{"id":21457,"date":"2016-05-30T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2016-05-30T11:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/?p=21457"},"modified":"2016-05-25T16:16:51","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T15:16:51","slug":"learn-growth-hacking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/managing-digital-marketing\/marketing-innovation\/learn-growth-hacking\/","title":{"rendered":"What can established businesses learn from Growth Hacking?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Does your business need a Head of Growth Hacking?<\/h2>\n

Have you noticed the emergence of the term \u201cgrowth hacking\u201d for describing a marketing approach. I did and dismissed it as a fad most relevant for SaaS (Software as a Service) \/ single product startup businesses. But recently, I\u2019ve noticed some new job descriptions in this area which prompted me to take another look. In particular, I noticed that The Guardian is currently advertising for a Head of Growth Hacking<\/a>...<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Guardian is committed to a \u201cdigital-first\u201d strategy and in order to support this, we are seeking a Head of Growth Hacking to manage a virtual, cross functional team focused on GNM\u2019s growth hacking plan. <\/strong><\/strong>This role is responsible for finding innovative ways to accelerate adoption, use, and retention to drive up audiences to the Guardian\u2019s digital product portfolio<\/strong><\/em>\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are other jobs available too in UK-based startups such as Gumtree, MyBuilder and VZaar and many more in the US\u2026<\/p>\n

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This seems to be a trend! So it prompted me to learn a bit more, and this is my take. If you\u2019re not a fan of buzzwords which describe a concept that isn\u2019t new, you may prefer to read: Is Growth Hacking nonsense?<\/a><\/p>\n

What is Growth Hacking?<\/h3>\n

To answer this, it\u2019s best to turn to Andrew Chen who brought Growth Hacking to prominence by asking \u201cIs the Growth Hacker the new VP of Marketing<\/a>\u201d. He describes a Growth Hacker this way:<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowth hackers are a hybrid of marketer and coder, one who looks at the traditional question of \u201cHow do I get customers for my product?\u201d and answers with A\/B tests, landing pages, viral factor, email deliverability, and Open Graph. On top of this, they layer the discipline of direct marketing, with its emphasis on quantitative measurement, scenario modeling via spreadsheets, and a lot of database queries\u201d.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a great definition of Growth Hacking. In my books I define it this way, in the context of the RACE planning framework:<\/p>\n

'A mindset which\u00a0focuses marketing\u00a0activities\u00a0on increasing the scale and profitability of a business through testing and improving techniques for improving the value of audience touchpoints across the customer lifecycle of Reach, Interactions, Conversion and Engagement.'<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think this iceberg from Mattan Griffel<\/a> is a better way of summarising some of the techniques - all should be in the digital marketers toolset already, with analytics and optimisation at the core.<\/p>\n

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So, it\u2019s direct marketing right? And applying digital analytics? Certainly not new\u2026 But if you\u2019ve read the Horror Story that is the Boo.com startup failure<\/a>, you will realise realism can be missing in startups, although that tale is a long time ago now.<\/p>\n

I think the reference to a coder is misleading. This may be true in some cases, but you don\u2019t need to be a developer to be a growth hacker, although you certainly need an agile approach to developing and implementing tests, so devs are needed there. The Guardian role is a more senior role. I do like the word \u201cHack\u201d though; it\u2019s not about hacking systems, but shows a willingness to repeatedly try new approaches to get better results.<\/p>\n

Although the principles won't be new to marketers that doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t learn from them, it\u2019s seems to me, that\u2019s it\u2019s really a mindset that many existing companies could benefit from.<\/p>\n

What can Growth Hacking offer to existing companies?<\/h3>\n

I think Marketing Directors or Product managers won\u2019t find much new in the focus on growth through reaching and engaging prospects and retaining them as active customers\u2026 It\u2019s more the growth hacking approach which is novel. It is already practiced under another label of \u201cconversion rate optimisation\u201d by many companies I\u2019m familiar with who are advanced in applying digital marketing, but certainly not all. The Growth hacking approach is valuable since it expands the scope beyond CRO to look at ongoing user activity and engagement.<\/p>\n

Here's a great example from 37 Signals describing their AB Testing<\/a> for the Highrise service.<\/p>\n

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What else can we learn from Growth Hackers?<\/p>\n