9 Reasons Why EVERY Marketer Should Get and Read the book « Hacking Growth »
I usually don’t write posts, and even less in English. But I felt like I needed to do so after I read that book that will make a difference in the Marketing World.
Hacking Growth is the latest book written by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown. Obviously, it’s about Growth Hacking. Sean Ellis gave me the opportunity to get it before the release on April 25th, so I wanted to share my honest thoughts on it.
It will be quite simple and pretty straightforward: In my opinion, this is the best book ever written on Growth Hacking so far.
In this book, Sean and Morgan describe the process of Growth with very actionable advice, at each step in your Growth journey, and then provide a complete Playbook on how to hack the whole AARRR Funnel: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue.
I won’t explain in details here what you’ll find in this book … but I will tell you why it is so important for every marketer to get and read that book.
1. Sean and Morgan know what they are talking about
When it comes to Growth Hacking, you can hear and read everything, literally EVERYTHING, especially online.
No, Growth Hacking is not about 100% Acquisition or about Scrapping & Spamming people or any kind of Silver Bullet Marketing Techniques.
There were some controversies around “You don’t need a Growth Hacker”, “Funnel Hacking is better than Growth Hacking” etc. All of this is completely stupid and sterile as it is clearly in opposition to what the genuine idea of Growth Hacking really is.
You’ll understand in that book that Growth Hacking is not about dirty tricks and hacks to get growth, it’s a process, extremely well explained by the people who did Growth Hacking successfully, and several times. And the best way to learn it is from the people who did it.
If you just take the example of Sean Ellis: He helped several companies to reach crazy levels of Growth: LogMeIn, Uproar, DropBox, Eventbrite, etc. At some point, you start even wondering if those guys are real people :-P
2. It’s a great book for ALL Marketers, even experts
The obvious truth is that you should never stop to learn, even if you think you’re an expert in your field. Actually, it’s even quite the opposite. And it’s even truer with Growth Hacking as you need to be able to catch every new opportunity that is emerging and that book offers you one opportunity.
Of course, if you are a Growth Hacking expert with 10 years of experience, you might read a few things that you already know or read elsewhere, but I tend to think that the key to success hides itself behind the little details that usually no one pays attention to: From How ideas should be written to keep them clear to knowing that you should spend 5 minutes during the Growth Meeting to address the volume of ideas generated, Hacking Growth is providing tons of little details that can make you a better Growth Marketer.
You’ll find a lot of those kinds of insignificant details that actually make the difference.
3. Growth Hacking is not only for Startups
A few years ago, Sean wrote a blog post called “Growth Hacking is for Smart Marketers — Not Just Startups”. And that’s wise advice.
Growth Hacking is the standard practice in the Startup industry now. But it’s definitely still not the case in most SMEs and big Corporations. I personally think that a lot of value could be created in small companies if some motivated people were embracing the discipline of Growth Hacking.
Growth Hacks have a lifecycle that gives first arrived a significant advantage. And this works at any given scale, from the smallest to the biggest: The first company on a market implementing Growth Hacking can take a serious advantage to beat its competitors. The first employee in an organization (not necessarily a startup) that will implement Growth Hacking might generate significantly better performances than his/her average colleagues. And there is no industry where Growth Hacking can’t be applied.
4. It’s not a(n outdated) list of Growth Hacks…
If you are genuinely interested in Growth Hacking, you probably found and read lists like “the 100 hacks for your business”. Those lists of hacks are most of the time useless. Useless because many of them are not even working anymore (remember the lifecycle of a Growth Hack) and useless because without a context and a strict method, hacks that worked for other people will not work for your company. [and working hacks are usually the consequence of 10 tests who did not]
So, this book is not a list of outdated growth hacks, even though some old and famous ones will be mentioned for historical purposes.
5. … but there are a lot of examples to make it factual.
But examples of Growth Hacks are great when they are used to illustrate a specific point when describing a method or a process. This book is quite well illustrated by actual and recent examples from the most successful (or way less successful) startups out there. So you will understand perfectly the little details of the Growth Process.
6. It will ring a bell for everybody but not for the same things
Since Growth is a process (I’m sorry, I’m repeating it again in case you missed it :-P), you might not need the same tools, the same advice at the time, which is great.
Reading that book, you’ll discover that a piece of advice or an example can trigger something very impactful for your business, something that you might have had in mind but then forgot or just something you were not even aware of. Hacking Growth is so complete that I can tell you it will ring a bell for you (probably several times) as you read it.
That’s why I even recommend you to have it on your desk so you can dig into it once in a while when working on a specific focus for your growth.
7. Those guys are f**g good and so humble at the same time
I worked with Sean for a while when he was helping us on Mailbird’s case and got to meet him in person at the CXL Live event this year. I also got to chat with Morgan by email.
And I noticed a few things: those guys, even though they are extremely successful in driving Growth in companies, are very humble and just passionate about what they do. And you can see this humility and this passion so well in the book: Some of their achievements are explained so you can understand why it worked and how they did it but you won’t find any kind of bragging that some other (kind of) Marketing guys are so good at.
Your reading becomes then pure efficiency.
8. It’s not only about their own vision and experiences
They also interviewed the most successful growth hackers and head of growth in many successful companies like Facebook, Twitter, Hubspot, etc and this will give you a wide vision of Growth Hacking in many different scenarios, which should fit your needs at one given time in your growth journey.
9. During the pre-order period, the book comes with a huge $7,500 bundle of deals and discounts *
Like I said, they know their stuff and they apply it.
What if I tell you that pre-ordering the book will allow you to get a $7,500 bundle to get access software like Autopilot, Zendesk, Unbounce, UserTesting, etc?
But don’t take my word for granted, just take a look at the deal page: http://growthhacker.com/bundle/
And, if you pre-order before the official date, you’ll get a significant discount on the book, so what are you waiting for? :-)
*The bundle offer will disappear on April 25th
You can find the book here:
So actually, to end this post, I’d like to congratulate and to thank both Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown for this book. I really loved what you guys shared and can just encourage you to keep doing it.
