The human race history is an interesting one. The growth and revolution that occurred had a tremendous influence. It’s the total of that process of growth hacking and evolution that ushered us into the present world.
Humanity started with a different cluster of races that turned into a community. Then turned from a community into society. We now know it as a global village. Through all this time, one of the things that have grown and evolved with humanity is our business activities.
Any startup or business needs to survive in a world where there is a lot of digital globalization. Customer retention is much more important than before.
Traditional methods meant that business owners had to do very little to bring in customers. Now, we run adverts to get their attention and rolling out new product and services.
But things have changed with the content and data-driven marketing strategy which is now known as growth hacking.
Make no mistake, do not let the hacking part of it put you off. Don’t think there is a short cut or a way you can maneuver things to improve your business revenue easily.
The whole process of growth is very rigorous with deep thinking. Not just studying the customer’s needs and wants but also studying the trend, forecasting what could be next. In fact, with growth hacking, you have to work with various departments of the organization.
Growth hacking is the method of testing and carrying out marketing and other relevant strategies. It will enhance the immediate growth of a startup company. The main aim of this is to focus on a particular strategy that will get more customers. Also, keep them while using a low-cost strategy.
Growth Hacking and Marketing
The traditional marketing strategy focuses on doing a lot of analysis, research, and planning before it is implemented. Growth hacking focuses on testing a single plan/hypothesis and sees if it works or not.
Whichever way it goes, this is documented and a new growth method is tried again. It is very important to note that the immediate goal of growth hacking is to help a startup achieve fast market growth. This is done by getting more customers within a short period of time.
The word growth hacking originated from Sean Ellis in 2010. The founder has said that it is all about taking decisions on time with least cost. Therefore, a growth marketer is someone who Sean Ellis has described as “a person whose true north is growth.”
Growth Hacking Techniques
Growth hacking is not a replacement for the inbound type of marketing strategy that is already in place. Even though it seems like the two strategies are rivals.
What growth hacking is ignoring the process of traditional marketing. Instead, it uses a method that can be tested, tracked and scalable at the same time.
In fact, in an organization, the CMO marketing method can still be operational with a growing team in the startup. Eventually, these strategies can be used by CMO’s to advance their operations as well. Below are some of the basic techniques used:
- Product Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Advertising
Any of these techniques can be used to ensure the rapid growth of a startup. There are free growth marketing courses available on the internet that you can take.
The Growth Hacking Marketing Funnel
While you put to use the techniques mentioned above to rapidly increase the growth of your startup. Here is the journey that customers take while they are interacting with all the techniques put in place to help your startup grow.
Awareness
The first thing to do is to create awareness, people need to know you and also know what you do. You have to explore different kinds of tactics to make you visible and noticeable in the market.
Look at your competitors, if you have any.
Acquisition
Then after creating awareness, the next step in the funneling process is to acquire customers. Before you can do any form of business you need to have a customer base.
You need to get customers and this can be achieved by using different strategies. Combine advertisement, product marketing, and content marketing. This involves blogging and using social media.
Conversion
After you have sourced customers, you need them to be repeat business. They need to come back to you time and time again.
Usually, these customers get converted when they have an interest in your product and services. For example, if you operate a website platform where you offer web design tutorials, they might just be regular visitors to your blog. Some of them get converted by registering on your website to get emails.
Engagement
Acquire customers and successfully get some of them to become registered users. You need to keep them engaged with your product and services otherwise you lose them.
At least you need them to be engaged with you before they will pay for your product and services. Educate them with what you have to offer.
Why are you the best? Why should they buy from you and not your competitor?
Revenue
Then you need to have your customers that are registered users to upgrade from using your free product. Get them to become paying registered users. As the number of your paying registered users increase, so will your revenue.
You can improve your revenue by making sure that your product and services are of great value. Also explore other revenue optimization options.
Sell a service to your customers that they can’t live without. When the time comes to upgrade from free to paid, they won’t hesitate, providing the cost is correct.
