Listen to this articleGrowth hacking is gaining mainstream notoriety – how can this concept benefit your business?
The marketing industry has become saturated with specialized vernacular to describe the varied nuances of what we do, as we adapt to compete in a constantly evolving digital climate. The term ‘Growth Hacking’ is a buzz-phrase you may have noticed gaining traction, but this concept is actually refreshingly uncomplicated.
Growth hacking has actually been around since 2010. This marketing practice as someone who’s “true north” is accelerating growth. This specialism is a complementary support to both digital and traditional marketing, often sharing the same metrics, but with only one clear objective in focus.
The techniques used by growth hackers can be the difference between a startup surviving or failing in its first year, and they can also be utilized to take an established business to the next level.
Optimizing Your Foundations
Before growth hacking practices can be implemented, the foundations they will springboard from must be optimized. To put it simply, your product or service must be something consumers really need or want -what problem does it provide the perfect solution to? Getting feedback in this initial stage is of key value in shaping your idea to your target audience and collecting data that will inform decisions further down the funnel.
Growth Hacking Metrics
Growth hacking can be applied to any business and any industry. For example, fast food brands placing outlets next to gas stations on the freeway could be described as growth hacking customer acquisition for a large target demographic. People on journeys get hungry and need an easy and convenient solution to this problem.
At Sports Betting Dime, our funnel for consumer acquisition is providing insight and information to the sports betting fan demographic. This expert advice is the unique solution for bettors that want to make the most informed choice when it comes to making more successful bets. We apply growth hacking techniques to increase brand awareness and conversion rates of more potential users.
The Consumer Journey
The journey of each customer/service user is valuable to the acquisition stage. The conversion process can be measured via tools that analyze website traffic in terms of user behavior, and from a psychological perspective to inform consumer profiling. This information is vital for ‘hacking’ as many eyes to your website as possible.
This leads to consumer experience with your brand -the activation stage. Half the battle is ensuring that the first experience is positive, and this must happen very quickly. Once the consumer is directed to your site via the channels you’ve identified during acquisition, they must be able to understand who you are and what you do within seconds to be converted.
Gamers will be familiar with an example of this concept, the activation formula pioneered by Super Mario Bros. Within the first 30 seconds of playing the first Mario game, the game itself teaches you everything you need to know about playing in entirety, from the direction to go, the actions, landscape, how to score points, and which dangers to avoid -without any dialogue or instruction necessary. The player learns effortlessly as part of the fun, and this fun is instantaneous.
If your activation can be this seamless, you will have successfully growth hacked this stage of the process. Consider how your onboarding process can be specifically targeted towards growth?
Utilizing Your Target Market
After successful activation strategy is implemented, it is vital to retain those consumers. Once your brand has filled that hole in the market, the task is to add further value to bolster the growth. Remember, what you can learn about the consumers you are losing is just as important as the ones you are keeping.
Your consumer demographic is a valuable resource for market research. This feedback can be sourced directly via website prompted or email surveys. But a more organic approach can add more long-term value. Social media is an ideal tool for boosting consumer engagement. Actively building a community from your target audience via groups and followers provides a forum for that audience to interact with your brand. Your pages can be used to build a brand identity that humanizes your business, increasing relatability and loyalty. Customized content and calls to action bring value beyond the products or services you provide by encouraging interaction and the additional benefit of one on one service.
Monetizing Your Brand Culture
Happy consumers are key to referrals -the fourth stage of the growth funnel. Whether it’s the passive marketing gained from your audience social sharing their positive experience, or traditional word of mouth, consumer advocacy is the most advantageous method for growth.
To hack this step, provide incentives. Having a system in place that offers something back for recommendations brings positivity to your audience interactions. Review incentives will encourage this vital behavior and help boost revenue.
Whether your business is transaction based or non-monetary, optimizing your plan for the fifth stage, revenue growth, is important from the start. For this step, working out the ideal ratio between customer acquisition cost (CAC) and the revenue you intend to make is a good practice that will inform the growth hacking techniques you choose to apply.
The goal of every business is to scale up and make money, and as many businesses have discovered, directing resources specifically into growth can be very worthwhile. As a quick job search will show, many companies are recognizing the need for this niche specialty within their marketing divisions -proving that growth hacking is a concept worth investigating.
Aaron Gray Lead Betting Industry Analyst
After coming aboard in 2017 Aaron has been SBD’s betting industry expert and lead researcher. He can educate you on betting philosophy and strategy, with expertise spanning from how to avoid the gambler’s fallacy to hitting the middle and everything in between. Western B.A. ’14, NYU M.A. ’17.
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