Do you know what that is growth hacking? Sean Ellis came up with the phrase and definition of “growth hacking” in 2010 while trying to write a new job description. As a consultant, he assisted several startups (including Dropbox) in achieving rapid development. However, anytime he left a startup to seek other opportunities, he had a difficult time finding a replacement. He needed someone to be in control of the startup's growth. Each time, he read through hundreds of applications, all of which outlined a position for marketers. However, pure marketers are incapable of carrying out this task. Modern software goods, as well as their delivery, are vastly different from conventional items.    

Marketers felt compelled to think about budgets, costs, conversions, and so on. A growth hacker is unconcerned about any of these things. Sean, in his own words, was searching for “someone whose true north is progress.”. Growth is the sole statistic that a growth hacker is concerned with because it is the make-or-break metric for companies (either they expand quickly enough or they die). An engineer may become a growth hacker in the same way that a marketer can. What important is that they keep their attention on the task at hand. Because of the startup mentality, they frequently have to employ analytical, low-cost, creative, and inventive techniques to rapidly increase their company's client base.

We have put together the information for your further understanding of growth hacking and top strategies to utilize growth hacking for your business in this Overview and Top 26 Growth Hacking Strategies You Can Get Started to Boost Conversions in 2021 article right here.

Below is some of the perfect examples of businesses that went from low traction to scaling thanks to growth hacks. You should be aware that there is no such thing as a flawless formula in growth hacking, rather, it’s simply a never-ending cycle of trying and learning. But still, let’s take look at how today's fastest-growing companies drive breakout success. Dropbox - This company, today worth more than ten billion dollars, began like any other, as a tiny startup with a meager marketing budget. Despite this, they developed the most successful referral program ever without spending any money on advertising. 

Hotmail, one of the first major free web-based e-mail companies, discovered that advertising was too expensive. Instead, long before the phrase was established in 2010, they devised one of the very first growth hacks, which catapulted their sign-up rates virtually for free.

Instagram is the epitome of what growth hackers refer to as product-market fit (or PMF). It's not precisely a hack, but it's necessary for success. They made their offer at the right moment, at the right place, and under the right conditions. The aspirations and requirements of the market were perfectly aligned; it's a wonderful scenario!

What is Growth Hacking?

The use of resource-light and cost-effective digital marketing strategies to help build and keep an active user base, sell products, and get visibility is known as growth hacking. Consider 'hacking' in terms of life hacks - those small shortcuts that make your life simpler – rather than malicious malware that may destroy your computer and your life. Growth hacking is similar to marketing in that its ultimate goal is customer acquisition or encouraging more people to consume a specific product or service. However, because to its beginnings in the start-up environment, it depends largely on techniques that do not entail spending enormous sums that larger firms have access to. Typically, growth hacking combines marketing, optimization, and development know-how to execute automated marketing on a shoestring budget. For example, automatic notice emails, easy sign-up forms or sign-up-driven homepages, or simplifying onboarding for new clients.

Growth hacking has the ability to generate exponential growth while also making a lasting impression on an audience. Tactics may not have to be repeatable, but they do have the potential to establish a brand's history for years to come. Companies that embrace growth hacking will be able to create quantifiable objectives with a high likelihood of success, perfect goods via continual testing, gain a more complete grasp of their data, and build better overall brands.

Growth hacking is closely associated with AARRR, an acronym for a set of five user-behavior metrics that product-led growth businesses can track to increase product marketing and streamline product management across the customer lifecycle: acquisition, activation, retention, referral, and revenue. Grasping the AARRR Framework should be the very first step in how to growth hack.

• Acquisition 

During the acquisition stage, you should be asking yourself, “How can I get potential consumers to find me?”

Acquisition refers to how individuals find you and eventually become clients. Growth hackers utilize a variety of methods to gain consumers, including social networking platforms, websites, online advertising, and so on. Using various types of mass media, you may reach out to millions of individuals all over the world. Non-digital means of communication, on the other hand, may be utilized to pique people's curiosity. If you believe there are more successful offline methods of contacting your target consumers, such as conventional forms of media, include them in your plan.

