Why Growth Marketing(Hacking) should be your new strategy

[Shane__]

So I recently started a new job and growth marketing is at the core of it. I'm interested to get peoples take on it here as I don't think the processes behind it are ever discussed. People seem to only focus on the silver bullets that have been emphasised by companies like AirBnb, Dropbox or Uber. Not much discussion has gone into the behind the scenes work that goes into creating these situations for these companies to succeed. Rapid experimentation is the core of growth marketing but do many companies actually run experiments?

 

[Deleted member 315707]

Is there actually something in that which needs answering? Seems very much like a monologue..

 

[Shane__]

Yeah I really want to get peoples take on their experience of growth marketing, where they have seen it, if its something that has been implemented in their company and how has it worked out?

 

[Calvin Crane]

Yes I do growth marketing but it is really unique to each use case.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Perhaps it would help if you explained this Growth marketing as i have not heard about it and many other specialised marketing tools that seem to be fads, but open to listening whats different in the methods

 

[Shane__]

Yes of course

Growth Marketing is different in two key ways from traditional digital marketing because Growth Marketers:

1. discover growth though quick, data-driven experiments. They double down on what works and embrace failure as a learning opportunity.
2. seek opportunities throughout the customer journey, from awareness to revenue (as opposed to letting product own retention and sales own revenue etc).
3. Growth Marketers are about creating T-Shaped players that have a wide breadth of knowledge in order to contribute in the most effective way

 

[AllUpHere]

It's just marketing, and literally nothing else. Not a damn thing is any different.

Edit. Actually, that's not quite true, it has growth in the title.

 

[Clinton]

So I recently started ...

You lost me at "So"

 

[UKSBD]

It's just marketing, and literally nothing else. Not a damn thing is any different.

Don't you have to be a Thought Leader 1st?

 

[Deleted member 315707]

It's just marketing, and literally nothing else. Not a damn thing is any different.

This! You are literally, I mean literally, just explaining marketing. Here is the definition..

"the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising."

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

@Shane__ I am not sure I understood your explanation - too many buzz words/phrases e.g. 'letting product own retention' or 'creating T-Shaped players'.

What I think you are saying is that you need to understand your customer and know how to optimise their journey.

 

[Newchodge]

But why is the word 'hacking' in the title?

 

[AllUpHere]

Don't you have to be a Thought Leader 1st?

Hhhmmm, you might be right.
I'll get back to you once I've growth hacked some thoughts.

 

[Shane__]

Yes I do growth marketing but it is really unique to each use case.

Nice, is there any particular frameworks you use to implement the growth mindset or process?

 

[AllUpHere]

But why is the word 'hacking' in the title?

Oh Cyndy. You really are letting the side down. Everything is hacking these days. If you manage to make lunch in a slightly different way you can describe yourself as a sandwich hacker these days. Basically, think of anything you have ever done that has in any way been easier than the most difficult way of doing it, and you are a life hacker.

 

[Shane__]

Don't you have to be a Thought Leader 1st?

No, if you look at companies like LinkedIn, Uber or Hubspot, they all have "Growth" teams. Its more about implementing the right processes to allow teams to experiment, fail, and try again.

 

[AllUpHere]

@Shane__ we aren't having a dig at you. We just get a lot of this sort of stuff posted, and it never turns out to be anything remotely new.

Happy to be proved wrong though.

 

[Shane__]

But why is the word 'hacking' in the title?

Growth Marketing can also be phrased as Growth Hacking. Its about finding out what works for your particular company and customers. It was a term coined in Silicon Valley by Sean Ellis. Very interesting approach to the new take on marketing and worth a look into.

 

[Gordon - Commercial Finance]

Yes of course

Growth Marketing is different in two key ways from traditional digital marketing because Growth Marketers:

1. discover growth though quick, data-driven experiments. They double down on what works and embrace failure as a learning opportunity.
2. seek opportunities throughout the customer journey, from awareness to revenue (as opposed to letting product own retention and sales own revenue etc).
3. Growth Marketers are about creating T-Shaped players that have a wide breadth of knowledge in order to contribute in the most effective way

So its about using unintelligible jargon and "leadership" buzzwords to talk about something that's not really new?

 

[Newchodge]

Oh Cyndy. You really are letting the side down.

Sorry, side.

 

[AllUpHere]

So its about using unintelligible jargon and "leadership" buzzwords to talk about something that's not really new?

It's basically a collection of stuff people have always done, and someone gave it a name.

 

[AllUpHere]

Sorry, side.

I think I speak on behalf of 'the side', when I say you are forgiven.

 

[Shane__]

@Shane__ we aren't having a dig at you. We just get a lot of this sort of stuff posted, and it never turns out to be anything remotely new.

Happy to be proved wrong though.

Of course, that is what these forums are for, to open discussions on these things

If you're familiar with Growth Marketing you will know it was a term coined by Sean Ellis out of Silicon Valley circa 2010. Sean worked with many reputable companies and was responsible for Dropbox's referral program which seen its exponential rise. Other names include Brian Balfour who has been VP of Growth at Hubspot, now has his own Academy (Reforge) which specialises in Growth. Growth is about breaking down the silo between Product teams and Marketing teams. Its aim is to turn these teams into fully functioning units that develop through the Pirate Funnel. So its not just marketing teams focusing on Awareness or Acquisition or Product teams focusing on Activation, Retention or Referral. Its now one fully integrated unit that can work faster and more agile. This is where many large companies have seen success and other companies are now expanding there resources into.

 

[Gordon - Commercial Finance]

Of course, that is what these forums are for, to open discussions on these things

Says who?

