Growth hacking

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Growth hacking is a marketing technique that was developed by startups to promote sales and gain awareness with creativity, analytical thinking and the use of social media .

Properties and delineation

It can be seen as part of online marketing , since in most cases the growth hackers use the already established means such as search engine optimization, website analysis or content marketing . Above all, growth hackers want to minimize costs and use innovative alternatives to traditional advertising, such as social media and viral marketing, instead of media switching in electronic or printed media. Growth hacking is mainly used by startups because it enables a start with limited resources that is primarily geared towards growth. Growth hacking techniques are used by companies such as Facebook , Twitter , LinkedIn , Airbnb and Dropbox . Growth hacking alone is not enough to provoke growth in startups and established companies. Rather, work should be done consistently on creating an environment in which the simple planning, execution and measurement of as many growth hacks as possible is possible with as few detours and resistance. This is a huge challenge, especially in established companies.

Concept emergence

Sean Ellis coined the term “growth hacker” in 2010. In the blog post, he defined a growth hacker as “someone who is focused on growth. Everything he does is carefully examined for the potential impact on scalable growth ” . Andrew Chen spread the term further in a blog post entitled "Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing" in which he defined the term and cited the integration of the booking platform Airbnb into the classifieds portal Craigslist as an example. He wrote that growth hackers are "a mix of marketers and programmers who ask, 'Where do I get customers for my product?' responded with tests, landing pages, viral campaigns, email deliverability and open graph. ”In 2012, Aaron Ginn wrote on the online news portal TechCrunch that a growth hacker has a “ mindset of data, creativity and curiosity ” .

In 2013 the second annual “Growth Hackers Conference” took place in San Francisco . It was hosted by Gagan Biyani . Growth hacking representatives from LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube spoke there . By the end of 2013, the concept of growth hacking had already found an echo in the Asian business community. The top source on the topic in the region is Growth Hacking Asia, a website that aims to make Asian startups more successful.

Methods

According to Fast Company , startups have two main problems: 1) they have no money and 2) they don't have a traditional marketing background. In order to compensate for this lack of resources and experience, those responsible for growth hacking approach the topic of marketing from the perspective of innovation, scalability and user loyalty. The concept of growth hacking separates product design, product effectiveness and marketing. The concept envisages integrating possible growth, i.e. customer acquisition, monetization, customer care, expansion of customer relationships and viral forces into the product itself. Fast Company cited Twitter's list of suggestions from other users as an example: "That was Twitter's real secret: They built the marketing into the product itself and didn't build any marketing around the product."

The point of the concept of growth hacking is to concentrate exclusively on company growth and not on any other aspect (such as image or awareness). Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the Facebook platform, probably had exactly this approach. While the exact methodology is different for each company and industry, they all have in common that it is all about growth. New customers have usually heard about the product or service through their network or because others have made them aware of the product or service while they are using the product or service. This cycle of attention, application, and sharing can result in exponential growth for the company.

According to Mares & Weinberg, there are 19 different communication categories that are potentially suitable for growth hacks. Companies are encouraged to brainstorm at least one idea for each category. The most promising ones for a test can then be selected from these ideas with the help of a prioritization method such as “Bulls Eye” or “BRASS”.

Considering the relationship between natural growth, sales, efficiency and costs is essential in this context. The prerequisites for healthy, natural growth are given by avoiding an artificial increase in visibility with rising costs (e.g. through Adwords and traditional advertising), which then have to be passed on to customers. When evaluating or coordinating the tasks in the team, the customer's advantage should always be the focus. Only those who continuously concentrate on the tasks from which thousands of people can benefit will also create the conditions that one day thousands of customers want to enter the store or want to use the offer. What is good is what benefits many people. In view of the limited number of employees, the decisive factor is the high level of focus on the most important tasks that have the strongest cost-benefit promise. Ideally, this promise is passed on to the customer.

Examples

An early example of growth hacking was the inclusion of the "PS I Love You" with a link to a free version of Hotmail . Another example was the offer of additional web space on Dropbox for recommendations. This idea is quite old, but it has a much stronger effect in the digital world. A more recent example is the airbnb platform, which offers private apartments as holiday apartments. At the beginning of the start-up, the company managed to smuggle its offer onto Craigslist, the largest American classifieds market, via an interface. A large number of users saw the offer right from the start.

In addition, Twitter, Facebook, Dropbox, Pinterest , YouTube, Groupon , Udemy and Instagram use growth hacking techniques to build their brands and increase sales.

Trivia

The concept of growth hacking was humorously picked up at Dilbert on July 10, 2014.

In 2014, Paul Graham doubts the usefulness of the concept and the long-term effect of growth hacking in a lecture.

