What is Growth Hacking?
Growth Hacking is a phrase that encompasses all growth-oriented techniques. It’s most commonly associated with early-stage businesses that need to develop rapidly on a limited budget.
Growth hacking techniques aim to get as many users or customers as possible for the least amount of money. This term was invented by the owner of growthhackers.com, Sean Ellis.
Growth hacking is one of the biggest buzzwords as of 2021, yep a lot of businesses are starting to hear about this idea of growth hacking more than ever before.
Growth hacking is referred to by consultants, marketers, and entrepreneurs as the best way to expand a firm, and some even refer to it as the “future of marketing,” but what does it truly mean?
A growth hacker, according to Florian Mettetal, “finds a plan within the parameters of a scalable and repeatable approach for growth, inspired by data and driven by product.” The goals of growth hacking are founded on marketing, but they are driven by product instincts.
A growth hacker is someone who works at the crossroads of data, product, and marketing. A growth hacker is a member of the product team who uses a technical vocabulary to put his or her ideas into action. Every growth hacker’s ultimate goal is to create a self-sustaining marketing engine that reaches millions of people on its own; nevertheless, growth hacking is a process, not a hidden book of ideas. Growth methods aren’t easily transferable from one product to the next. Growth is never a one-time event. It never happens in a single day. It’s a way of thinking about how you handle situations.
How does one start Growth Hacking?
First and foremost, build your product and test it to ensure that people desire it and would pay for it. The need or desire for a product and the willingness to buy it is one of the first stages in the growth hacking process.
Gathering this data will assist you in finding buyer profiles, allowing you to tailor your growth marketing strategies towards them.
Updating your products regularly, as well as gathering customer feedback is an important process of the growth hacking process. Simultaneously, advertise your product to encourage further growth and track the success of your efforts. For efficient growth hacking, A/B testing and other conversion optimization strategies are essential.
Hotmail’s success with growth hacking
Hotmail was one of the first free webmail providers (there was once a point you would have to actually pay for the mail!)
Even though this was a billion-dollar idea, the founders, Abeer Bhatia and Jack Smith had to ask the question, “How will you make it go viral?”. Initially, they thought of traditional marketing methods; billboards and radio commercials, but that was a highly costly strategy for a free product. T
Tim Draper came up with the genius idea of placing “Put ‘P.S. I love you. Get your free email at Hotmail’ at the bottom of every email, sent by a Hotmail user”
This idea had revolutionised emails as we knew it.
That same year, 12 million people adopted Yahoo as their primary email provider!
Conclusion!
Finally, I’d like to offer you some advice. Practice! Growth hacking is a skill set that can be acquired, but reading about it vs practising it is a very different experience. Find a little project to work on and get started. Besides, there’s no better way to learn than through your own experiences; your personal victories and losses. This is the first in a series of articles aimed at pointing you in the right direction and giving you a head start on becoming a rock star marketer. If you have any further queries, please leave a comment below. I’d be delighted to talk with you and provide you with all of the information you want.