First steps towards success: Growth Hacking

Most of the people do not know what Growth Hacking is, but it’s not strange taking into account the term is quite new. Well, allow me to tell you that 10 years ago it didn’t even exist. But, I must also say that if you work on sales and especially on marketing, you should definitely have a look at it.

It was Sean Ellis who nailed the term in 2010, and since then, it has become a must for marketers. It is generally defined as a process of experimentation along the marketing and sales funnel to reach an efficient and rapid way of growth. It takes a group of analytical and innovative methods to do. But no worries, I’m going to provide you with a list of general tips that will drive you towards this practice on websites and online businesses.

First rule: You do Growth Hacking for your clients/users

Remember you are doing growth hacking to experience rapid growth, and it will be your clients who help you achieve that. So do it for them. Listen to what they like and don’t about your website. Use analytics and find out where you perform best and fix it where you do it wrong. You must adapt to your users’ needs. User experience must be more than perfect.

And what about personalizing landing pages? You can use geolocation to do it, include images of a specific city for every different location and adapt CTAs according to each country’s culture.

Note: use geo-targeting if you are playing with ads or paid campaigns too. And please, consider using ads for brand awareness, you’ll see changes.

Learn, change and learn again

Feedback is your bible. You will work on what users think of your website. Do not get mad nor alarmist, interpret feedback in a constructive way instead. Take into account that any mistake you make, will be noticed by users, so change it. In the end, they will guide you to an improved version of your business. It’s like you’re not your boss anymore, but users are instead.

Market trends will drive your actions

“Marketing is the organization of the sale of a product, for example, deciding on its price, the areas it should be supplied to, and how it should be advertised” according to Collins Dictionary. This last how implies the need of some market knowledge.
It’s easy, be trendy. You just need to evolve as the market does. Innovations happen for some reason, and if you are operating online you must do some research and start some revolution. Trends allow you to become the leader instead of being a follower, nail it.

Trends also help with forecasting, which, in marketing, happens to be of high importance.

Nurturing and caring

Nurturing refers to the practice of building relationships with potential customers. Content marketing is a good way to do it. Specifically, email marketing allows you to communicate directly with your customers. Plus, Invesp consulting concluded that email marketing is the most effective tactic for customer retention: so, growing two trees from one seed. If you choose to do it, you must do it great:
- It must be trustworthy: optimize it and test it any time you need, so the recipient will open it for sure.

- Make the subject relevant. Let’s be honest, we all move thousands of emails to the bin without reading them due to boring or repetitive topics.

- Build a strategy that works for you. Your goal is to get conversions, or in this case, retain your customers with a healthy relationship. Try to approach them in a nice way and offer the best of your products, discounts, relevant data…

- Use scarcity and exclusivity, that will push people towards your site.

You don’t need to go through alone

You are looking for growth, use partners. You can write as a guest on a famous blogging platform or write a joint article with some influencer in your field. Use cross recommendations platforms or organize a contest and invite members from other platforms to vote... Possibilities are infinite and it will allow you to create a flow of users from other related platforms to yours.

Give something in exchange

People like free presents, so why don’t you arrange a deal? It’s as simple as offering a guide, infographic, webinar or presentation with relevant data related to you in exchange for some email or subscription. Referral programs are also booming lately.

It is part of a funnel, try to make them access your website with an attractive offer, say the guide. But note it, quality content is a must to go, growth hacking is everywhere and you must stand out to be the “chosen one”.

This was the case of Paypal. In the year 2000, they decided to give an incentive of 20$ for every new sign up, reporting them a revenue increase of 400% from spring to summer in that same year. They changed the strategy and lowered the reward later on. Sounds as they grew exponentially enough, right?

Social Media: a more complex theme

Last but not least, in a digitally connected world, Social Media will help you through this process. You can use the channels to connect feedback, to discover new market trends, to build a near and active relationship with your followers, to get new emails for marketing purposes, or even to build partnerships.

With more than 3 billion users connected to Social Networks, the analysis becomes more complex, so let’s leave it for a new article, shall we?

The summary: Follow the funnel

In the end, the process of Growth Hacking implies following the marketing/sales funnel. We can divide it generally into three parts. The first one will aim to get visitors, so be visible and attractive, do not abridge your users' target range, use ads or paid campaigns if necessary.

Your second aspiration will be to activate the users. Which means to welcome them, for example, with the present we talked about. Give them a nice and easy experience when they have the first contact with your product/ service. In this step, you need to use a visual approach because after all, reading texts is boring, right?

Finally, retention is a must. You want users/clients to stay. Be smart and creative, offer exactly what users demand and look for scalable tactics: everybody has a niche for growth, believe me. The goal at the end of the funnel is to have the less possible abandonment.

Every year new guides like BAMF for Growth Hacking update themselves, as we said it is a dynamic process with no end. What do you think about this practice? Share with us any Growth Hack from the list you use: hello@start-up.house.