distributing Evidence of Delight

  3. Slide 22Open deck

    3- Distributing Evidence of Delight 200+ Video Testimonials Asking for Video =>

  4. Slide 23Open deck

    3- Distributing Evidence of Delight Shower them with love Gave them awards Launched Referral Program Created a Reference Squad

  5. Slide 24Open deck

    Recap: Delight Engine DELIVER DELIGHT DEFINEDELIGHT DISTRIBUTEEVIDENCE OF DELIGHT

  6. Slide 25Open deck

    In the last 20 minutes… No outbound outreach I showed you: $0 TO $30M CS PLAYBOOK 1,000+ REVIEWS Inbound marketing practices we used How we optimized the inbound funnel How we defined a 7-star experience How we scaled repeatable success Referral Program Copy we use to get reviews How to get customers to do video You need a reference squad

  7. Slide 26Open deck

    That’s how we’ve grown vFairs :)

  8. Slide 27Open deck

    Sept 2022 Muhammad Younas CEO of vFairs