7 Essential Resources & Tips to Get Started with Growth Hacking
(The Future of Marketing)
Hey I´m Chris Out, the curator of the ZEEF Growth Hacking page and partner of Rockboost, the Dutch Growth Hacking Agency.
In this blog post I've compiled a collection of 7 essential resources & tips (taken from my ZEEF page) to get you started with Growth Hacking.
Growth Hacking is becoming coined as the future of marketing as this experimental approach throws away the old marketing textbook ethos and instead focuses on testing everything, basing decisions on data and growing exponentially.
Whether you work for a startup, have your own fashion blog or looking for inspiration, take your time to look through my essential hand-picked resources and tips to make a difference to your future growth strategies.
Resource 1 — What is Growth Hacking?
With all the buzz about growth hacking it is easy to assume it’s a fad, but it is key to the future of marketing. Marketing has been too focused on push means and assumptions, rather than on developing a product customers love and testing what works and doesn't. As a growth hacker, I base decisions on what the data shows that works and test everything. However, you cannot randomly start testing and measuring a bunch of things; measuring should be done in a structural and focused manner. This is where the so-called ‘One Metric that Matters’ (OMTM) comes in.
Resource 2 — One Metric that Matters
What drives your business? What is key to your business’ growth? This should be your (OMTM): the one specific metric you use to focus the growth of your company. Most companies focus on many, many key performance indicators at the same time. You just need one: OMTM, and all the other KPIs you measure must align with it. This helps you to measure and focus on what you growth needs. In the end it will feel like a blessing: everything you do is focused on what you want to achieve. Your employees should constantly challenge each other as to whether what they are doing will bring them closer to this key goal. This will help you realize how much of what you momentarily do does not contribute to your growth, and thus, is a waste of your time. No idea what your OMTM is or should be? Check out these examples and this explanation of how to define it.
Resource 3 — Product/Market Fit
Once you know your OMTM, you can focus on another key aspect of growth hacking: Product/Market Fit (PMF). PMF is if 40% of your customers would be very disappointed if they could no longer use your product. To achieve this, you need to constantly improve your product based on your clients’ needs. Your job is not to push a mediocre product with 100% of its features (based on assumptions), but to develop features based on your customers’ feedback and interests. Do this, and you will build a product people want, rather than trying to make people want your product.
(I´ve added a nice gift for you at the bottom on behalf of Rockboost, keep on reading!)
Resource 4 — What is all this traction about?
For traction (evidence of market demand) to happen , you need to interact with your customer. You communicate with your customers through your traction channels. The Traction book highlights 19 traction channels. The idea is that you focus on the 3 most important channels for your business based on what works for you, and on the stage your business is in. This should be related to your OMTM: will these channels help you achieve your overarching goal?
In order to achieve your goal, you need to measure all parts of the funnel. Traditional marketing tends to focus too much on the top of the funnel. In Pirate Metrics (AARRR, get it?) there are five steps that are all key to success: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral and Revenue. Activation and Retention are the result of PMF, whilst Acquisition and Referral are part of your traction channels. Finally, Revenue is most likely to relate to your OMTM, but its end result is fueled by your performance in the 4 previous metrics. So now you know how it all fits together, now it is time to improve it.
Key to growth hacking is continuous improvement. The only way to do this is through testing: seeing what works and what does not. Through A/B Tests you can see how a small change can make a significant improvement. For example, what happens if you send a newsletter in the morning compared to the afternoon? If there is data that can back this hypothesis that morning newsletters perform better, it would be foolish not to test this. If you do not measure and test, you might as well be throwing away your money, because you will have no idea as to where your money is going to.
Now the scariest part of course is starting, but it does not have to be. That is why we have included 29 growth hack quick wins as one of our key articles to read. These are easy growth hacks you can start using today to grow your firm and achieve your OMTM.
Conclusion
Don’t make the mistake of not taking the time to learn about growth hacking before your competitors do. These seven resources show you what growth hacking is and how to focus through OMTM. Through applying PMF you can learn who your target market is and how to make a product they love. This beloved product can be communicated to prospects through your traction channels. Look at the AARRR metrics and take time to see how you can optimize your testing. Finally, take a look at some key growth hacks you can easily start implementing today.
Hungry for more? Explore our ZEEF page (and others on the site), because there are still tonnes of growth hacking information to uncover. For readers of our guest ZEEF post, we decided to give away our online growth hacking e-course for free, that will explain how you can use these steps for your company growth in more depth.
Unlock your free e-course here!
