It’s the new King of Silicon Valley despite not wearing a crown, and is becoming the trendy new profession within online businesses despite his youth.
And even though it’s only been around for six years, companies such as Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Dropbox and Airbnb have already started to bet heavily on achieving excellent results.
The reason is very simple:
it’s essential for boosting your business’ growth and to top it all off its not free, but almost 😉
We’re telling you about Growth Hacking, a new phenomenon that in the past couple of years has been spreading like wildfire and becoming one of the main options for startups which want to acquire new clients and retain the already existing ones.
There are those who define Growth Hacking professionals, Growth Hackers, as growth pirates, others speak of them as magicians of new technologies and others who call them creators or masters of online growth.
Be what it is, if you have a business and want it to grow, then you need to incorporate Growth Hacking into your business (and being realistic, who doesn’t want their business to grow with investing little costs?).
If at this point you feel just a little curious and asking yourself what exactly does this Growth Hacking consist of then you’re in luck because next I’ll tell you what this new concept is that is breaking all the models and what are the 7 strategies a good Business Hacker should incorporate to increase a business’ growth– and yes, of course we are also going to tell you how you can apply them-. Will you continue with us?
Growth Hacking, or how to take advantage of online resources so your business grows
Have you ever invited a friend to use Dropbox only to be able to get the extra space? Welcome to Growth Hacking!
This is it; with actions as easy as this you can rapidly increase the noticeable volume of users, revenues and impacts on your business. And the best thing is: you can do it with the minimum cost and sources possible and achieve better results that, for example, inserting hundreds of banners on different web pages.
What exactly is Growth Hacking and what does a Growth Hacker do?
We could define it as a hybrid between web development and an expert in digital marketing that additionally combines analytics, creativity, marketing techniques, product improvement, curiosity and social metrics. All this with the objective of making a startup’s number of users grow, increasing sales and gaining presence in the market.
The fact is that there are more and more people who are defining it as marketing of the XXI century. But, where exactly does it come from?
The concept of Growth Hacking was born July 26th 2010 when Sean Ellis – who additionally was the first person in charge of the growth of Dropbox- used the term for the first time in an article titled “Find a Growth Hacker four your Startup”.
Ellis defines the Growth Hacker profile as “a person whose true north is growth”, and the fact is that from its first appearance the term hasn’t stopped being used, rather the complete opposite: the concept itself is also growing.
Each decision, strategy, tactic and initiative that Growth Hacking takes is directly related with growth. This is its only objective and main focus.
From small changes in the purchasing button to some simple adjustments in emails sent for A/B tests on social networks or changing the format of images; Growth Hacking mixed implementing, testing and experimenting experience with creativity and data to improve the conversions.
How to start implementing Growth Hacking in your business and what techniques can you start to use to grow your company?
The truth is that the only limits to Growth Hacking are where creativity ends, but below we’ll show you 7 Growth Hacking techniques that will boost the growth of your business.
7 Growth Hacking techniques that you wish you would’ve known before
1. Use referral programs
This is most commonly known as “refer a friend” and its ooperation is very simple. Basically
consists of offering clients some type of compensation, benefit or discount when they recommend the company to some friends and these friends continue in registering on the platform.
This is one of the most effective, simple and frequently used techniques for acquiring new clients and retaining already existing ones.
A good example of this is Dropbox, that through its growth strategy opted to offer free storage space on the platform for each invitation users’ friends accepted.
As a detail, thanks to this Growth Hacking technique, Dropbox went from 100,000 users to 4 million in only 15 months. Surprised? Wait til you try it 😉 The truth is that more and more companies are implementing this technique with huge results.
2. Surprise clients
Who doesn’t like to receive gifts and feel special?
As a brand you can also make your clients feel special, and in spite of this technique being one of the least used it’s also one of the easiest to implement – and therefore, always works!-.
It consists in offering users more than they hoped for without asking for anything in return: from a post-sale call for knowing what they thought of the product to a company gift or giving them an extra service they didn’t sign up for.
