The Coining of Growth Hacking
The term “growth hacker” was first used by Sean Ellis in 2010. Sean Ellis is an entrepreneur who specializes in startups, as well as an angel investor and start-up advisor. Ellis helped a lot of tech companies in Silicon Valley to achieve great growth. He has experience heading up marketing at multiple companies, including LogMeIn, Uproar, Dropbox, Lookout, and Xobni. He would provide guidance to these fledgling tech companies on establishing systems, processes, and ways of thinking that could be upheld after he was gone.
He used to take equity and payment in return for his advice and growth strategies. Ellis was frustrated when none of the candidates for his job understood his job description. He created a new phrase because he felt the current ones didn’t accurately describe his feelings.
He knew that he wanted to hire marketers as a replacement for himself. Even though these marketers were good at their jobs, they didn’t quite fit the bill for what he was looking for. He believed that his job was entirely different than the traditional marketer’s job in FMCGs or established companies that have mass-produced products.
The Re-definition of Product
The Internet has given rise to a new type of product: one that did not exist before. In the pre-Internet age, products were physical. The internet has completely changed what the word “product” means. In the past, products were physical objects that you could see and touch. Nowadays, products are computer programs that exist as invisible data. Think of Uber, Dropbox, or Facebook. These are all examples of hybrids; they are a mix of service and product.
Although these brands have a lot of goodwill and positive reputation, they don’t necessarily use the standard 4 marketing P’s of product, price, place, and promotion. In other words, these brands focus on partnerships instead of distribution. The products offered by the company do not have physical features or size, instead they offer a virtual user experience.
The virtual product has some qualities that regular products do not, such as the ability to be duplicated or transferred quickly and easily. The user may find that they get more use out of the product by sharing it with others. For example, Facebook would like you to share their content with your friends. Uber encourages you to share rides to get discounts. So, you benefit when you share the virtual product. This is not the case for a shampoo or a toothpaste.
Technology start-ups do not need someone who can manage a marketing team, outside vendors or corporate objectives. The primary objective in the early stages of starting a company is increasing growth.
A start-up’s primary focus should be to grow their database of users by encouraging more people to take the risk and try the new product. You need users to tell their friends about the product, and if enough people do this then it will spread like a virus. Although both traditional and digital marketers are interested in growth, the latter are more concerned with this metric.
A growth hacker has the power to focus on a single goal like a hawk. If they ignore almost everything, they can focus on the one task that is most important.
What Is Growth Hacking?
So now you understand why the market needed something to foster growth and how the term “growth hacking” came to be. growth hacking is a method of rapidly growing a business by using creative marketing techniques and online tools.
Growth hacking refers to any strategies employed with the sole purpose of promoting growth. Typically, it is employed by early stage start-ups that need significant growth in a short period of time and have limited budgets. There is no need for hacking when it comes to growth hacking; it is simply data-driven marketing that has been optimized for demand generation. The process of designing and conducting experiments to optimize and improve the results of a target area.
Most growth hacking strategies can be classified as content marketing, product marketing, or digital advertising. The article would go into more detail about the three strategies later on.
What Is the Difference between Growth Hacking and Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing and growth hacking go hand in hand. Although growth hacking and marketing are both important, growth hacking would be the more important of the two.
Growth hackers collaborate with teams in marketing, sales, and product development to accelerate growth. They are not afraid to take on new responsibilities and they work hard to encourage growth. Rather than trying to make the company better fit the needs of the consumer, they are focused on making the product/service better.
Digital marketers are very specific and skilled in what they do. Digital marketing is a great way to get your brand in front of your target audience. It creates a desire for the product/service in question. This is the first step in the sales funnel, known as Awareness. We’ll tackle that in details later. to earn traffic Digital marketers will often use various methods such as content marketing, email marketing, and SEO to generate traffic, or clicks to their website. Paid search is another method that can be used to bring traffic to a site.
This means that digital marketing can help support the work of growth hacking. Digital marketers focus on achieving growth through digital platforms. growth hackers use digital marketers’ expertise to help them achieve growth on digital channels They are focused on the company’s growth as a whole, including things like product design, new features, promotions, and new acquisitions.
When Exactly Should an Internet Company Use Growth Hacking?
Now that you know what growth hacking is and how it can benefit certain products, you can start using this technique to your advantage. What is the right question to ask when trying to determine when companies of a certain type use a particular method? Products have lifecycles, just like humans. Products go through a life cycle, where they are born, grow, peak, and then decline. The four stages of this process are known as the introduction, growth, maturity and decline stages.
You need market research to make decisions about a new product, including where to sell it, how to distribute it, what price to charge, and whether anyone will want to buy it.
