Growth hacking is a creative approach to acquire and retain customers on a lean budget. It originated from startups that had limited resources and needed to grow quickly.
Besides tapping into one’s creativity and smarts, growth hacking also typically depends on pulling from and analyzing data, as well as testing different tactics to see what’s working and what isn’t.
The customer’s journey is also at the center of growth hacking. Visualizing their journey and having a deep understanding of how they’ll interact with your business every step of the way is key to providing value and improving their experiences.
Azlo University
A guide to growth hacking
This lesson covers:
- What growth hacking is
- How growth hacking differs from traditional marketing
- How you can get started with growth hacking
- Best practices for growth hacking
Section 1: What is growth hacking?
Section 1 Quiz: What is growth hacking?
Section 1 Quiz: What is growth hacking?
Section 1 Quiz: What is growth hacking?
Section 1 Quiz: What is growth hacking?
Section 2: How growth hacking differs from traditional marketing
Traditional marketing typically:
- Focuses on sales and bringing customers to your products or services
- Looks at the customer journey after a product is sold
- Taps into research
- Sells a product after it’s created
- Centers on reach, brand awareness, and capturing the attention of customers
Growth hacking typically:
- Looks at the big picture
- Prioritizes the growth of the company as a whole
- Is data-driven
- Revolves around rapid, frequent experiments to spark innovation and novel solutions
- Focuses on the entire customer journey—starting with the moment a customer learns about a business
Section 2 Quiz:
How growth hacking differs from traditional marketing
Section 2 Quiz: How growth hacking differs from traditional marketing
Section 2 Quiz: How growth hacking differs from traditional marketing
Section 2 Quiz: How growth hacking differs from traditional marketing
Section 3: How you can get started with growth hacking
Growth hacking can take on many forms, including building a strong social media presence, customer loyalty programs, content marketing, and client outreach.
Set goals. Zero in on what you want to achieve, how you can achieve it, and a time frame in which you want to reach those goals. Typically, growth hackers use SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals because they are concrete and have a deadline.
Think about your product and service and your target customer: What are their preferences and lifestyles? What problems will your product or service help solve?
While it’s wise to have your product or service ready to go before you get serious about growth hacking, you can create buzz before you launch a product with email lists and social posts that tease out the release date.
Build a social media platform and populate it with content. Think of ways to build your community and engage them.
Look into partnering with other brands and companies to help boost your efforts. Which companies can you collaborate with to elevate your brand and scale your company’s growth more rapidly? Tap into your existing network and reach out and make new connections.
Launch a blog and create an editorial calendar. Start off with a few initial search engine optimized (SEO) blog posts that can help bring in organic traffic. Blogs can also help you further build brand awareness and strengthen your company’s messaging.
Know what key performance indicators are important to focus on for the success of your efforts. Test campaigns and efforts against one another to see which one is more effective. From your results, come up with the next series of steps.
Tip: You may want to start out with some basic tools, techniques, and technology, including Later, Buffer, and Hootsuite to schedule and post on social media; Google Analytics to track traffic and pull data from your business’s website; and Moz and SEMrush for free or low-cost SEO tools.
Section 3 Quiz: How you can get started with growth hacking
Section 3 Quiz: How you can get started with growth hacking
Section 3 Quiz: How you can get started with growth hacking
Section 4: Best practices for your growth hack
The best growth hacking strategy for your business depends on your resources. Tackle growth based on your resources and circumstances so that you can be more efficient.
Use strategies that align with your business. For example, if you offer products, you can host a giveaway. If part of your goal is to become a thought leader, then you can guest post. Or if you want your company to rank for certain search terms, then you can create your own blog content.
Start with a strategy that you can easily implement, analyze, scale, and pivot from as needed. No one growth hacking strategy can accomplish everything you need. It’s important to try a wide swath of tactics.
Pay attention to what your customers are telling you. Without your customers, your business cannot survive and thrive. In many ways, building a relationship with them is your greatest asset. Ask for feedback, and respond to their changing needs and wishes.
Section 4 Quiz: Best practices for your growth hack
Section 4 Quiz: Best practices for your growth hack
Section 4 Quiz: Best practices for your growth hack
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