I recently conducted a survey asking my LinkedIn contacts what they’d type in to Google if they were looking for a business like ours. Many said “acquisition marketing” or “recruitment marketing” and a few said “growth hacking” – the message was pretty consistent – you want a business like ours to get you more leads and sales.
What is Growth Hacking?
Growth Hacking is all about creating laser focus on marketing activity to promote sales growth. Yes, the phrase sounds a bit dodgy, but the methodology is sound and proven. There is word in the marketing industry that this activity will be (somewhat boringly) renamed “Growth Marketing”.
Growth Hacking is all about conducting rapid experimentation across the consumer journey to identify areas which, if improved, will accelerate sales growth.
The basis is founded on using multi-discipline teams so that the people affected by the outcome are involved, and every aspect of implementation is considered throughout the project process.
Why does it work?
- Aligns what you want to achieve with what your customers want
- Aims at simplifying the customer journey by removing complexity
- Breaks down the barriers between Product & Marketing teams
- Leverages rapid experimentation & learning, so you can be bold in what you try
- Decisions are data driven & based on highly focused key results criteria
- Doesn’t let the great get in the way of the good
How do I create a Growth Hacking team?
Like any project methodology, cross-functional working is critical in achieving smooth results and for obtaining buy-in from the team members who will be affected by the change. There are 5 roles in a Growth Hacking Team to fill (NB 1 person can hold >1 role) :
|
Product Manager (Initiative Roadmap) |
Engineer (Performs technical implementation) |
Marketer (Represents the customer by channel) |
Analyst (Provides data insights)
|
Designer (Visual integrity)
|
What’s the process?
- Define your Goals
Where are you now?
What are you trying to achieve? How does this align with what customers say they want?
How will you measure success? (Limited, Specific, Measurable & Time bound stretch KPI targets)
- Create Ideas
Brainstorm with the team
Assess each idea against what customers say they want and your goals
For each idea, assess I.C.E – Impact, Confidence & Ease with which it can be implemented
Prioritise which ideas to test first – focus on the ideas requiring the smallest input which will achieve the largest result
- Test ideas
Fail falling forward and proudly – failure will happen along the journey. The critical thing is to learn from what happened
Gather quantitative and qualitative data
Beware fatigue – very little works forever, so try new things
- Analyse data
Look at your metrics daily
Seek out correlations
Know where you are in the lifecycle stage, for example :
| Stage |
Possible KPIs |
|
| A | Acquisition | Conversions / CPA |
| A | Activation | Time spent / AOV / LTV |
| R | Retention | Churn rate / Recapture rate |
| R | Referral | Programme growth rate |
| R | Revenue | Monthly revenue |
Be prepared to stop the trial if it’s not working
- Optimize and Repeat
Evaluate if you can improve
Assess if improvements give a bigger win than moving onto the next idea
Growth Strategy on a page
It’s always helpful for a project team to have a one pager that defines their common goal.
Here is an example of a template which you could use :
Summary
If you want to find out more, check out Brad Batesole’s Growth Hacking Foundations Course in LinkedIn Learning. Alternatively, we’d love to hear from you.
At WSI Digital Advisors, we have a toolbox of Digital Marketing techniques in our armoury to help you grow. We have plenty of hands on experience of running cross functional projects, so are confidently able to support you in building your overall Digital Strategy, or in helping you to focus in on Rapid Growth Tactics like Growth Hacking.