As organizations grow, they will need to begin asking new questions about expansion, new competitors, new potential markets, and changes in brand image.
If you want your tech product or startup to be successful, you should start using growth hacking techniques now.
10 Growth Hacking Concepts and Best Practices
1. Be Accessible
Businesses can successfully develop their products by making them accessible to a wide audience. If a company has a presence on multiple mobile platforms, it will be more successful because users will be able to connect with it more easily.
Spotify is currently valued at over $10 billion, despite only being founded in 2008. It used a multi-pronged approach to encourage users to listen to its free platform, which was successful. Spotify currently has 12.5 million paying customers who are content with the company’s pricing model, features, and availability of music.
2. Listen to Users
Companies that do business online are not able to avoid user commentary. While some companies choose to ignore information that could be damaging to them, others choose to only do damage control instead of taking proactive measures. Companies who proactively listen to their customers’ feedback in online forums are the ones who can answer calls for improvement and directly impact their user base in a positive manner.
TractionVC provides assistance to entrepreneurs who are trying to grow their businesses. The company sends emails with messages that would be most beneficial for the average business model. As a business owner or leader, you can use this information as you see fit.
3. Find Your Niche
Even if you think your company falls more under the category of “mainstream” than “niche,” take another look. There is most likely a part of your business that is related to a certain area. If you use the same techniques in a different online forum, you will be able to expand your product. A simple way to become an expert on a chosen topic is to focus and become knowledgeable in that area. If you want to be seen as a thought leader, you need to put yourself out there. Creating a blog and writing guest posts are both great ways to get started. Creating a login for your primary website will allow the user to participate in special insider forums or receive added benefits.
If you can find a niche that your business can fill, it can be very beneficial. Niches don’t have to be exclusive or limiting. By using technology along with marketing techniques you can reach an audience that is likely to be interested in helping you improve your business.
4. Prospect Nurturing With a Twist
The idea is to provide potential customers with the right content at the right time. To effectively nurture prospects, you need to have a good understanding of what your target market is interested in. Make sure to do your research ahead of time! There are many traditional ways to nurture prospects, such as promotion, re-engagement content, educational and training tips, and targeting prospects who have already engaged with your brand.
5. Use Scalable Tactics
Start small with any tactic you choose to implement. Ideas that can be easily implemented and scaled tend to be more successful, resulting in increased conversion rates. It is important to have the infrastructure in place to deal with growth so that back-end issues do not slow down the process.
An example of a scalable effort that has the potential for success is a social media company. In the beginning, Facebook was a small operation. However, by implementing strategies such as sharing techniques and hiring new engineering talent to keep the platform running, they were able to create a scalable plan that would allow for future growth.
6. Rethink Your Content And How It Is Presented
Modern companies cannot disregard the information they present online. Relevance and precision are vital in content. The faster you can communicate a message to the user, the more likely they are to respond. Viewers are more likely to engage with visuals than with text alone. Adding images and videos to your website can help drive conversions by providing viewers with stimulating content that is easy to digest. Your headline should be carefully crafted as it carries more weight than the content.
A good example of this is Upworthy, which uses visuals and headlines to capture attention. This company produces 25 headlines or more for every post to ensure that the topic is considered from all angles. The result? The site is a viral news site with thousands of followers.
7. Leverage Alternative Platforms
This is an advanced tactic that may require programming skills to get the most out of it in some situations. You can increase the size of your market by promoting your product on another platform for free. You can get more visibility for your business by interacting with other businesses that have large followings on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.
Airbnb is a company that allows travelers to find rooms to stay in wherever they are. The company now features hosts from over 190 countries. The company started by looking at how Craigslist was organized and then created a similar site that would be good at building a user network.
8. Embrace Change
You never stop working as a growth hacker or vendor. The marketplace is constantly changing and a company must adapt to these changes to stay successful. Make sure to use analytics, your current user base, and competitive intelligence to stay up-to-date on the latest trends. Companies that don’t adapt to the future will die or be bought by someone who can see the potential.
9. Integrate Into Other Platforms
This type of relationship is more mutually beneficial than the parasitic technique in #7. Many platforms welcome cross recommendations. If two or more sites use one central touch point, they will benefit from increased traffic. Add a button, badge, widget, or other link to your website or blog to increase traffic and engagement.
10. Make Smart Suggestions
Make sure your website is engaging, and prompt users to take action. Use pop ups instead of stationary CTAs when visitors click on certain areas of your page. Be aware that some of your ideas might have a negative effect on the user’s experience and make them not want to visit your website again. An example of this would be if you have pop-up ads that get in the way of what the user is trying to do. The user experience should be streamlined and enjoyable to keep people coming back.
