Marketing your startup requires some finesse and powerful strategies that can get things rolling quickly in a positive direction. Using growth hacking to build your marketing strategy means you can achieve the results you want in an economically viable and completely streamlined manner.
Growth hacking is a robust strategy that can help you with marketing your startup and business. In growth hacking, your strategies should be creative, light on resources, and extremely cost-effective. It’s a time-tested strategy that helps generate interest/exposure to your business while simultaneously helping keep your existing clients/users engaged with the company. In this manner, you’re acquiring more clients and growing while satisfying the needs of existing clientele.
Growth hacking works by understanding your product and knowing the best ways to scale it to suit customer needs. This works quite well in marketing. You’ve likely seen people doing giveaways on Facebook or other social media.
This is an example of growth hacking. Using this as a marketing tactic and to build better marketing strategies is an excellent method for doing things economically and exceptionally.
Here are a few ways to use this method to really get the most out of your marketing strategies.
#1 A/B Testing
It’s a phrase you’re more likely to hear in science class than in marketing, but A/B testing is actually quite vital to building a solid growth hacking strategy. A/B testing (or split testing) can be a valuable marketing tool. It’s essentially comparing two different versions of the same thing. It takes into account all of the minor elements of what goes into creating positive customer engagement.
You can then assess those vectors and find cost-cutting opportunities in your overall marketing strategy. Better yet, A/B testing helps generate growth by helping you pin down what’s working optimally and what isn’t. So how can it benefit you? Try it out with your web page.
Create two different models of your landing page, then segment the market. Choose a sample from each segment and send them along with the varied pages. Then it’s simply a matter of capturing the results, analyzing them, and drawing meaningful conclusions that you can use to bolster your strategy.
For growth hacking, you need to be clear with your goal and start small. Smaller samples generate faster results. Consider testing your CTA’s, looking for where referrals generate leads, testing the quality of your landing pages, and trying out different ad copy or visuals to see what works the best.
A/B testing can be a great way to growth hack your way into expanding your audience, but it’s a meticulous process and can be a little more time-consuming. Even so, it’s worth it for the invaluable insights and understanding your audience a little bit better at the end of the day.
#2 Build Strong SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should definitely factor into your growth hacking strategies. If building a website and having a quality product are two of the pillars of building a successful business, then search engine optimization is the third that keeps it propped up.
Building strong search engine optimization is one of the most critical things you can do to get your startup or established business on the map. The benefits of strong SEO are numerous. Getting your page to show up on the first page of a search engine’s results and benefit from organic traffic to the page are the core concepts of SEO. So how do you build a strong SEO strategy?
There are a couple of ways. Knowing your keywords, building strong backlinks, having quality written content, and finding ways to improve the user experience is only one piece of the puzzle. Remember that people are going to be reading and engaging with your website, so give them something compelling or interesting. Strong SEO is vital, but so is the quality of the content and the product or service you’re offering.
#3 Build Email Lists
Email is an exceptional communication tool. It can also be quite effective for marketing. A simple, yet effective means to start growth hacking your email list is to ask your friends and family to join. Whether they’re customers or not, it can help you develop your email list. And who knows? They might convert at some point, especially if you decide to directly market via email. Also, be sure to make keyword-specific landing pages.
If your email organically directs to a sales page, you can increase potential sales with very little promotion. Make sure you’re directing people to valuable content on your website and consider offering some free downloadable content, such as a guide, to anyone who clicks onto the page.
#4 Interactive Marketing and Giveaways
In a broad sense, interactive marketing is the practice of appealing to your target audience on a one-to-one basis. By crafting ways to interact with customers and providing a conduit for two-way communication, you can reach and engage a broader audience. Sometimes this might come in the form of doing a Facebook or social media giveaway. Other times it could be a trivia contest or signing up for a newsletter with coupons. Then there are giveaways and promotional items.
There are times when you can acquire items such as keychains, stickers, pens, notebooks, calendars, and other useful things to give away to customers. Whether it’s for a promotion, part of a sale, or at a trade show, giving away some quality freebies goes a long way toward building trust and goodwill among your target audience. Customers absolutely love freebies and giveaways, especially if it’s something they can use.
Pens are especially popular. There’s nothing quite like getting a cool, new pen just for being a customer of an establishment you love. You can go the extra mile by offering accessorized pins such as stylus pens or pens featuring a custom logo.
Another great idea is to give away or sell engraved pens featuring your company name. Engraved pens feature laser engraving that gives a sleek, elegant look to the pen itself. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill writing utensils; instead, they’re a hot item that can really improve a marketing strategy.
#5 Network At Trade Shows And Conventions
Another solid growth hacking method is to attend trade shows and various industry conventions. Trade shows are organized so specific companies within an industry can showcase their offerings to other organizations and potential clients. It’s also an opportunity to meet with suppliers and industry leaders. Even better, it offers some insight into developing a robust marketing strategy.
Market testing is usually possible during a trade show, so seize the moment to build some interest in your company. While you’re there, talk to people and spend some time networking. Find out what customers are looking for and how to appeal to their sensibilities.
Check out the competition and what they’re doing. Develop an approach to your next marketing strategy based on valuable real-time feedback. Use the opportunity to build rapport with potential clients. Taking the time to do these things at a trade show can prove invaluable for devising a great marketing solution that attains results.
#6 Leverage Referrals
Referral marketing can be a very successful path for your company. Referrals marketing is a fun way to get potential customers interested in your organization. The idea is pretty simple: referrals get existing customers to refer other possible customers to you. Their friends, family, relatives, like-minded individuals, and so on are all possible referrals. The sky is the limit! But how do you use it as a growth hacking strategy?
Word of mouth and referrals are assets that can only accelerate your growth. Companies like Dropbox, HelloFresh, and Evernote all use it to help grow their businesses. They might offer a bonus for the customer if one of their referrals is used.
In the case of HelloFresh, the customer might get some free food or a discount when the referral goes through. You can take a similar concept and make it your own, as appropriate to your organization. All it takes is some positive referrals to create a domino effect that can really put your organization on the map for all the right reasons.
#7 Consider Pivoting To A “Freemium” Model
Depending on what your startup offers, pivoting to a freemium model can be beneficial. Let’s say your business provides a service, using an app to facilitate its offering, instead of a physical product. Consider pivoting from paid tiers to a freemium model.
The idea of “freemium” is taking an approach where you have two versions of the service/app: a free one anyone can use and a premium tier that offers additional benefits. From a marketing perspective, free trials are a great way to start, but you have to offer something worthwhile to convince customers to convert.
Consider marketing different tiers at affordable pricing structures. Offer some incentives to convince users to convert to the premium aspect of the service. Maybe it’s an extra month or a few free downloads.
Freemium is low-cost, easy to develop, and perhaps the ultimate example of growth hacking. It can be difficult to maintain, however, and there’s never a guarantee that people who download it will buy anything. Whatever the case, it’s a reasonable, low-cost marketing tool that can be quite effective if done right.