Significance in Germany

The term has been widespread in Germany for around a year and a half. More and more established companies looking for new ways to grow are adopting the methods and ideas of American growth hacking. In the first German-language work on the topic entitled "Growth Hacking with Strategy: How Startups and Companies Accelerate Their Growth", the importance of growth hacking for use in established companies was highlighted for the first time.

literature

  • Sandro Jenny & Tomas Herzberger: Growth Hacking: More growth, more customers, more success. Rheinwerk Verlag, ISBN 978-3836270182
  • André Morys: Conversion Optimization: Practical Methods for More Market Success on the Web. developer.press, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-86802-066-3 .
  • Willi Ibbeken: The fight for attention: How startups win millions of users with growth hacking. Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-00-056015-6 .
  • Hendrik Lennarz: Growth hacking with strategy: How successful startups and companies accelerate their growth with growth hacking. Springer Gabler, ISBN 978-3-658-16230-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d Holiday, Ryan: Everything is Marketing: How Growth Hackers Redefine the Game , Fast Company . 17th December 2012. 
  2. ^ A b c Ginn, Aaron: Defining a Growth Hacker: Three Common Characteristics , TechCrunch . 2nd September 2012. 
  3. ↑ Biyani, Gagan: Explained: The actual difference between growth hacking and marketing . The Next Web. May 5, 2013. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  4. ↑ Hockenson, Lauren: Growth Hacker: A Buzzword Surrounded by Buzzwords . Mashable. May 18, 2013. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  5. ^ Ginn, Aaron: Defining a Growth Hacker: 5 Ways Growth Hackers Changed Marketing , TechCrunch . September 7, 2012. 
  6. ↑ Emerson, Rip: Chamath Palihapitiya On Growth Hacking And How To Create A Sustainable User Acquisition Engine , TechCrunch . January 13, 2013. 
  7. ↑ Lennarz, Hendrik: The Growth Hacking Process . Lennarz Consulting. Retrieved March 21, 2017.
  8. ^ A b Ellis, Sean: Find a Growth Hacker for Your Startup . Startup-Marketing.com. June 26, 2010. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  9. ^ A b Holiday, Ryan: The Secret That Defines Marketing Now , Fast Company . July 8, 2013. Retrieved October 10, 2014. 
  10. ^ A b c Chen, Andrew: Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing . AndrewChen.co. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  11. ↑ Ginn, Aaron: What is a growth hacker? . Aginnt.com. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  12. ↑ a b Griggs, William: 6 important lessons from this year's Growth Hacker Conference . Venture beat. May 10, 2013. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  13. ↑ Growth Hacking Asia ( Memento of the original from February 2, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / growthhackingasia.com
  14. ^ Ginn, Aaron: Defining a Growth Hacker: Building Growth Into Your Team , TechCrunch . October 21, 2012. 
  15. ^ Ginn, Aaron: Build it and they won't come: How and why growth hacking came to be . The Next Web. October 28, 2012. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  16. ↑ Holiday, Ryan: Here's Some Marketing Advice: Your Product Is Terrible . Medium.com. June 11, 2013. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  17. ^ Ginn, Aaron: Defining A Growth Hacker: Growth Is Not A Marketing Strategy , TechCrunch . 20th October 2012. 
  18. ↑ Jarvis, Chase: From Obscurity to Internet Sensation - How Creatives Can Win the PR Game with Ryan Holiday . ChaseJarvis.com. February 22, 2013. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  19. ↑ Sean Ellis: Sean Ellis On Growth . Medium. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  20. ↑ Noah Kagan: How My Blog Homepage Redesign Increased Email Signups By 300% . Hubspot. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  21. ↑ Andrew Chen: What's Your Viral Loop? Understanding The Engine Of Adoption . Retrieved August 16, 2014.
  22. ↑ Sean Ellis: Startup Growth Engines: Case Studies of How Today's Most Successful Startups Unlock Extraordinary Growth . Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown, June 24, 014 (Accessed August 16, 2014).
  23. ↑ Tomas Herzberger: This is how you develop your "growth hacking" ideas. Retrieved January 19, 2020 .
  24. ↑ Startup 2020. on Twitter . In: Twitter . ( twitter.com [accessed August 21, 2018]).
  25. ↑ Business Model: Participative Teamworking. To easy starters. In: Dynamic Applications . February 15, 2018 ( dynamic-applications.com [accessed August 21, 2018]).
  26. ↑ Startup Socials ? on Twitter . In: Twitter . ( twitter.com [accessed August 21, 2018]).
  27. ↑ Startup 2020. on Twitter . In: Twitter . ( twitter.com [accessed August 21, 2018]).
  28. ^ A b Ryan Holiday: Don Draper Is Dead: Why Growth Hack Marketing Is Advertising's Last Hope . Observer. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  29. ↑ Tim Cortinovis: Growth Hacking Instead of Classic Marketing? . Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  30. ↑ Ginn, Aaron: Defining A Growth Hacker: Debunking The 6 Most Common Myths About Growth Hacking , TechCrunch . December 8, 2012. 
  31. ↑ Johns, Andy: Facebook Growth and Traction: What are some decisions taken by the "Growth team" at Facebook that helped Facebook reach 500 million users? . Quora. May 11, 12. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  32. ↑ Johns, Andy: What is Facebook's User Growth team responsible for and what have they launched? . Quora. April 30, 2012. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  33. ↑ Scott Adams: Joke of the Day . July 10, 2014. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  34. ↑ Paul Graham: Lecture 3 - Before the Startup (Paul Graham) ( English ) September 30, 2014. Accessed April 22, 2015. Accessed April 22, 2015.
  35. ↑ t3n digital pioneers online magazine: Growth Hacker: Why the digital version of the egg-laying woolly milk sow is more effective than classic marketers . Retrieved October 10, 2014.