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• Activation 

You should be asking at the Activation stage, “How can I give a nice enough experience for my potential customers?”

This stage is all about delivering the “Aha!” moment to your visitor. This is generally the point at which consumers realize some of the value that your product or service has to offer. To entice them to take the next step, you must first determine whether they had a positive experience on your website, how they arrived at your site (through social media, email, etc.), and what they are searching for. The creation of consumer personas and data analytics are important in this case. Concentrate on writing compelling and convincing text that will entice readers to take the next step. This includes using appropriate language and tone to connect with your audience, as well as beautiful imagery that catches their attention at first look. Tracking the customer journey is critical for gathering data that may help you learn more about your consumers and connect more effectively.

When a registered user becomes a qualified lead, they are activated. At this stage, you must determine whether the precise circumstances required for that individual to become a customer are there. Converting a qualified lead to a client needs certain methods that vary depending on your business or product, among other factors. B2C vs. B2B, services vs. physical goods, and so on. For example, if you are launching an app, an app download can qualify as an activation.

• Retention 

During the Retention stage, you should be asking yourself, “How can I keep potential consumers returning to me?”

This stage focuses on converting new users into repeat customers. How can a consumer stay subscribed to your product or service if they have already done so? If they don't, this is considered churn. In Retention, your aim should be to keep the churn rate lower than the client acquisition rate. Otherwise, progress will be impossible to attain. For starters, retaining a current client is far less expensive than gaining a new one. At the start of the funnel, you were attempting to raise awareness using channels such as Facebook advertisements, Google ads, influencers, content marketing, and so on. And, as you are aware, none of these channels are free. You should have developed communication channels in your own properties by the Retention stage. These mediums often include your potential consumers' email addresses or Facebook Messenger. And these channels are pretty inexpensive!

Remember to stay in touch with your audience. Continue to demonstrate how your product or service is beneficial to them and relevant to their life.

Other methods of retaining consumers include directly connecting with them via platforms such as email or phone alerts. It's crucial to remember that 90 percent of first-time website visitors do not make a purchase. They're only looking at items or comparing prices with different websites. So, how can you entice them to make a purchase? Growth hackers frequently employ retargeting advertising and email marketing campaigns to stay top of mind with frequent website visitors and those who add to cart but do not complete transactions.

• Revenue 

During the Revenue stage, you should be thinking to yourself, “How can I convert potential consumers into paying customers?” 

This is the actual money issue. Literally. Aside from vanity metrics, this stage is dedicated to calculating the number of paying clients and the amount of money you generate. The next stage is to persuade your consumer to do something that will create income for your company. This might occur through a variety of means. Aside from vanity metrics, this stage is dedicated to calculating the number of paying clients and the amount of money you generate. Some of the choices for websites include monthly payment plans, annual memberships, and even free trials that lead to a purchase.
Another way for increasing revenue is upselling. Brands such as Apple are well-known for intentionally upselling their products and services in a way that isn't 'pushy,' but is regarded as necessary by customers. Consider AppleCare: everyone who buys an iPhone will almost definitely purchase some sort of Applecare assistance for their Apple gadget, which comes at an additional expense. This enhances the device's profitability for the firm. However, in order for this step to be successful, you must first ensure that your target consumer understands your value offer. Furthermore, you must have expressed your USPs in a way that persuades your target consumer.

• Referrals 

You should be asking at the Referral stage, “How can I encourage potential consumers to talk about me in their circles?” How can a client become an Evangelist for me? Surely, if “you are amazing,” people will want others to know it as well. But does this stage have to come to an end because of your overwhelming awesomeness? Certainly not.

Referral marketing may become its own campaign. Whether it's a friend-referral leaderboard giveaway or spreading the news during your startup's debut, every referral activity is more likely to occur if you promote it. As an example, you may select to launch your own campaign from a variety of various referral programs. A successful type of referral ad is a “double loop” referral, which implies that 1) the recommender gets rewarded and 2) the suggested user benefits as well.

