Growth hacking is the different methods companies use to grow their business. It’s usually used by companies without much startup capital or resources to grow their business within a short time frame. It’s a strategic method that is results-and-solution-focused. The idea is to attract customers and clients early on and gain their trust in the products and services before competitors can get to them.
Here are some of the tried and proven growth-hacking methods for businesses to consider:
- Maximizing Online Presence
In this age of digitalization, any business who wants to grow and widen their reach must have an online presence. The first step would be building a website tailored to the type of products and services the business is offering. Social media cannot be overlooked as a strategic online tool, as well. By being and staying active online, before long the business will figure out who their audience is, and thus optimize their search engine in order to keep improving their website ranking. Also, creating strategic content for the website and social media accounts will result to a strong online presence, which will garner media attention and get investors interested, thereby positioning the business to grow quickly.
- Create an Email-List.
Email marketing is still on the list of many progressive companies, especially those who want to grow their clientele quickly. This is because email marketing is the tried and tested method to generate leads and conversions faster. Companies should start off with a pre-launch list targeting their audience. Using free marketing communication tools like MailChimp for instance, businesses can reach thousands of subscribers who end up as potential customers. Attaching a free gift (lead magnet in marketing terms) to an exit intent on your website will make this method more effective. This is because it’ll help monitor visitor activity, as well as sending them a personalised advert just as they are about to click exit. The free gifts can include eBooks, downloads, free browser extension, and so forth.
- Partnerships
Companies with shared target markets can work together by sharing budgets and marketing programs. They can integrate sales, or monitor newsletters and social media accounts. These methods are effective as many companies are poised to experience exponential growth through these collaborations due to an unlimited audience reach. An example would be for company A to mention company B on their social platforms and offer each other’s products and services as a way of support. This will help to build brand awareness for the start-up. With that being said, a thorough understanding of each other’s customers and their problems, providing the solutions the customers need, and ultimately being of value to all stakeholders is key for a rewarding partnership.
- A Referral/Affiliate Program
Rewarding your customers for sharing their positive feedback and outcome of your products and services is another growth-hack many companies are leveraging on. This incentive is targeted at the already trusted followers of said customers who would want to access same services and products as their trusted mentor or colleague. Essentially, your customers get A or Z in form of reward from you for their referrals through positively reviewing your products and services. Referrals are great as they help companies achieve their marketing goals by converting leads quickly, plus it’s a very cost effective plan.
- Contests/Free Trials
The competitive nature of people is what drives this growth-hack. Your target audience who are essentially potential customers can enter contests offering them free trials and samples of your products and services. The contests can simply be in form of a follow of your social media platforms, tagging others to your page, subscribing to your newsletter, or alerting their friends and families to your products and services. Your potential customers will get to see the value you’re offering when you give them an opportunity to use your product or service for free. These strategies help build your audience as you engage with potential customers.
- Attend Conferences and Events
Positioning your company on the forefront of potential customers is another fast growth-hacking strategy. By attending conferences tailored towards your target audience, you’ll learn more about your brand, and this requires little effort to do. The company must have content marketing plans for these events, including video, print publications, and other components in place with a focus on the right audience. Also new contacts are set to be made in these events, and the company will have the opportunity to share their vision. As the company grows, they can look into hosting their own conferences and events.
- Prioritize COPE Content.
The idea behind COPE Content is to do more with less in order to save resources, money, and time. “Create Once, Publish Everywhere,” otherwise known as COPE is a process of many uses of the same content. A typical example is using the same content and slightly modifying it if needed to do a blog, video, and podcast. Another method is by repurposing existing content like revamping guest posts, and newsletters from old posts. It can also be done by recording the podcast interview and transcribing it into written content for use.
- Write Guest Posts
One growth hack that is sure to yield result is guest writing. Otherwise known as blogging, this growth hack idea can be used to reach new audiences by increasing website traffic organically. High-quality organic leads can be easily generated through strategic written content. Additionally, including your website link in guest blogs content will help with your SERP (search engine research pages) ranks improvement.
- Keep Up with Trends
Detecting the applicable trends in your line of business will help you develop relevant marketing ideas that will yield profits. Investing in the latest trends is one sure way of ensuring the success of your marketing strategies. As new trends emerges, you can capitalize on them by adapting your business plans to your profit.
- Social Sharing Links
Adding the links to your social media accounts on blog posts makes it easy to share your content on different platforms. Embedding the linked content to popup on your blog is a surer way to ensure visitors do not leave your blogsite, though. The idea behind this is to give your site visitors and readers an understanding of how important sharing your content—be it images, graphics, and quotes are to you.
- Perform A/B Testing
A/B testing also known as split testing is a process whereby two different groups examine two variants of the same thing to determine the better performing one. For instance, a web page copy, personalization, landing page, CTAs, subject line of an email can all be tested. The process works by changing just one element and keeping the rest the same while the test is being performed, this way it is easy to determine which of the element will yield a good result.
- Improve Your Product
As a startup business owner, getting new customers and retaining them is one of the surest way to ensure the growth and success of your business. This can simply be done by improving on the product you already have. Trying to acquire new customers when the quality of your product and services has not passed an evaluation process is a futile exercise and a waste of resources. When you have a good product, your existing customers will keep patronising your goods and services. This is because they already know and trust your brand, as opposed to new clients whom you would need to convince to patronise your services and products. So, investing time, energy, and resources into your product and its improvement is crucial. Routine product updates and tests is paramount to achieving this. Additionally, reaching out to old customers after they have made a purchase, or used your services ensures the business relationship is kept open and going smoothly. This way your customer service will be broadcast and together with your great product, it’s a win-win and sure recipe for growth.
Chinenye Emezie | Assistant Editor
