Few resources, a lot of analysis, creativity and above all, the priority of growth and making a brand a trend… Welcome to Growth Hacking!
This is a term that we constantly hear, but we don’t have a clear definition of what is being done and/or the person who executes this work, so we leave it to the expertise of Neil Patel:
A Growth Hacker is not a marketer’s replacement, nor is it better than him. A Growth Hacker is the person whose growth is north.
However, Growth Hacking seeks, with the minimum possible expense and effort, to increase the volume of users, the income or impact of the company quickly and notoriously. And most importantly, this discipline focuses on “creativity” being the pillar of the strategy.
So, you should always keep in mind what is the cost of getting users. It cannot be anyone and we cannot be invasive. We always have to put the user in the center and meet their needs.
Now that we have explained what Growth Hacking is, we would like to tell you what a specialist in this technique is like.
Growth Hacker Profile
The Growth Hacker is an analytical person, who observes everything around him. That is the key to understanding whether the strategy works or not, being aware of the metrics and the key objective to achieve success, knowing when to execute things.
Creativity is the key to a Growth Hacker, since we talk about new formulas that make communities grow. Therefore, a brand’s target market, if everyone does the same, causes the growth field to become limited.
It is also multidisciplinary; You should know everything a little and the more the better. You have to be curious and keep up to date with the online and offline world, investigate all sectors to capture new and better ideas.
Tools for Growth Hacking
Finally, we share with you some tools that also apply to other digital marketing techniques but also work to apply them in strategies for Growth Hacking.
- Creativity (which although is not a tool as such, is an essential pillar). If you make a viral content, your project will secure a large number of users. But this is not always easy, and apart from obtaining visits, it is important to monetize them.
- Adroll: It is based on the technique of remarketing to increase customers exponentially. According to the authors of this web application, you can get $ 10 profit for every dollar invested. How does it work? A campaign with images and texts is created and Adroll enlists you in the advertising of Facebook, Google, Yahoo, etc., so that when a client visits our page but does not buy, our advertising will automatically appear in the following portals where you navigate.
- Optimizely: This is a tool that will allow us to test the different combinations of colors, buttons, shapes, positions, etc. of all the elements of our website. This tool is widely used among Growth Hacker and online marketing professionals in general, to do the A/B tests and see with which web format is achieved a higher conversion rate.
This is why, after knowing the profile and the tools you need to enter the world of growth, we now show you two clear examples where it has worked.
Growth Hacking Examples
- PayPal: Referrals
When PayPal was a complete stranger and nobody trusted their system, their main objective was to win users. It didn’t matter so much that they used the platform or not, but the simple fact that there were a sufficient number of people to generate brand and trust.
What did they do? They offered $ 10 to each user if they could refer a new one. That is, for each user invited to PayPal, the user earned $ 10.
Which was the result? Millions of users in just days. The platform even had to stop the promotion because it was more successful than expected.
And thanks to this action, today PayPal is one of the reference payment systems in the world. A brilliant example of Growth Hacking.
- Airbnb: No Records
It began in 2007 when Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, unable to pay their apartment rent, decided to rent the space and, at the same time, build their own website where they could offer it.
They received their first three tenants, which lead them to receive applications by mail from all around the world. And that’s where it all started.
They spent many hours of brainstorming, listened to user feedback and gave them solutions by offering them what they were looking for. Gradually, this allowed the web to grow to what we know today.
The success of the Airbnb strategy was to use Craiglist, a directory of online word ads.
They created a script that was able to insert records into an external website. In this way, when someone advertised an accommodation on Airbnb, they could automatically publish it directly on Craiglist to multiply the link.
Craiglist did not currently have an API for public use, and Airbnb engineers found gaps in the code and some legal loopholes that allowed it to be carried out, although it is no longer possible.
Airbnb used its product as a distribution tool and used Craiglist because they knew that its target audience was there. They were the first to use that platform and that is why they were so successful.
Why doing this? An action like the one carried out by Airbnb, could catapult your startup taking advantage of external platform traffic.
In the end, a Growth Hacker is a person capable of creating content that is viralized on the internet, who knows how to program, who is fluent in English and who, above all, makes companies achieve exponential growth.
However, if you are just getting started and have not yet implemented Growth Hacking, don’t worry! You can use these tips and tools and get the most out of your projects and you will get a change in the growth of it despite not having a large budget.
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