UberEats is an example of this, since it provides coupons to both users and new referrals. Dropbox, one of the most well-known referral schemes, gives out 500MB of cloud storage every time a user refers someone. Referrals help you to increase your client base rapidly through word of mouth. Referrals, on the other hand, only work if your acquisition, activation, and retention are all functioning properly.

What is a growth hacker? 

A growth hacker is someone who employs innovative, low-cost techniques to assist organizations in acquiring and retaining consumers. Growth hackers are sometimes referred to as growth marketers, although they are not just marketers. A growth hacker can be anybody involved in the development of a product or service, including product managers and engineers.

Growth hackers are obsessive, inquisitive, and analytical, they are primarily concerned with corporate expansion methods. They generate hypotheses, prioritize them, and put them to the test in order to find new growth methods. They study and test to determine what works.

The Keys to Growth Hacking Success

1. Achieving the growth mindset

A growth mindset is a way of life in which a person feels that their talents, intelligence, and abilities may be further improved. People with a growth mindset seek for opportunities to develop new talents and improve their present ones.

Take the time to recognize, think on, and accept all of your failures. Recognizing your opportunities for development is the first step in cultivating a growth mindset. Sweeping your flaws under the rug will only impede your capacity to succeed. Dispelling a negative view of a task is an important part of building a development mindset. Accept obstacles and see them as valuable learning opportunities that you would not have otherwise. People with a growth mindset are aware that once one objective is completed, they have another lined up to pursue. Create specific, attainable objectives based on your passion and purpose. And make sure you allow yourself enough time to completely overcome them.

2. Building a growth team

The everyday operations of a growth team are heavily influenced by the organization and industry in which they work. In general, once you've identified a market for your product, you'll seek the assistance of a growth team to utilize data analysis, qualitative research, and experimentation to discover what prevents people from acquiring and utilizing your product and how your firm can remove those frictions.

In the end, agility is one of the most crucial characteristics of a successful development firm. The greatest growth teams employ real-time data to execute experimentation cycles as rapidly as possible, making tweaks and revisions that lead more people to the main product experience. It's a never-ending cycle of hypothesizing, prioritizing, experimenting, and assessing (and doing it all over again).

Companies that are looking to expand understand that adding additional features will not result in an increase in user numbers. Growth teams, when paired with rigorous procedures, business expertise, and goal-based prioritizing, can be a critical contribution to a company's long-term success.

3. Measurement, how and what?

What tendencies do you see when you study the sources of your company's monthly transaction closings? According to industry research, customer and staff referrals are the most significant element in many lead-to-deal conversions, trailing only website and social media referrals. Armed with knowledge of your primary lead sources, increase the amount of energy and effort you put into them, such as free trials and purchase bonuses.

Perhaps your company is active on Facebook and Twitter, and you're experimenting with webinars and growing an email list. For all of the time and money you put into establishing a following across various channels, you need to know the outcomes each channel produces month after month. Knowing which digital channels are best interacting with your consumers allows you to direct where your company's digital marketing efforts are focused to optimize reach.

Calls-to-action are an excellent indicator of the content themes that are most essential to your consumers. People don't click on blog headlines, tweets, PPC advertising, or email subject lines that don't pique their attention. Whether your content answers a prospect's urgent problem or piques their semi-dormant “someday” desire or need, knowing which themes generate action might be your hidden weapon.

How satisfied are your clients with your product or service? In this day and age of rapid gratification and social sharing, your consumers' whole experience with your brand—from the language and tone of your email to the ease of returns or the speed with which you respond on Twitter—all merge into a unified brand impression. You should make it your job to find out if your users are satisfied, since you can bet they'll tell someone.

Data showing how many customers have been acquired and how many have dropped off over a certain period of time—often referred to as churn—can be useful. Do you see any tendencies that are influenced by seasons, markets, or cultural developments year after year? If you can identify highs and lows, you may be able to alter forecasts and respond faster with plan B. A substantial increase in customer lost, for example, might indicate a large product issue, a poor customer experience, or another issue that requires further investigation.

