Growth hacking

Growth hacking; the big tech company trend that isn’t just for big tech companies

Growth hackers; every big tech company is recruiting them. The latest trend taking Silicon Valley by storm is really just a buzzword for being smart in the way you think about growing your business through simple, low cost, tactical steps that produce fast and effective returns.

 

So let’s break that down; fast, effective, tactical, smart, low cost… nothing preventing any business getting involved, right? Right!

 

So what is a ‘growth hacker’? Basically it’s a fancy term for a business savvy individual that is part marketer, part analyst, part self starter. You had to be all of these things in order to set yourself up in business in the first place, so there is nothing to fear, you already have growth hacker potential.

 

But what does a growth hacker do? By analysing customer data, the return on any marketing activity, their sales figures and by having a general awareness of ‘what works’ and ‘what doesn’t’ they test different approaches with the aim of rapidly acquiring customers. They make pragmatic decisions on where to focus the company’s time, effort and most importantly, limited investment and in many instances delivering returns without any significant marketing spend. They iterate their approach based on their learnings and constantly evolve the focus for getting the best new customers.

 

Let’s take some simple ‘growth hacking’ examples you can quickly implement without much technical understanding…

 

  1. Do you send emails to potential customers? A growth hacker would simply test two versions of an email and see which one generated the most opens, click throughs and responses. Going forward, simply use the version that performed the best.
  1. Which of your customers make you the most money? A growth hacker would create a simple spreadsheet of all their customers, the products they buy, how much they spend and how they found out about their company. Then ask yourself, how did you acquire those top customers in the first place? Going forward, focus your investment and energy on those profitable activities.
  1. Do you tweet or share content on Facebook or Twitter? A growth hacker would monitor which tweets or posts generate the most interest by way of shares, likes or new followers. Simply do more of the stuff that generates the most positive actions from users.

Simple enough, right? Whilst there are many more complex and involved approaches to taking a growth hacking approach to growing your business, often the simplest ideas are the best. Here you have some immediate examples of how you can think differently about acquiring new customers and get your business to grow rapidly.

 

You can find more information on growth hacking tactics by visiting https://growthhackers.com

Or check out Quick Sprout’s excellent guide to growth hacking http://www.quicksprout.com/the-definitive-guide-to-growth-hacking/