Growth hacking is a marketing strategy that focuses on rapid growth by acquiring and retaining users. It is an approach that uses creativity and experimentation to achieve desired results.
As a strategy, growth hacking is fundamental as it allows businesses to scale quickly and efficiently. By acquiring and retaining users, businesses can grow at a rapid pace without incurring high costs.
There are many different growth hacking strategies, including content repurposing, collaborations and working with influencers. Let’s take a look at the possible growth hacking strategies a business can use.
Most content marketers have a lot of great content that they have curated over a set of time. By repurposing this to meet current marketing needs, businesses can save time and effort whilst expanding the content's reach. For example, transforming a blog post into an infographic will appeal to people who are time-poor and prefer to consume content quickly and efficiently whilst on the go. Avid readers may favour blog posts and guides. However, younger audiences may prefer social video posts due to spending a lot of time on social media.
One benefit of this is increasing search engine optimisation by attracting search traffic on different variations of a theme. It goes without saying that the bigger the audience, the more likely a business is to engage a range of potential customers. Furthermore, this results in increased brand awareness for an organisation and the services and products offered - the business will remain at the forefront of people's minds when they are in the market for its offering.
Community building is a long-term journey and one of the most impactful growth hacking strategies businesses can use. Building a community helps companies foster a relationship with users and get feedback on their products and services. It helps them understand their product's value to the user, who these people are, and how they interact with different aspects of the business.
Building an engaged community around a business's brand or product is key to creating trust in what it offers—and that’s important for making sales and for customer retention. As people become more invested in what a brand is doing, they'll be more likely to recommend it to others. This means that more potential customers come into contact with whatever it is that makes up the core experience of being part of the community.
Using social media to build a community enables businesses to learn from existing and potential customers about what makes their brand great and what could be improved. Answering questions from followers online proves that a business is customer-centric, also giving people a space to share how they are using a product or service. Marketers can leverage existing fans and followers to grow their community by asking people to share their views and even benefit from unsolicited endorsements.
Collaborating with other companies is most beneficial to business growth when partners share a similar audience and are not direct competitors. It is also useful for a business to partner with companies with a sizable audience and are likely to be interested in the product or service they are offering.
Brand collaborations create exposure and enable businesses to attract a broader audience, with this being mutually beneficial to both parties. The more partnerships pursued, the better the chance of business growth through customer attraction.
Organisations partnering up with more recognised brands benefit from their already established and trusting client base now placing their faith in the new brand. An endorsement from a well-known business is likely to increase credibility in the eyes of the user.
Webinars help businesses engage with their target audience, all whilst promoting their brand. Once a webinar is created and circulated amongst a business's audience, it is important to promote the content in the appropriate places, for example, on social media, through email marketing and other channels. Furthermore, webinars are a great way to convey information in a personal way, allowing people to put a face to the name of a brand. Features such as the ability to send replies live during the webinar increase engagement with potential customers and build a good rapport.
Events are a great way to build a brand, get more leads, make more sales and gain more customers. They’re also a great way to engage with a community whilst meeting other businesses and people in the industry. Events are particularly useful for B2B businesses wishing to showcase their product or service through speeches, discussions and trade shows.
In addition, hosting seminars, conferences, exhibits, demonstrations and more can increase brand recognition and therefore help generate leads and promote business growth.
Allowing people to interact with marketing content is likely to engage them for longer whilst helping them remember a business when they are in the market for its specific product or service. \
As well as this, making content interactive for users makes it easier for a business to collect customer data to follow up on potential leads or analyse current marketing techniques. Companies can use these valuable insights to alter their strategies based on what is working and what is not, aiming to suit their consumers' needs better.
Examples include interactive infographics, surveys and polls, quizzes/assessments and calculators. People are drawn to new and creative ideas such as these, often favouring consuming content in an exciting way rather than through a block of written text.
Referral marketing is a quick and easy way for businesses to grow their customer base. Happy customers are more likely to recommend an organisation to their friends and family, potentially resulting in further sales and helping to establish a brand further.
It does not cost anything for a customer to refer a brand to someone they know, and some businesses even offer an incentive to current customers who share the brand through a personalised link. This growth hacking strategy is more cost-effective than others, so is particularly useful for businesses in the early stages of development.
In addition, referred customers often have better retention rates, feeling more loyal to a business that someone they know has personally suggested to them.
Influencers are people who have built up a large following on social media and can therefore have a big impact in driving traffic to a website. In the case of Instagram influencers, this means that they have a large number of followers and that those followers are engaged with the content that they post and share.
Businesses can employ influencers and draw value from the trust that their often large following has in them, converting these people into future customers with little effort.
Although growth hacking strategies can be time-consuming to implement, the positive effect from a business standpoint will surely be noticed. These strategies can profoundly affect business success and offer a huge reward in the long run. To ensure that continual growth is achieved, strategies should be reviewed and re-addressed continuously to determine what is working and what needs to be changed. Every business is unique and should take the time to investigate which methods work best for them. Approaching growth hacking strategies with creativity is key.