You’re client will not only feel appreciated but it’s also more likely if you give something without asking anything in return it will end up being posted on social networks which will help you gain brand visibility, reputation and a good image.
A company that implements this technique very well is Hawkers, a Spanish company founded by four young people in 2013 that by implementing this and other Growth Hacking techniques sold 1.6 million sunglasses in only two years.
3. Make shortages your best weapon
What would you do if you wanted to reserve a plane ticket and the website informs you that there are only four available seats left? Most likely, if you have a set destination and dates, you complete your reservation in fear of losing your spot.
This consists of psychological and persuasive techniques based on urgency sales, increasing used by companies like TicketMaster, Groupon and Booking.
This is added to the sale of a product of service advising that few units or places are available and at the same time informing that other users can preempt the purchase with the end result of pushing for that transaction to be completed before the product runs out.
For example, if right now you place your hand in your pocket and notice that you have the money for a really nice vacation in Colombia – always dreaming of going- you can always go to Booking to reserve a hotel but you better hurry… normally there are few rooms and you can’t go without one!
4. Take advantage of integration with social networks
If you have to register on a page to be able to use a certain service, most likely you do it if the site allows you to register with Facebook, Twitter or whatever else social network in place of having to fill out everythiiiing from zero – something that, for sure, is annoying and we’ve had to do it hundreds of times- .
This Growth Hacking Technique is based precisely on this:
by simplifying the process of joining a certain website and benefiting from the social network’s data base through which the user registered.
More and more brands and companies are supporting incorporating this system and expediting registration or login by using social networks.
Without getting too far off topic, one of our objectives on Postcron is saving time of the users which use our platform to program their publications on social networks, for this same reason we offer the possibility of registering through Facebook, Twitter or Google+.
5. Give them a little taste with free trials
The freemium vs. premium model is used in more and more sectors, and it’s true that it gives good results.
It consists in offering paid products or services but gives users the possibility to try it for free for a set amount of time– hence the freemium- so that later they’ll want to continue with the premium format once the limited time use is up.
One of the best known examples is Spotify, but more and more brands that support this online strategy like in the case of Prezi, a professional presentation online application that can be used without prior installation.
Although the most economical plan costs only 10 dollars, Prezi offers the possibility of trying it for free for 14 days as you can see in the following image.
6. Design magnets to attract clients
Imagine that you need a guide to create your marketing plan and you find it on the Internet. It’s free, but in return it asks for your email address. Do you accept? The majority does, and you should know that this is a great Growth Hacking technique.
You benefit from the content, they are left with your information and automatically you are in the company’s database accepting to maintain future communications unless you feel overrun with it.
Mr. Wonderful, for example, a graphic design study which sends positive messages daily on networks and sells their product through the Internet, use it quite frequently permitting on many occasion the downloading of images, backgrounds and other multimedia resources to improve your brand image and satisfy users.
7. Exprime el poder de los concursos Use the power of contests
If you implement this tactic well, not only will your company grow but it will be in a manner that you could never have imagined.
This is launching a contest or raffling a product that is attractive to the community, with the condition that in order to participate it’s necessary to generate interaction with the brand which is giving a “like” on Facebook, a RT on Twitter or a Follow on Instagram.
To create contests and promotions you can use SocialTools.me, where in less than 5 minutes you can publish your sweepstakes on Facebook without having to design, program or invest money and do all of this while you increase interaction with your fans.
And you’ll also achieve current factor, better than better.
This is what the well known brand, Ron Barceló, recently did when they took advantage of a very popular event in some areas of Spain (la “Feria de Abril”) to raffle their products and increase the number of followers.
So, what do you think about this 7 strategies on Growth Hacking?
Now that you know a Little more about this revolutionary concept designed to increase your business’ growth, what’s your opinion? Are you going to start betting on Growth Hacking? We would love to know your opinion!
And of course, don’t hestitate in sharing this article with all the people you think it would interest. 🙂