"Hacking" conjures to mind the image of someone dressed in all black, furiously typing away at a keyboard. But hacking isn't all negative or relegated to cheesy '90s flicks - it can also be a tool for exponential growth. That's where growth hacking comes in.
The original term "growth hacking" was coined by startup advisor Sean Ellis after helping several high-profile internet companies grow massively in a short period of time. In Sean's own words, a growth hacker is "a person whose true north is growth."
While marketing and growth go hand-in-hand, marketers by default are not growth hackers. Marketers still consider budgets, expenses, conversions, etc before making a decision. A growth hacker and growth hacking only cares about the make-or-break metric of growth. That is their true focus.
A famous example of old school growth hacking was McDonald's strategy of placing restaurants on every interstate. A modern example is Uber's reliance on app technology instead of traditional taxi fares, both to cut their own costs and to serve a shifting demographic's needs.
There are five major pillars to growth hacking, as defined by HubSpot:
This may seem like a daunting process, but the end result of exponential growth can be worth the time investment.
One way to test out growth hacking for yourself is by using Growth-Driven Design. Growth-Driven Design (GDD) is a new approach to web design that uses growth hacking principles to continuously update your website.
In a Growth-Driven Design approach, websites are continuously updated every month, with substantive changes to keep your users engaged and moving through the buyer’s journey. It’s a three-step, ongoing process:
This strategy halts stagnation because you are constantly updating your website to meet your goals.
In this way, you can experiment with growth hacking. One idea is to try different messaging on your website as part of GDD. You can use your homepage as a playing ground to experiment with different messages served up to different viewers, to see which one results in the most action.
Growth hacking is still relatively new in the business world, but it's already gotten traction and been used for wild success. If your business is plateauing, it's time to try some growth hacks in 2020.
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The first step to any digital marketing or Growth-Driven Design project is setting the right SMART goals. SMART is a methodology that helps you establish concrete and achievable goals. SMART stands for: Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant and Time Bound. Use our FREE template to set your SMART goals and grow your marketing.
Download Our FREE SMART Goals Template
BizzyWeb is a Minneapolis-based digital marketing and web design agency that helps companies get the high-quality leads they need to grow and thrive. Our tactics include inbound marketing, SEO, advertising, web design, content creation and sales automation. We are an accredited HubSpot Platinum Partner and we offer full-service HubSpot onboarding, enablement and strategy for new and current users.