If you’re looking for new ways to grow your business, consider ‘growth hacking.’ This term describes both a mindset and strategies focused solely on growth (and usually with a small budget.) That’s why we often see growth hacking associated with startups, although anyone can use this approach.
But it’s not a secret tool or magical marketing formula that savvy tech companies use to boost their business overnight. Growth hacking today is the result of ongoing product testing and fine tuning, all driven by data.
Growth hacking success stories
Airbnb
In Airbnb’s early stages, New York listings were doing poorly. The founders decided to stay in many of these places and found the photos on the website didn’t represent them well. To fix that issue, they rented a camera and took professional photos of the New York properties. As a result, New York bookings more than doubled within the month. Then they scaled this solution for all their listings by creating the photography program – which led to more bookings, referrals and traffic.
Dollar Shave Club
Before the rise of affordable subscription services, razors could be a costly and regular expense. Dollar Shave Club decided to change that. While the service they offered was potentially desirable, they needed a clever way to promote it. That’s where their viral video helped Dollar Shave Club reach a wider audience, receiving 12,000 orders the day it was released. Today that video has over 26 million views.
Dropbox
In 2009, as a clever way to gain new users, Dropbox gamified their onboarding process. They offered existing users more free storage for doing things such as referring friends, linking to their social media accounts, and posting about Dropbox. This resulted in a 3,900% growth in 15 months.
Etsy
Did you know that Etsy was created by website designers? The founders worked for a client who hosted a community forum for craft makers, and they repeatedly heard users express the need for a marketplace to sell their crafts. Not only did Etsy create that marketplace, they posted about it on larger crafting forums. Within three years, Etsy had 50 employees and 650,000 users.
What do these companies have in common? They all discovered a need and focused on scalable and creative ways to meet it. The idea behind growth hacking isn’t finding different ways to market a product – it’s about creating a product that people want, continuing to enhance it, and discovering ways to dramatically grow your customer base through constant testing, analysis and experimentation.
How can your company start growth hacking?
To be a growth hacker, you need to be data driven because data will give you the insights to go forward. Has your customer acquisition slowed and you can’t figure out why? Customer journey analytics enable you to track each customer touchpoint and map the journey of experiences and emotions from the customer’s point of view. Which experiences lead to positive emotions? To greater lifetime value? Or cause your customer to shop at a competitor? By tracking customer interactions, you’re able to see which factors are affecting satisfaction and acquisition. This is where you can discover opportunities. Data science removes guessing from the questions you’re asking. And it’s the basis of every great growth hack.
Are you ready to get started with data science? Let’s talk
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