Growth hacking

Growth Hacking is a relatively new field in marketing focused on growth, coined by Sean Ellis in 2010, after using it to ignite breakout growth for Dropbox, LogMeIn, Eventbrite & Lookout. It started in relation to early-stage startups who need massive growth within short time on tight budgets, and also reached bigger corporate companies. The goal is to rapidly test ideas that can improve the customer journey, and replicate and scale the ideas that work and modify or abandon the ones that don't before investing a lot of resources. A growth hacking team is made up of marketers, developers, engineers and product managers that specifically focus on building and engaging the user base of a business. Growth hacking is not just a tool for marketers. It can be applied to new product innovation and to the continuous improvement of products as well as to growing an existing customer base. As such, it’s equally useful to everyone from product developers, to engineers, to designers, to salespeople, to managers.Growth hacking is also the answer to the urgent need for speed experienced by all businesses today. Finding growth solutions fast is crucial in today’s ever-more-competitive and rapidly changing business landscape. This need for speed is why a key feature of growth hacking is to experiment at the fastest possible tempo. Speed of initial flatlining is a growth hacking aid for ROI SEO. [1] Yet another way growth hacking gives companies a vital competitive edge is by helping them make good use of the mountains of customer data that today’s new tech tools make it easier than ever to gather.

According to Sean Ellis, founder at GrowthHackers.com, "the process is not, as it’s been misunderstood by some, about discovering one “silver bullet” solution. The press coverage of many of the widely celebrated growth hacks, such as the Dropbox customer referral program and Airbnb’s integration into Craigslist, has encouraged this notion that one great hack is all you need to ignite growth. But while finding such big breakthrough ideas—like Dropbox’s referral program—is absolutely a goal of the process, in truth, most growth is due to an accumulation of small wins. Like compounding interest in a savings account, these gains stack on top of one another to create liftoff. And the best growth teams continue to experiment with improvements even once growth takeoff has been achieved."

The growth hacking professional will run fast paced experiments across the entire customer journey, leveraging acquisition, activation, revenue, retention an referral, to improve a North Star Metric, the one true metric that is used to translate business growth. That can happen by finding new ways to reduce customer acquisition, to build a better first experience, to create new stream or revenue, to get users to return, and to create brand promoters. is particularly prevalent in startups, once product/market-fit is achieved .[2] Growth hacking may focus on lowering cost per customer acquisition, or on long-term sustainability. "The goal of any marketing should be long-term sustainable growth, not just a short-term gain. Growth hacking is about optimization as well as lead generation. Imagine your business is a bucket and your leads are water. You do not want to pour water into a leaky bucket; it is a waste of money. That is why a true growth hacker would care about customer retention."[3]

Those who specialises in growth hacking use various types of marketing and product iterations to rapidly test persuasive copy, email marketing, SEO and viral strategies, among other tools and techniques, with a goal of increasing conversion rates and achieving rapid growth of the user base. Some consider growth hacking[4] a part of the online marketing ecosystem, as in many cases growth hackers are using techniques such as search engine optimization, website analytics, content marketing and A/B testing. On the other hand, not all marketers have all the data and technical skills required by a growth hacker,[5] therefore a separate name for this field is applicable.

Product development is also heavily influenced by the growth hacker mindset. Instead of long development cycles followed by user testing. Growth hackers start user testing with wireframes and sketches; validating ideas at every stage. A growth hacker in a product development role would start user testing in a coffee shop instead of a corporate usability lab.[6]

History

Sean Ellis coined the term "growth hacker" in 2010.[7] In the blog post, he defined a growth hacker as "a person whose true north is growth. Everything they do is scrutinized by its potential impact on scalable growth."[7] Andrew Chen introduced the term to a wider audience in a blog post titled, "Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing"[8] in which he defined the term and used the short term vacation rental platform Airbnb's integration of Craigslist as an example.[9][10] He wrote that growth hackers "are a hybrid of marketer and coder, one who looks at the traditional question of 'How do I get customers for my product?' and answers with A/B tests, landing pages, viral factor, email deliverability, and Open Graph."[11][10] In the book "Growth Hacking", Chad Riddersen and Raymond Fong define a Growth Hacker as "a highly resourceful and creative marketer singularly focused on high leverage growth" [12]

The second annual (2013) "Growth Hackers Conference" was held in San Francisco set up by Gagan Biyani.[13] It featured growth hackers from LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube among others.[13] In 2015, Sean Ellis and Everette Taylor created GrowthHackers - the largest website community dedicated to growth hacking and now host the annual GrowthHackers Conference.

Methods

To combat this lack of money and experience, growth hackers approach marketing with a focus on innovation, scalability, and user connectivity.[14][15] Growth hacking does not, however, separate product design and product effectiveness from marketing.[16][17] Growth hackers build the product's potential growth, including user acquisition, on-boarding, monetization, retention, and virality, into the product itself.[18] Fast Company used Twitter's "Suggested Users List" as example: "This was Twitter's real secret: It built marketing into the product rather than building infrastructure to do a lot of marketing."[19] However growth hacking isn't always free. TechCrunch shared several nearly free growth hacks[20] explaining that growth hacking is effective marketing and not mythical marketing pixie dust. As new tools(SaaS) come out specifically that focus on more advanced forms of Growth Hacking, more and more tools are being offered as free.[21]

The heart of growth hacking is the relentless focus on growth as the only metric that truly matters.[22] Mark Zuckerberg had this mindset while growing Facebook.[23] While the exact methods vary from company to company and from one industry to the next, the common denominator is always growth. Companies that have successfully "growth hacked" usually have a viral loop naturally built into their onboarding process.[24] New customers typically hear about the product or service through their network and by using the product or service, share it with their connections in turn. This loop of awareness, use, and sharing can result in exponential growth for the company.[25]