4. How to Listen to Your Market

Customers have high expectations of the businesses they choose to do business with. And, as it turns out, it only takes one instance of unmet expectations for customers to switch providers in search of what they believe to be a better offer.

If you aren't currently spying on your market, start where you feel most at ease. Set up Google Alerts first if email is your strong suit. If you spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, join a few new groups. If Twitter and Facebook are your go-to platforms, sign up for Hootsuite. As one tool becomes a natural part of your routine, add another to broaden your scene.

5. The Elusive Product-Market Fit 

Product-market fit refers to a situation in which a company's target consumers buy, use, and tell others about the company's firm in sufficient numbers to sustain the product's growth and profitability. Your team cannot afford to focus on other critical strategic objectives such as growth or upselling current customers until you have confirmed that enough consumers are prepared to pay for the product. In reality, those activities may be unproductive if you haven't first decided that your product has a large enough market to maintain itself and produce a profit.

Product-market fit is critical since you don't know if what you're developing addresses a real problem that a large enough market has until that moment. Without a clear understanding of this, you may continue to invest in something that is not financially viable. Worse, you might waste money by employing too soon or spending in sales and marketing that will not provide a return (premature scaling is often cited as one of the main reasons startups fail).

6. Use the right Traction Channels

All Growth Hacking tactics rely on traction. It is the most essential measure to consider while marketing. Simply said, traction is your indicator that something is truly working. In this sense, simply creating a fantastic product will not lead to success. You must also locate your traction channels. Remember the 50/50 rule: Spend 50% of your time developing your product and 50% of your time selling it.
When experimenting with marketing channels, traction signals can appear in a variety of ways. For example, if you've been running search engine advertisements for several months and haven't produced a single sale, this channel isn't working for you: it doesn't provide traction. As a result, you should take a step back and reconsider how you're using this channel. If, on the other hand, you've just ran your first social media ad and it resulted in an instant sale, you should follow up on it. If your data says “no,” don't do it.

7. The Key to Optimisation

The process of finding and applying innovative techniques to make a business more efficient and cost effective is known as business optimization. While the ultimate goal is to strive for a continuous improvement, the first step is a business optimization project. As part of the first stage, the company must explicitly define objectives and provide precise aims and goals. This is an important stage in the optimization modeling process.

The hiring of a skilled team to oversee the process, as well as executive support, is critical. It is preferable to establish an internal team that understands the business rather than depending on outside experts to execute the task for a variety of reasons. This does not prevent the employment of a third-party business optimization analyst to guide the process and offer important feedback.

A business optimization framework that describes the program and sets specific targets, particularly those affecting workers, is beneficial. It is critical not to overlook the possible impact on employees and to take efforts to alleviate concerns and generate buy-in. Most optimization procedures begin with what is known as low-hanging fruit, or improvements that are simple to discover and implement, because early successes inspire confidence. Following that, further in-depth study is necessary to discover and solve more complex optimization issues.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are a range of helpful techniques in various growth hacking examples. While these growth tactics and tools worked really well for some businesses, you should investigate what may work well for yours. Google's approach for Gmail was a flop for Google+ because the two businesses were so unlike that it was a fantastic strategy for one but only mediocre for the other.

The bottom line is to seek inspiration, think creatively, and you might just be able to design your own growth hacks that will help build a unicorn in the future. Don't be scared to apply them to your business, and prepare to be wowed by the results. If you take the time to understand your business, how people discover it, and what will make them a long-term client, you will have all of the elements for growth hacking. Did you enjoy this post? Do you have any growth hacking success stories to share or want to hear our stories of helping businesses achieve amazing growth hack results? Don’t hesitate leave your endorsement or question down below in the comment section.

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Rose Helen

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Rose Helen is a highly accomplished Ecommerce Project Consultant with a strong background in managing and guiding successful e-commerce projects. With her exceptional expertise and strategic mindset, she helps businesses achieve their goals in the digital marketplace.
With years of experience, Rose Helen possesses an in-depth understanding of e-commerce platforms, technologies, and best practices. She works closely with clients to analyze their needs, develop tailored strategies, and execute effective project plans that drive growth and success.
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