ARR: Same acronym, different roots:
In growth marketing, AARRR is the first framework you learn:
Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue.
For me this was the recipe for ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue).
I spent almost a decade of substituting those terms for:
Activation + Retention = Revenue.
In my first week at Earthbanc I met a different ARR:
Afforestation, Reforestation and Revegetation.
I must have sounded like an idiot at the interview…
(Experience with ARR = 18 years | Reforestation… AHHRR ok)
Same conversation about growth. Very different roots.
That disparity was a fair warning. I arrived in nature-based solutions with a growth marketing playbook. Some of it transfers better than I expected. The rest has shown me that being good at marketing doesn’t make you good in this market.
What travels:
Attribution.
In marketing we argue over which touchpoint earned the conversion. Here the argument is whether you can show a change on the ground and prove your project caused it. That’s measurement, reporting and verification, with a much higher standard of proof.
Customer fit.
A site can look ideal for restoration and still suit no particular buyer, methodology or offset requirement. It’s the wrong-ICP problem, with soil.
The leaky funnel.
Plenty of people care about nature. Fewer can procure it, approve it and commit budget to it. That’s where deals stall.
What changes meaning?
Retention.
In software, this is customers staying. Here it’s the trees, and the carbon and biodiversity they hold, still standing decades later.
What doesn’t transfer is expertise. Years of campaigns gave me no head start on how a methodology gets applied, or how a buyer’s requirements get set.
I’ll keep sharing what I’m learning, including what I get wrong.
For those who’ve been in nature-based solutions longer:
What do newcomers from other industries most often misread?
Sixty seven days in, I’m finding that the funnel still works as a map, but the ground underneath is not firm. Mastery in marketing isn’t mastery in nature-based solutions (NBS). So I’m going to offer the sector a fresh look at AARRR to share what I’ve picked up so far.
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Awareness: understanding the industry
The most interesting questions in this field aren’t the ones you see from outside it.
Planting trees is a starting point. What happens afterwards, and how you demonstrate it, is a much bigger conversation. Carbon and biodiversity can share a landscape without sharing the same rules, buyers or definition of success.
In marketing, awareness means people know you exist. Here, it starts with people understanding what restoration actually involves.
Activation: getting businesses involved
A location can look promising for restoration, without being suitable for a particular buyer, methodology or offset requirement.
The commercial challenge is not as simple as finding people who care about nature, its about understanding what they can actually procure, approve and commit to. Activation here is a decision someone has to defend internally, which is a much higher bar than buying a new skateboard.
… how do I repeat 600% growth here?
Retention: keeping the commitment by delivering results
In software, retention means users keep coming back. In restoration, it means the trees, and the carbon and biodiversity survive over decades. The most important goal is that they are still there years later, with evidence to show it.
This is where I’ve started to become comfortable early. My habit of separating activity from outcomes matters here the most. Planting is activity. Measured, verified results… they are the outcome.
Referral: sharing success
In a market where claims get scrutinised, the best referral is a result other people can check. Word of mouth works here the way it does anywhere, but it only travels as far as the evidence behind it.
Revenue: making projects work commercially
Nature-based projects scale when the numbers work for the people funding and running them. Making that possible is the part of the funnel Earthbanc is built around.
The next level of AARRR
What’s different is the responsibility attached to getting it right. A weak claim in marketing costs a conversion. Here, it costs trust in the whole market.
I’m early on the learning curve, and I’ll keep sharing the questions, assumptions and unexpected connections as I go, including the ones I get wrong.
For those with marketing brains who’ve worked in nature-based solutions longer:
What did you have to unlearn when you entered the industry?