Growth hacking frames the user acquisition process through the "Pirate Funnel[26]" metaphor (in short, new users flow through a 6-stage funnel - awareness, acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, referral), which got its name from the abbreviation of the first six letters spelling AAARRR. Rapidly optimizing this process is a core goal of growth hacking, since making each stage of the funnel more efficient will increase the number of users in the most advantageous stages of the funnel.[27]

Twitter, Facebook, Dropbox, Pinterest, YouTube, Groupon, Udemy, Instagram and Google are all companies that used and still use growth hacking techniques to build brands and improve profits.[28]

Examples of "Growth Hacks"

Below are the examples of growth hacks and are the most well-known acts of growth hacking. Often people see growth hacking as merely repeating these growth hacks, but one should know that the 'hacks' are only the result of a repeatable growth hacking process,[29] which all growth hackers use a way of working. Below are some of the most famous growth hacking examples:

  • An early example of "growth hacking" was Hotmail's inclusion of "PS I Love You" with a link for others to get the free online mail service.[30] Another example was the offer of more storage by Dropbox to users who referred their friends.[30][31]
  • Online worldwide independent lodging company Airbnb is an example of growth hacking by coupling technology and ingenuity. Airbnb realized they could essentially hack the Craiglist.org scale and tap both into their user base as well as their website by adding automated listing generators from Airbnb with the feature called "Post to Craigslist".[32]

References
  1. http://www.shrinkfit.co.uk/seo-white-hat-best-growth-hacking-black-flatliners.htm
  2. Greetje, den Holder. "Here is What Growth Hacking Is NOT". business2community.com. Business 2 Community. Retrieved 19 May 2016.
  3. Pelt, Mason. "What is growth hacking?". siliconangel.com. SiliconANGLE.com. Retrieved 2015-11-02.
  4. https://neilpatel.com/what-is-growth-hacking/
  5. "Growth Hacking Skills 2019: All Essential Skills For Growth Hackers". Ward van Gasteren. 2019-05-30. Retrieved 2019-06-17.
  6. Pelt, Mason. "Stop overthinking UX and try the coffee shop test". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2016-05-22.
  7. Ellis, Sean (June 26, 2010). "Find a Growth Hacker for Your Startup". Startup-Marketing.com.
  8. Chen, Andrew (2012). "Growth Hacker is the new growth hackers". andrewchen. Retrieved 29 March 2019.
  9. Ginn, Aaron (September 2, 2012). "Defining a Growth Hacker: Three Common Characteristics". TechCrunch.
  10. Chen, Andrew. "Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing". AndrewChen.co.
  11. Holiday, Ryan (December 17, 2012). "Everything is Marketing: How Growth Hackers Redefine the Game". Fast Company.
  12. Riddersen, Chad; Fong, Raymond (1 January 2017). Growth Hacking: Silicon Valley's Best Kept Secret. USA: Lioncrest Publishing. ISBN 978-1619616004.
  13. Griggs, William (May 10, 2013). "6 important lessons from this year's Growth Hacker Conference". Venture Beat.
  14. Ginn, Aaron (October 21, 2012). "Defining a Growth Hacker: Building Growth Into Your Team". TechCrunch.
  15. Ginn, Aaron (October 28, 2012). "Build it and they won't come: How and why growth hacking came to be". The Next Web.
  16. Holiday, Ryan (June 11, 2013). "Here's Some Marketing Advice: Your Product Is Terrible". Medium.com.
  17. Ginn, Aaron (October 20, 2012). "Defining A Growth Hacker: Growth Is Not A Marketing Strategy". TechCrunch.
  18. Jarvis, Chase (February 22, 2013). "From Obscurity to Internet Sensation — How Creatives Can Win the PR Game with Ryan Holiday". ChaseJarvis.com.
  19. Holiday, Ryan (July 8, 2013). "The Secret That Defines Marketing Now". Fast Company.
  20. Pelt, Mason. "3 Nearly Free Growth Hacks". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-05-18.
  21. Taylor-Smith, David. "Growth Hacking tools that the Pros use". www.wizardcreativelabs.com. Retrieved 2016-08-07.
  22. Ellis, Sean. "Sean Ellis On Growth". medium.com. Medium. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
  23. Kagan, Noah. "How My Blog Homepage Redesign Increased Email Signups By 300%". blog.hubspot.com. Hubspot. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
  24. Chen, Andrew. "What's Your Viral Loop? Understanding The Engine Of Adoption". andrewchen.co. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
  25. Ellis, Sean (June 24, 2014). Startup Growth Engines: Case Studies of How Today's Most Successful Startups Unlock Extraordinary Growth. Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
  26. Groot, Ralph de (2020-07-22). "How To Get Web Design Clients Fast - 28 Growth Hacks 🚀". My Codeless Website. Retrieved 2021-01-19.
  27. Kiarash, Mansour. "what is growth hacking".
  28. Ginn, Aaron (December 8, 2012). "Defining A Growth Hacker: Debunking The 6 Most Common Myths About Growth Hacking". TechCrunch.
  29. van Gasteren, Ward (March 12, 2019). "Growth Hacking Process explanation".
  30. Holiday, Ryan. "Don Draper Is Dead: Why Growth Hack Marketing Is Advertising's Last Hope". BetaBeat.
  31. Kehr, Alex (October 13, 2015). Hacking Growth: The Modern Marketing Mindset to Create Fast Growing Companies (First ed.). Wander Press. p. 122. ISBN 1515090019.
  32. Needleman, Sarah. "Growth Hacking' Helps Startups Boost Their Users". The Wall Street Journal.
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