Whether or not you’re on board with the term ‘growth hacker’ has become irrelevant because the buzzword is here to stay. We talked about what growth hacking is in this post and now that you’re in the know, you may be looking to achieve scalable growth for your business. Having growth hacking skills isn’t just about being motivated or cost-conscious. It’s about understanding the market, being powered by analytics and metrics and being completely dedicated to driving sustainable growth. In most cases, companies bring in a specific individual or team to drive growth, like Twitter, Facebook and Quora did.
While it’s easy to find growth hacking best practices and techniques on the Internet, is there anyone monitoring your strategy and pointing you in the right direction if you’re making a rookie mistake? Find out where your growth hacking strategy might be holding you up:
Not Understanding Basic Human Behavior
Psychology plays an important role in marketing and particularly driving growth as the growth hacker needs to address basic human behavior. Understanding why people do what they do and behave the way they do will help you better address their challenges and ultimately spark growth in your business. Being a successful growth hacker isn’t about having the best product or service; it’s about how that product solves the end user’s need and how well it solves that need.
Being Unrealistic
Just because you’ve hired a Growth Hacker, a Head of Growth, an entire marketing growth team, or have decided to dedicate yourself to the task, does not turn the company into a superstar overnight. Setting a specific goal is a great idea but expecting the same explosion like Airbnb or Facebook experienced is not realistic. Settling on one or two goals based on revenue, number of customers, or followers with a sensible increase will set up your growth for success. Make sure your goal is easily measurable as well.
Not Being Creative
While growth hacking is very reliant on analytics, it’s easy to lose sight of the qualitative requirement. Inspiring creativity and curiosity will help uncover new methods, potentially unlocking rapid growth. Try asking yourself questions about the product or service itself, pricing models, distribution methods and “what would happen if” type questions. These questions should be asked before the growth hacking game plan begins and can help maximize your growth potential.
Growth Hacking Too Early
Implementing a growth hacking strategy before the market is completely ready for your product or service is doomed to fail. A good example of this rookie mistake would be rolling out a referral program too early. A solid customer base will serve as a foundation for your growth plan of action and in this case, is the key to the strategy. Having an established customer base should be a major consideration before deploying a major growth action.
Interested in brushing up on growth hacking? Check out this list of blogs to find best practices and techniques.
Are you riding the growth hacker train? What methods have you found set you back or ahead?