Growth Hacking - 5 rules of success

Growth Hacking is what Silicon Valley start-ups are constantly thinking about, and now all projects are at an early stage in our country. What is it? How to set up the company and its employees for rapid growth? We publish 5 rules for those who want to achieve rapid growth of the company, from Lincoln Murphy. The article is written in the first person.

At the moment, Growth Hacking is an extremely popular phenomenon: in fact, anyone who is at least a little involved in marketing or product development prefers to call himself a growth hacker. And since every second person defines himself in a similar way, this term begins to gradually lose its significance. However, what the concept of Growth Hacking includes (or whatever it will be called in the future) will continue to exist and, in fact, will already substantially transform the industry as a whole.

In the most general terms, I describe Growth Hacking as a way of thinking. It relies on the understanding of customers and users, their behavior, market dynamics and technical capabilities. And of course, without a rich imagination is not enough: all the above points must be successfully combined for maximum growth. But what does all this really mean? Let's delve into the definition of Growth Hacking, to clarify - both for themselves and for the benefit of readers.

1. Understanding what exactly needs to grow
')
According to Sean Ellis, Growth Hacker is a person whose true guideline is growth. Such a definition leaves much room for interpretation, but in reality it is not so bad. And although some argue that Growth Hacking has nothing to do with rising incomes, I think this is complete nonsense.

The concept of growth and the choice of the most accurate metrics is 100% unique to each company that wants to grow. Therefore, it is necessary to understand what exactly you are targeting: the number of registrations, profits, customer acquisition and retention, perhaps viral marketing? Having defined the goal, you can proceed to its implementation.

And to do this with full scope, you need to understand the following.

2. First social engineering, then computer engineering.

When you are trying to create something without first getting a deep understanding of human behavior (both in a general scale and in the context of your specific sphere), you are likely to expect only limited success. But if you spend as much time studying the psychology and behavior of users as studying the latest trends in marketing and growth hacking, you will be much more successful in implementing your marketing strategy.
Understanding human behavior in the context of your application or service really helps you discover the most effective Growth Hacking tactics and optimize costs.



The best Growth Hackers know that when achieving effective growth, you need to think not about the products or services that they promote, first of all all attention should be directed to the user and client. Of course, the understanding of their behavior should be used in their own interests, for the sake of profit. However, you can count on success only when the interests of the users are taken into account first, and then your own.

Having an idea of ​​the role that social engineering (applied sociology) plays, you can move on to the next item.

3. Strengthening the network effect

Sometimes the occurrence of a network effect is obvious, sometimes not. Sometimes you need to scale to the masses, but you can benefit from micro-networks, they can be enough to significantly expand the business. It is very rarely possible to launch a network effect where it does not occur naturally. But often it is possible to strengthen, extrapolate or otherwise use even its weakest manifestations, if you just try to do it.
“Experts” frustrate me, asserting the impossibility of viral distribution for the cloud services of a B2B segment. I am sure that this prejudice stopped at least a few people from finding solutions in this area.

In practice, it turns out that in the course of teamwork, people perform certain actions in a certain way. When they interact with their team, subordinates, the boss, corporate leaders, partner organizations, suppliers and customers, they are subject to certain patterns in their behavior. Careful study of these behaviors, understanding why this is happening (in terms of the goals of their actions and psychology) is the key to the rapid growth of market share (at the macro level) and brand popularity (at the micro level).

Identify the actions that users take within the network in which you plan to expand your audience, and popularize them using social and computer engineering, this will be Growth Hacking.

Imagine having to bring a cloud service with a B2b business model to rapid and significant growth. We may never be able to reach the level of Facebook or Twitter in terms of viral rates. However, we can reach a completely unheard of level of growth in the B2b segment simply by identifying natural behaviors that exist in the network of contacts for a specific audience.

Further, with the help of social and computer engineering, we use them for profit. It's simple. Not quite easy, but simple.
It should also be remembered that ...

4. Growth Hacking is not free

So, even if your promotion strategy does not involve the use of tools with a fixed cost (for example, contextual advertising with pay per click), Growth Hacking requires time-consuming, and time is money. People very often don’t value their time, and it's not just about startups. You must understand that Growth Hacking costs money, even if done through “free” channels. Channels associated with potential growth opportunities should not be ignored because of their high cost, this way of thinking is contrary to the philosophy of Growth Hacking.

Undoubtedly, high costs may not fit into the plans of individuals and companies, especially those that require the development of the bootstrap technique - without attracting investment. However, for a real business whose owners understand the importance of attracting customers and distributing information, enhancing the network effect, investing money in growth makes sense. However, in general ...

5. A culture of growth is needed.

Growth Hacking tactics should be applied according to certain rules. At the moment there are books and hundreds of articles about the famous Growth Hacks - Hotmail, Paypal, AirBnb and many other projects. Each of them speaks about one trick that worked in each individual case. For example, the postscript “PS: I Love You. Get Your Free Email at Hotmail ”caused viral distribution of information about the project.

The dynamics of the company since the introduction of this hack


Paypal and AirBnb were able to succeed thanks to the competent use of already gained popularity services - eBay and Craiglist, respectively.
Anyone who placed an ad for an apartment on AirBnb could post information to Craiglist at the same time, the company made this possible, despite the lack of API from Craiglist.



Subsequently, it began to look like this:


Unfortunately, only a few are trying to figure out what really prompted the company to use certain tactics. Most people do not understand that success was not caused simply by the naked Growth Hacks, which worked in a vacuum. Yes, these tactics were successful, but this is the result of the correct growth culture in the company as well. These companies really considered growth to be their main reference point, and it was not just about the individual who worked within the organization, but about each employee. Most likely, the same tactics will most likely fail if implemented in an environment where the idea of ​​growth is not cultivated, where it is not one of the main goals. In other words, in an environment that does not share the true Growth Hacker's thinking, such tricks are unlikely to work.

I assume that today the popularity of Growth Hacking is due to the following:

1) The way of thinking, where the idea of ​​growth is at the head of the whole strategy, finally got a bright name.

2) People began to notice how ineffective their marketing is, and they believe that Growth Hacking should definitely bring them success.

Unfortunately, when I spoke with more conservative marketing directors (often this happened after a conversation with the executive director), they talked about Growth Hacking as one of a number of other tactics, located somewhere between Adwords and e-mail newsletters. For them, this is just another campaign or, worse, a quick and easy cure for all ailments.

In most cases, Growth Hacking should not be considered as a means to quickly solve problems; it often requires changes in the work of the entire company. Some organizations are simply not adapted to growth simply because of a certain structure. Sometimes they do not have the space to introduce the flexible methods necessary for monitoring, competent management and constant iteration of these tactics. My experience shows that such companies cannot fully use Growth Hacking.

And although I argue that Growth Hacking is not only useful for startups, the need for it is especially evident for growing (of course) companies at an early stage of development. They do not want to take small, carefully calculated risks. On the contrary, the more risky the enterprise, the more it inspires them. “And how else can you enter the market?” They ask. Really, how?

In non-risk organizations - usually (but not always) these are large and old companies - all activities, on the contrary, are aimed at maintaining the status quo, preventing mistakes and instability in general. Growth Hacking techniques can hardly be used in such conditions: there is a high probability of another failure.

While Growth Hacking is often carried out in a bottom-up company, the most successful cases have occurred in organizations with an authoritarian, growth-oriented management style, where this ideology was implemented by management. It is worth thinking about it.

Source: sixteenventures.com/growth-hacking-rules