Maya Odeh Growth Marketing & User acquisition Leader
What is Growth Hacking?
Well, what is the meaning of this term which has taken the marketing industry by storm? Simply this means, taking measures to improve the quality of your product or the service based on the customer feedbacks.
Growth hacks its not just to create product because it feels great idea or its great fit for the market, create product that the people actually want.
Alright. Let’s break the term down. Growth means the process of increasing in size. What’s hacking? Everyone remembers software hacking when we mention this term. Let me put it this way. Hacking is someone surpassing the traditional boundaries to achieve a certain target. The combination of these two terms means someone who’s going to do pretty much whatever it takes to grow.
Growth hacking is the use of unconventional alternatives to traditional marketing. This is immensely beneficial if you are a startup and want to market your business, Growth hacking needs the contribution from all channels in an organization including marketing, products, engineering, and sales. Earlier in the day, the role of a traditional digital marketer was paying Google or Facebook for some website traffic. Then the designers, developers, and the sales team were entrusted with the rest of the process. But suppose they all work together. The growth should be faster than usual.
Let’s take the popular example of Dropbox’s success story. Dropbox was using Google Ads to reach the users. The product cost the users only 5 USD and the company had to spend a few hundred dollars per customer. So that strategy was an epic failure. Then they introduced a referral program where the users get free space when they get their friends on board. They were able to gain a massive user base with this and that is how they became a million-dollar company. The key to this concept is everyone working together to do rapid experiments continuously. Fine-tune your traffic sources, onboarding your conversion optimization, and upsell regularly. No, there is no effective method other than continual testing to learn growth hacking.
What is Growth Marketing?
Growth marketing is really the key for growth hacking. Growth hacking is impossible without the outputs or data generated via growth marketing. Hence, we can clearly put forward that the effectivity of growth hacking depends on the accuracy of data gathered through growth marketing and also the feedback from the customers that arrived to our websites from the acquisition process.
Growth marketing is not only about attracting new customers to your database. Instead, it involves attracting the right customers to your marketing program as well.
If you keep targeting the wrong audience, the collaborations with the clients would last just for a single sale. If you want a retaining audience, targeting the relevant potential prospects is extremely important.
Well, the Growth hackers usually are executing a specific tactic on a certain channel to grow their audience. But when it comes to Growth marketing, it is a much broader concept. The Growth Marketers have to test various channels and grow an audience. Growth marketing is slow but is steady.
The Growth marketing process is based on identifying the ideal customers for your business and making sure you provide them the best service possible so that they return and spread the good word as well. Growth marketers utilize brand marketing to make their company or the product they market stand out from the rest. They use paid ads and creative content to gain more customers and retain the existing ones.
With long-term project goals in their minds, the Growth marketers are systematically using growth hacks. If sustainability and long-term growth are your prime targets, the most ideal approach for you to use for your company or product is Growth marketing. The core components of Growth marketing include A/B testing, cross-channel marketing, and the customer life cycle.
Similarities between Growth hacking and Growth Marketing
- It doesn’t matter what strategy you follow; the ultimate goal is the same. Both Growth marketing and growth hacking target on customer retention, acquisition and monetization eventually generating more revenue.
- Quantitative and Qualitative are very important for growth hacking. And there is no difference for Growth marketing as well.
- High quality products and outcomes are always delivered when you apply agile sprint model in your processes. This model encourages one to experiment, make data-oriented decisions and its pursuits consistent improvement. Both Growth hackers and both marketers use this model.
- Optimization of investment is common for both growing via marketing and hacks. Both are focusing on working in a lean environment under limited resources. All the decisions are taken and the budget is spend keeping the ROI on mind.
Differences in Growth Marketing and Growth Hacking
- Growth marketing is all about hard work and consistency at it while Growth hacking is a revolutionary move.
- · Growth hackers are inclined to use technology more while the Growth marketers prioritize user acquisition and data driving.
- The Growth hackers are operating in high tempo in an environment that gives them creative freedom. The Growth marketers put their time and efforts to examine all angles to achieve success.
Conclusion
Many are in the wrong impression that Growth marketing and Growth hacking are the same. No, it’s not. Both these strategies are crucial for a success of a venture. Accuracy in data from growth marketing is very important to achieve success in growth hacking. Or else, the whole process might go in vain. Maintain a smooth and an accurate data flow and a perfect balance between these two and you will reach new heights with your business.
