Growth hacking seems to be the current flavor of the month in the business world. Everyone from business owners to marketers and technicians are trying to optimize the growth of their companies and find shortcuts to expedite the growth process.
What is growth hacking?
Despite being immensely popular, only a handful of businesss owners can actually explain what growth hacking means. This is not a coincidence, because growth hacking can cover a variety of business strategies and techniques that only share a common goal: growing the business as quickly as possible.
Growth hacking is an umbrella term for strategies focused on growth. It is used in relation to early-stage startups who need massive growth in a short time on small budgets. The goal of growth hacking strategies is generally to acquire as many users or customers as possible while spending as little as possible.
The popularity of growth hacking has even led to the creation of a new profession called growth hacker. Still, defining this profession is equally hard.
Generally speaking, a growth hacker is a person who uses creative thinking to develop low-cost strategies that help a business increase their revenue, either by acquiring new customers or by increasing the customer lifetime value of the existing customers.
Growth hackers are sometimes called growth marketers, but that term is far from ideal, because a significant portion of growth hackers are not actually marketers – they come from all walks of life. A business executive, product managers and even engineers can take up the position of a growth hacker.
However, there is no doubt that digital marketing and growth hacking are two overlapping areas of business that are linked intrinsically.
A growth hacker focuses on developing innovative strategies that help businesses grow. They rely on creative thinking and rigorous data analysis to find the optimal growth techniques for a specific company.
Why do businesses need growth hacking?
Businesses need growth hacking for the same reason they need marketing departments – to grow more quickly and efficiently. As mentioned earlier, growth hacking is typically incorporated into the marketing department.
In other words, growth hackers analyze the market and the target customers of a business to develop highly specialized business tactics that will result in viral popularity and immense growth in revenue. This way, businesses also increase their brand awareness and position themselves within their specific niche.
Growth hacking implies the use of a variety of marketing strategies, but we will cover that later. Keep reading.
How to implement growth hacking
All effective growth hacking activities are supported by rigorous and structured processes that are rooted in iteration and scalability. Whether your company is a startup organization or a large corporation, the growth hacking process can be incorporated into any marketing and growth strategy. However, you need to make a series of steps to implement growth hacking:
- Perfect your product: Firstly, you need to perfect your product by analyzing your target marketing and improving your product based on carefully collected data. In growth hacking terms, this is called a product-market fit and it’s essential that your product corresponds to the needs of your target audience.
- Set specific and measurable goals: The success of any growth hacking activity depends on defining precise and measurable goals. These goals allow you to focus on specific actions, rather than try to broaden your strategies. This will also allow you to maximize the time you invest into your activities and refine your approach, based on constant market feedback.
- Test your approach: Growth hacking relies on creativity and experimentation. Testing is an essential part of every marketing activity, as it allows you to gauge what works and doesn’t work in practice.
- Analyse your performance: Similar to testing, analytics are an important part of growth hacking and it allows you to track your progress and adjust your approach to better fulfil your goals. Analytics is the basis of optimization. If your website is the primary sales funnel, make sure it’s optimized for high loading speeds.
- Optimize your strategy: Once you have tested and analyzed your approach, you may need to rethink your approach and optimize your strategy. It takes a lot of patience and practice to succeed with growth hacking.
Use tools to automate your growth hacking strategies
Understand that growth hacking takes time. You need time to develop creative tactics that will work for your specific business, as well as test and refine them. It’s not uncommon for a strategy to require several rounds of testing and improvements before it returns significant results.
Don’t give up if you don’t get any noticeable results within a specific time frame. If done correctly, growth hacking can exponentially increase the value of your business.
However, to increase your chances of success, you will need to use the right tools and programs. In fact, if you’re not using any type of business software, you may be losing valuable time by starting at a point that is far below your competition.
For example, a customer relationship manager like Simply CRM can help you collect and store customer data that will allow you to develop and refine your marketing efforts. Naturally, this includes all growth hacking activities you may be contemplating or executing at the moment.
Additionally, Simply CRM can provide you with the tools necessary to set up your objectives and analyze your performance to refine your strategies.
Of course, there are many other technological solutions and software programs that can help, but we recommend that you first try out Simply CRM, especially if you don’t have much experience with business software.
The best growth hacking tips for small business owners
Now that we have covered the basics of growth hacking, we will share some of the best growth hacking tips that small business owners can use to quickly grow their companies. Keep in mind that these tips won’t work equally well for each business – depending on your company and its specifics, these growth hacking tips may be more or less successful.
Create a pre-launch email list
Email marketing remains one of the most effective ways to capture leads.
If you’re only starting your business, focus on compiling a list of people that may be interested in your services. This will allow you to reach your audience, send your messages and create a pre-launch hype.
In addition to that, an email list may even help you acquire customers even before you launch your business. If you plan on using email marketing to grow your business, make sure to use a software solution that integrates with MailChimp and other bulk mailing tools, such as Simply CRM.
Launch on Product Hunt and similar platforms
Each week, people launch dozens of new startups, and platforms like Product Hunt allow new business owners to market their companies and deliver messages to their audiences.
Moreover, Product Hunt allows you to network with other like-minded people who can help you grow your business by providing new ideas and valuable feedback.
Use referral marketing
Referrals from existing customers, friends or family members convert much faster than regular leads. Their cost-per-acquisition is also considerably lower, allowing you to simultaneously reduce costs and increase revenues.
Host and attend community events
Similar to Product Hunt and referral marketing, community events allow new business owners to get in touch with their audience and meet like-minded entrepreneurs.
By making connections and learning about the industry, you will be better positioned to create a highly profitable business. In addition to that, community events can help you find funding and sponsors that will help your business expand into new regions and niches.
Build a social media presence
Social media has become an unavoidable part of every successful marketing operation. Businesses can no longer afford to sit out on the social media opportunities – you simply must set up profiles on all the major social media platforms.
Create a Facebook group where you will engage with your audience, share your photos on Instagram and network with business people on LinkedIn.
By building a social media presence, you will get closer to your customers and acquaint yourself with their needs and desires. Further, this will help you create a better product and develop more effective marketing campaigns.
What’s more, don’t hesitate to partner up with influences to market your product/service to wider audiences. If you decide to go down this route, avoid influencers who do not have at least 50,000 followers, because their reach will likely not be sufficient to create the viral impact that your business wants.
Send gifts and create giveaways
Branded gifts and giveaways that carry your company logo or slogan provide great value for your customer and they are fairly inexpensive and affordable.
Gifts will create a more positive customer experience and raise your brand awareness. It improves the customer’s perception of your company and it helps create a positive word of mouth – at the cost of only a few dollars.
Follow your competition
To become better than your competitors, you must first acquaint yourself with them. You need to analyze their structure and performance, as well as the overall state of your niche market.
Additionally, you cannot simply follow the competition and replicate their strategies. You need to incorporate their strategies to develop a more sophisticated solution that allows your business to outperform the competition. This means you will need a detailed analysis as well as an extensive action plan to execute your strategy.
Final words
There you have it! The best growth hacking tips for small businesses.
Now, remember that business growth is arguably one of the hardest challenges any organization can face in its lifetime. Many niches aren’t used to unique and creative marketing approaches, making it hard for businesses to stand out and forcing them to rely on tried and tested methods.
Keep in mind that growth hacking may take time and don’t expect instant results, especially if your niche isn’t responsive to creative activities. Simply continue trying and refining your strategies until they bring results.
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