Retention
You need to have customers that return for the need for your product and services after their first experience. If this does not happen, you either have a one-time business model, or you are not doing something right.
In customer management relationships, the value of an existing customer is worth more than a new customer.
Take care of your customers, consider an aftersales service.
Referral
When you have a loyal existing customer, they generally tend to recommend or talk about you to their friends and family.
Word of mouth is huge in many industries.
Obviously for this to be achieved you have to motivate them. They will tell people about your product and services.
Consider ‘refer a friend’ discounts.
Constant Improvement of Product and Service
Human beings tend to get bored when things are done the same way over and over again. To make sure that your customers keep coming to you, you need to be creative. Also, you need to be innovative. And explore different means of making your customers buy more.
Cross-sell and upgrade existing customers to your newer products.
How to Carry out a Growth Hacking Experiment
The first thing you need to do is carry out a marketing audit, do a review of your present marketing strategies. This will help you know what you are doing wrong and also open your eyes to the opportunities around.
Then you need to set SMART goals. Setting goals is an important growth driving strategy that helps to keep you focussed.
Outline your possible options available. Gather your growth hacking team together. Come up with guesses. Do an analysis of each guess to select the ones that you intend to test.
You can now proceed to experiment with each of the hypotheses your team has outlined. Ensure that the experimenting period is short and you track results.
Document the whole process and share the outcome of each experiment with your team. Both the ones that were successful and the ones that did not do well enough.
CMO’s Advanced Guide to 10Xing Operations
In this section, we will explore some of the tactics that CMO’s use. This is to improve their operations and get more customers.
Value Customers Feedback
The dynamics of business have changed from when customers were not able to give feedback online. Feedback about the product and services that they are getting. The internet has now empowered consumers with so many options.
So, outlive the competition and remain relevant. Ask for your customers’ feedback will help you know what your clients want and what they don’t want.
Be Solution Oriented
Another thing you can do to 10X your operations, ensure that your startup offers solutions that will solve real-world problems. Put yourself in the position of your customers and see things from their perspective and the problems they want to solve.
Learn from Your Competitors
Unless of course, your startup company is doing what has never been done before. If you are a startup that offers solutions that some organizations do already. It is important to learn from them and not see them as a threat.
It is important that you take a cue from the successful ones. Do some of the things they are doing without neglecting your own ingenuity.
Take Advantage of Social Media
One of the best ways you can really get more customers is to have an active social media account. You will retain customers through social media. The truth is that you need to hype a startup company very well.
To be successful at this you need to take full advantage of the social media channels. You highlight your presence on the market and let customers know what you do and how you do it better.
Be Open Minded to New Trends
We live in an age where new trends come up almost every day. One of the things that smart growth hacking marketers do is leverage this trend and use it to the advantage of their start-up brand.
Having a rigid mind towards trends will likely be to your disadvantage. Be open-minded, examine each trend and see the one that you can work with while leaving the others behind.
Use Growth Tools
Another strategy you can use to improve your operations is by using growth hacking tools. Using growth tools helps to cut costs compared to when a paid advertisement is used.
There are a lot of free growth hacking tools that you can use to improve your business. Visit this link to see the arrays of growth tools available to you.
Reward Loyal Customers
One of the best marketing strategies you can also use is to make loyal customers. They keep coming to you by giving out incentives to them.
Think about it this way, one loyal customer has the potential to bring in at least 2 to 5 new customers. Now rewarding these loyal customers will motivate them to continue to do business with you and to also keep referring you.
Coupons and loyalty cards work well.
Way Forward
To remain relevant in the business community, it is very important you continue to explore all the possible means of rapid growth.
This rapid growth is needed to ensure that you have a customer base that you can work with. To achieve this feat, use growth hacking.
Take advantage of the growth hacking marketing funnel. This is to sustain and maintain the already achieved successes you are enjoying. And also while acquiring new customers.
Have a growth hacking team in your startup company. This ensures that the growth process continues, to reach more clients and bring in more revenue.
To know how other organizations have applied this principle, you can read more here.
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