5 powerful growth hacking tactics

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Oct 2, 2017 / by
5 powerful growth hacking tactics

For startups that are striving to achieve rapid growth with limited resources, growth hacking is the name of the game. Mattan Griffel, writing for Grow Hack, says:

The best way to understand growth hacking and what growth hackers do is to first understand what is meant by the term hacker. A hacker is someone who is more concerned with achieving an objective than following a prescribed process. In other words, hackers care more about what needs to get done than how it should get done. As a result, hackers often come up with innovative ways to get things done.

So, by thinking outside the box and deploying unorthodox tactics, you can see great increases in your user base and drive extreme business growth.

Here are some of the best growth hacking tactics available:

1 – Guest posting

Not so long ago, people were using guest posting as a devious tactic to get inbound links. By churning out a load of weak guest posts, you could accumulate inbound links which would result in an inflated search engine ranking. Google has been clamping down on this practice, however. Nowadays (luckily) guest posting is instead a way to provide value to new audiences and gain brand exposure.

For startups, it can take time to gather momentum with blogging. For this reason, you can growth hack your way to attention by delivering killer guest posts on sites where new audiences will find you and, with any luck, become new fans.

2 – Referral programs

Dropbox might be the most famous brand in recent years to leverage referral marketing for explosive growth. By using a clever system that incentivized both the referrer and the buddy, Dropbox managed to acquire 4 million users in only 15 months!

While the offer and programme were meticulously split tested, part of the reason the programme was successful was down to being embedded in the onboarding process. While registering, new users were encouraged to invite their friends before using the tool, which resulted in viral exposure.

Instagram3 – Instagram & YouTube shoutouts

These days, there are plenty of people who have large Instagram followings, yet are clueless about how to profit from their fame. No matter what niche you’re in, you’ll be able to find influencers who will promote your brand, product or service in exchange for money.

The ROI for these kind of mentions can often be much better than traditional advertising. In the beauty and fashion industry, 57% of businesses use influencers as part of their marketing campaigns.

4 – Build a community

By providing a community for people in your niche to trade information and discuss common problems, people will come to respect your brand. For example, Unbounce is a landing page design platform, yet the Unbounce Community is a marketing forum where people can discuss all facets of Internet marketing. Given that a high percentage of digital marketers will require a landing page to be designed at some stage, and if they participate on the Unbounce forum, who do you think will come to mind as soon as a landing page is in need?

5 – Create a focus group

Hosting a focus group is a great way to receive valuable insights before a product has been launched. However, it also gives you an initial audience that you can market to once the product has been released (and changes have been made based on this audience’s input).

Take control when moderating the focus group, but always be polite and encourage comments from all participants. Don’t shy away from negative feedback. It’s much better to know about a potential problem before a product hits the market rather than afterwards.

Summary

Growth hacking can be a great way to generate immediate success for your business, but don’t do anything that would jeopardise long-term brand building. Growth hacking should benefit your customers rather just than extract money from them. So long as you prioritize the best interests of your customers, the only limit to growth hacking is your imagination!

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