If the term “growth hacking” is new to you, it’s time to become familiar with it.
Growth hacking has taken the marketing world by storm in the last few years. Marketers are searching for non-traditional strategies that will offer them a higher yield of new users without breaking their budgets— growth hackers simply take this mindset to a whole new level. Let’s look at the ways that growth hacking can enhance your marketing strategy.
Growth Hacking 101
To get a truly in-depth understanding of growth hacking, we recommend that you check out this very detailed illustrated guide from Quick Sprout. If you’re just looking for a basic understanding, here’s a quick overview.
When you undertake growth hacking, you experiment with several different marketing channels to find a fast way to increase your brand’s conversions. Typically, these marketing channels refer to the non-traditional, like social media, online, or mobile — that keeps your costs down. It can be accomplished through old-fashioned media such as print, radio, or television, but that will get expensive fast.
Regardless of the medium you choose, the conversions are to be achieved through a hyper-targeted campaign. Your focus is producing big numbers––whether those numbers are email open rates, social media engagement, video or content sharing online, likes, or time spent on your site––through both conventional and unconventional methods.
Incorporating Growth Hacking Into Your Strategy
While growth hacking is particularly big for startups, that doesn’t mean that your established organization can’t use it to grow in a new direction. Keep in mind, however, that growth hacking is not an exact science. It’s all about experimentation, not careful strategy.
So, what can you do to get up to speed with this very effective marketing tactic? Here are a couple of ways that you can get started.
Concentrate on Content — You’ve probably heard this before, but content plays a large part in truly effective marketing. To incorporate growth hacking techniques into your content, prepare to get a little edgier than the average blog post. Don’t be afraid to use videos, SlideShare presentations, or lengthy guides or ebooks to help differentiate you from the mass of available content. Additionally, be sure to put a little extra thought into your titles. They need to be catchy, and short. According to the Content Marketing Institute, headlines with 8 words had a 21% higher average click through rate than longer titles.
Harvest Emails — Email is still the most effective method of growing leads, despite the growing popularity of methods such as social media. Research by Mailmunch suggests that 64% of companies rate email marketing as the most successful marketing channel.
You know that purchasing your email list isn’t the best option, so how do you grow your email list ethically? Here are a few ways to jump start your email list:
- Create an online contest that requires an email address for eligibility
- Ensure that your emails contain top-notch content that’s worthy of subscription and forwarding to friends or coworkers
- Make a free tool, ebook, or worksheet that’s available only through an email signup.
Offer to Guest Post on Prominent Sites — It comes back to quality content—again. But this time, you’re offering your excellent article to post on a reputable site within your niche that has a lot of high-quality traffic of its own. Ideally, visitors to this site will be impressed by what you have to offer, and follow the link to your site to learn more.
Promote Your Brand — Growth hacking celebrates thinking outside the box, and this is one area in which you can really let your creativity flow. If you can come up with imaginative and interesting ways to engage with potential customers, they’ll definitely remember you. Again, growth hacking is all about experimentation. You might have to try a few different ideas before you hit on the one that really clicks with the audience you want to attract.
Selling online is complicated, and growth hacking is just one way to help you achieve success. For more information, download our guide on What You Need To Know About Selling Online.