What is Growth Hacking?

Growth hacking is so misunderstood. Is it marketing in disguise? Is it a buzz phrase used to increase salaries? Is it the future of internet

products? Let’s start at the beginning...

The short history of the term

The phrase “growth hacker” was coined by Sean Ellis in 2010. He felt the need to coin a new phrase he said that it stemmed from his frustration when hiring replacements for himself.

Sean asked for marketers. He got marketers. So Sean changed what he asked for. The title of his watershed blog post was “Find a Growth Hacker for Your Startup” and the idea was born.

So what is it then?

• A growth hacker is not a replacement for a marketer. A growth hacker is not better than marketer. A growth hacker is just different than a marketer. To use the most succinct definition from Sean’s post, “A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth."• What is Growth Hack Funnel?

Acquisition > How do users find you Activation > Do users have a great experience Retention > Do users come back Revenue > How do you make money Referral > Do users tell each others • What does a growth hacker do?

It is all about running tests & experiments on each of these funnel levels to understand the user behaviour and help increase these numbers

What does it look like in practise

• Study case: AirbnbAirbnb leveraged Craigslist, a platform with millions of users looking for accommodations, to increase their user base substantially. When you are filling out the form to list your bedroom on Airbnb they give you the option to also post the listing to Craigslist, so that it will show up there also, creating inbound links for you and for Airbnb as a platform.

Craigslist didn’t offer an easy way for other companies (like Airbnb) to post to their service. There wasn’t a technological solution that AirBNB could implement easily, Instead they reverse engineer how Craiglist’s forms work, and then make their product compatible.

Break GOALS it into smaller, achievable, results

Plan, Execute, Optimize, Repeat

• WRITE DOWN YOUR THEORY• PUT YOUR PLAN INTO ACTION• DO NOT GET DISCORAGED BY THE INITIAL RESULTS• OPTIMIZE THE EXPERIMENT• REPEAT

Actionable Growth Hacking tactics

1. Find the AHA! MomentGet to your users to reach this moment as fast as possibleIt is the moment that your user understand your product and buy it

2. Look alike photosUse photos who look like your target audience Bonus tip: Make the person’s eyes look at your CTA

3. Tell them WHY?Explain to your users what & why they are doing certain actions

4. Forced viralityForce users to share/invite others at some point in the process

5. Influencer outreachList down all influencers and their outlet reach like bloggers/vloggers/reportersWrite a post & reach out to an influencer for whom the content is relevant