They are a group of top notch marketers who focus on just one thing - growth. They are able to quadruple the user base of a brand new company overnight. They are the near mythical 'growth hackers'.
Sean Ellis coined the term 'Growth Hacker' in his blog post way back in 2010. Here’s how he defined them:
A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth. Everything they do is scrutinized by its potential impact on scalable growth.
Growth hacking strategies vary depending on industry type and company size. Some techniques are time-tested and battle-hardened, so you can apply them in almost every case.
Here are some of our favorite growth hacks with examples of companies that used them to make it big. If you can replicate even one, you just might boost your business and attract more customers and sales.
Increase your revenue with these growth hacking strategies
These growth hacking techniques heavily rely on your online platform and even though they work best for SaaS and software companies, they can be tweaked to fit any business that has an online presence.
Aim for social proof
Create content that will bring value to the community and get people talking about you. Help them by sharing your advice and valuable content free on social media.
People tend to mistrust companies, preferring rather to put faith in their peers. So if you create enough engagement, you will get mentioned on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and your social proof will skyrocket. People will trust you by extension and your business will benefit from it.
Leverage influencers
Regardless of business type, there are people in every industry who have a large following and can impact buying decisions. These people are able to influence the behavior of others and getting them to talk about your business on social media can be highly beneficial. However, it can also be detrimental, so be warned! For example, a single negative remark from the marketing guru, Neil Patel, about a start-up marketing company can seriously damage its bottom line. If he devotes a whole paragraph to how bad their service is, they may as well shut up shop immediately.
So, it’s important to stay on influencers’ good side. Become a part of their online community and be an active member – build relationships. After a while, you can ask for their expert opinion and incorporate their answers into a piece of content you’re going to distribute far and wide.
If it's a great success, drop the influencer a line and let them know that you would be delighted if they could share it with their community. Make sure it’s something good – high-profile people won’t be keen to be associated with fluffy marketing materials.
Engineer in reverse
To get ahead of the curve you must be aware of what your competitors are doing. Growing is often a hit-and-miss game – you have to flop a couple of times before you do it right. By keeping an eye on your competitors you can learn from their mistakes, adapt their ideas, and come up with better ones.
You can also learn from their experiments with new types of content and social media channels. Find out if their new creative team is bringing in more customers or if their brand revamp was successful. When you know the answers to these kind of questions, you can easily shape up your own strategy.
Build a loyal community
A loyal community of customers will always be your best source of the most committed advocates. Good word spreads like wildfire but bad word of mouth can cripple you. You can double, triple or even quadruple your reach if you succeed in turning regular customers into evangelists.
Marketing SaaS companies such as Moz and Kissmetrics have done a great job at this. They provided industry professionals with a platform on which they can discuss their challenges. To return the favor, those same professionals bring in new customers with their recommendations on a daily basis.
Introduce exclusivity
Everyone loves exclusive company and events. There is nothing like the element of exclusivity to ignite a burning desire in people to be a part of something. Loyalty programs, memberships, exclusive deals and access – all these can help grow your business. Build a strong base with great content available to all, then start introducing the exclusive bits one by one. As people begin to take notice, they may just start "fighting over" the limited spaces in your hand-picked circle.
Ello, an online social platform that is completely ad-free, built its success on the element of exclusivity. People can only join if they are invited by an existing member (which was the Facebook system in the early days too).
And if all other techniques fail....
Fake it until you make it
This strategy advocates projecting a skewed representation of your company to the public. In essence, it suggests to faking it until you actually make it.
PayPal did this by making people think it was the preferred method of payment on eBay – eventually, it became just that. Lyft paid drivers to sit around, faking to be busy so that users would get an impression that everyone is using Lyft’s services.
Your projections can become the truth if enough people start to believe in them. But don't take this as encouragement to deceive your customers. If your product or service is up to the standard - you will end up exactly where you want to be.
These growth marketing strategies are designed to help you expand your business and your user base as quickly as possible. These are our favorite ones, but you may know more of them. Let us know in the comment section below!
