In 2013, Nathan Chan launched Foundr, a digital magazine for startup entrepreneurs. The magazine floundered at first, but in 2014, he decided to dig into a full-fledged marketing campaign on Instagram. Within 10 months, he had 300,000 followers. Today, Chan has a multi-million-dollar business.
This is a prime example of growth hacking – putting into place promotional and marketing strategies that will bring about rapid results and growth, often with as little expense as possible.
So, just what are these strategies and techniques that growth hackers are using? And could you benefit from implementing them? This primer has been put together to answer these two questions.
How Growth Hacking Different from Normal Marketing?
Normal marketing campaigns and strategies generally involve several long-term objectives – brand spread, for example – and the results are gained over time. Marketers understand the need to be slow and steady and to have patience. Not so with growth hacking. This approach is to come up with an experimental strategy, hit it hard and fast, look for short-term results, and move on to another strategy if it does not result in sales and profit very quickly.
Tactics and Strategies Used by Growth Hackers
The following list of tactics comprises those that have been successful for others:
- Focus on a single social media platform. Once you know where your customers hang out on social media, focus on just one platform and inundate that platform with posts. There’s a lot of research out there on the bests days and times for posting. Look at it, but don’t let it control what you do. Nathan Chan didn’t. He focused solely on Instagram and posted as much as possible every single day, throughout the day. He was a “new kid on the block” but he overpowered. People kept coming back because they wanted to see what the next post would be.
- Pour on the Incentives. Give any visitors or followers plenty of motivation to give you their email addresses or to share your content with their tribes. Give something away free or a great discount if they will do what you ask – like and comment on a post, share that post on their social media accounts, etc. These are called lead magnets, and they work to grow a base of potential customers.
- Run Contests. ModCloth, a female retail clothier, has mastered this growth hack. They feature new clothing items on their website and social media accounts and ask their customers to give a catchy name to the item. They even let their followers vote on the entries. The winner gets the item free. A variation on this is to run a contest with several prizes for the first, second, and third place winners, for example. The more chances people have to win, the more motivated they are to participate. And your entry rules can include their sharing with their communities or coughing up their email address for future contact.
- Get Creative with a Marketing Video. This is one that takes some effort and will work if you can put together the right script and you know you audience. Dollar Shave Club was once a “new kid” but knew that it had a winning value to give – a subscription service for disposable razors so that its potential customers would never have to worry about running out of razors again. The explainer video cost about $2500 to produce, but it went viral because it was so creatively done and had just the type of humor that its target audience would love. The video was launched in March, 2012 and got 26 million views within a few days. If you can accomplish even half of this feat, you will be “on the map.” Check out that video here.
- Pull on the “heart strings.” This hack is as old as time, but it works. If you can appeal to consumers’ better selves and their need to feel that they are doing good for a larger cause, you have a great growth hack. Toms Shoes gives away a free pair of shoes to a needy kid for every pair purchased. And its website and social media platforms are filled with visuals of kids getting those shoes. What started as a small startup quickly became a multi-million-dollar corporation and has now expanded into several other international charitable programs in over 70 countries. People want to see and hear about Toms successes in providing shoes, eyewear, clean water, prenatal care, etc. Its new slogan “stand for Tomorrow” resonates and is a key point made in getting visitors/users to give their email addresses.
- Provide an Exit Intent. The above visual from Toms Shoes is an exit intent. When visitors are ready to leave your site, craft an incentive for them to say a minute longer and take advantage of something. In exchange, they provide their email address, giving you a means to contact them in the future. Toms focuses on a great discount but also the incentive of “joining the movement” by “standing for tomorrow.”
- Don’t Ever Discount Email. There is research showing that for every $1 spent on emails, there is a $44 dollar return. Hackers understand the importance of emails and will spend time coming up with segmenting and personalizing emails as well as coming up with amazing subject lines that a recipient cannot ignore. Fortunately, there are tools to help with all of this to make email campaigns efficient and fast, taking far less time than in the past:
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Use Constant Contact for a comprehensive email service – segmentation, automatic sending, and full analytics.
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Use CoSchedule for creation of amazing subject lines. Even if you come up with your own, they have an analyzer tool that will give you an analysis of its potential effectiveness.
Find What Works for You
These are seven growth hacks that have worked for a variety of businesses, from startups to large enterprises. They are easy and fast to put into place, which, of course, is the point of growth hacking. Try these out – see what brings the best results!