No one else here seems to be using this forum like this...

 

[Newchodge]

Bloody hell. And there I was thinking that growth was something that happens when you work hard on your marketing and develop your sales. I didn't know it was all about big words.

 

[AllUpHere]

Of course, that is what these forums are for, to open discussions on these things

If you're familiar with Growth Marketing you will know it was a term coined by Sean Ellis out of Silicon Valley circa 2010. Sean worked with many reputable companies and was responsible for Dropbox's referral program which seen its exponential rise. Other names include Brian Balfour who has been VP of Growth at Hubspot, now has his own Academy (Reforge) which specialises in Growth. Growth is about breaking down the silo between Product teams and Marketing teams. Its aim is to turn these teams into fully functioning units that develop through the Pirate Funnel. So its not just marketing teams focusing on Awareness or Acquisition or Product teams focusing on Activation, Retention or Referral. Its now one fully integrated unit that can work faster and more agile. This is where many large companies have seen success and other companies are now expanding there resources into.

You are simply talking about what we've been doing for years, and giving it a different name.

When I was studying with the Chartered Institute of Marketing it was all about making businesses 'marketing centric'. That's pretty much what you are describing, just with a different name.

I completely agree with you that marketing shouldn't be a stand alone function. The reason many people think it is, is because the marketing department in a large firm doesn't actually do the strategic marketing.

 

[fisicx]

The only good thing about @Shane__ 's posts is he didn't use the work 'entrepreneur'.

PS: A whole load of guff has been spouted by Silicon Valley oiks over the years. You can safely ignore most of it.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Speaking as a disruptive serial entrepreneur, I'd just add a few points here:

1. Overuse of buzz / corporate speak does far more to alienate than attract your audience (a point which I suspect is pretty central to marketing.
2. Yes, you are correct. Most business owners are looking for magic bullets - not just in marketing. This forum is full of people looking for simple answers to complex questions and, in many cases, getting stroppy when it's suggested that they need to dig deeper.
3. The majority of business owners don't really know what marketing is. They will immediately jump on promotion, and seek a single magic promotional bullet

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Is it not what we all do or did every day in a company, look at all the ways to get customers, work out the good from the poor results, compare a email campaign against say adwords or cold calling ver paper ads, Study the results using Analytics or other data ways. seems just a new name that's meaningless rather than good marketing practice done for years by most firms especially e-commerce firms

 

[Simon Berry-Hill]

Damn I need help, didnt realise I needed a Pirate Funnel or that I had product and marketing Silos.

OMG its all gone wrong

 

[Gordon - Commercial Finance]

Everyone needs a Pirate Funnel. Makes drinking rum a lot quicker.

 

[Simon Berry-Hill]

Aaaahh

That where I am going wrong

 

[Shane__]

You are simply talking about what we've been doing for years, and giving it a different name.

When I was studying with the Chartered Institute of Marketing it was all about making businesses 'marketing centric'. That's pretty much what you are describing, just with a different name.

I completely agree with you that marketing shouldn't be a stand alone function. The reason many people think it is, is because the marketing department in a large firm doesn't actually do the strategic marketing.

What were the processes involved in making businesses "marketing centric"?

If you look at most companies, Marketing teams focus on Awareness and Acquisition, its when you look further down the funnel that you see the product teams taking charge. Growth revolves around this idea of rapid experimentation so in order to make the two teams integrated and have consistent experiment contributions, you need your marketers with a breadth of knowledge in areas where 'Product' have the capabilities (service design/wire-framing) and then visa-versa.

 

[NickGrogan]

Yes of course

Growth Marketing is different in two key ways from traditional digital marketing because Growth Marketers:

1. discover growth though quick, data-driven experiments. They double down on what works and embrace failure as a learning opportunity.
2. seek opportunities throughout the customer journey, from awareness to revenue (as opposed to letting product own retention and sales own revenue etc).
3. Growth Marketers are about creating T-Shaped players that have a wide breadth of knowledge in order to contribute in the most effective way

All of which is listed and described in Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins in 1923

https://amzn.to/35UFSGJ

They weren't even new ideas then.

Don't they teach basic marketing anymore?

 

[NickGrogan]

Sean worked with many reputable companies and was responsible for Dropbox's referral program which seen its exponential rise.

The one that was the same as Hotmail's PS: I Love You campaign from 1996? Nothing special about it.

 

[Alan]

Growth revolves around this idea of rapid experimentation

I think the reason why we are confused is the word Growth means something, but not rapid experimentation. That used to be called boom or bust in the 70's.

Having personally invented something close to Agile Project management , but unfortunately branded it as Object Oriented Project System (OOPS ), I think it is time I rebranded Growth Marketing as Agile Marketing (tm)

 

[Annoying Donkey]

Object Oriented Project System (OOPS )

As an ex IT person, I think OOPS was the most appropriate and all time best acronym ever...

 

[Anon2718]

Any chance of something like a "10 growth hacking examples and why they worked article"?

Solid practice examples discussed step by step that is not all theory and no substance which is ultimately trying to sell something to the reader?

 

[fisicx]

Any chance of something like a "10 growth hacking examples and why they worked article"?

No, don’t do this. It will only encourage them to spout more buzzwords.

 

[Shane__]

Any chance of something like a "10 growth hacking examples and why they worked article"?

Solid practice examples discussed step by step that is not all theory and no substance which is ultimately trying to sell something to the reader?

If you Google top Growth Hacking Examples, the website Rockboost has a pretty good article on the subject.
This article gives you some good examples of pretty big companies that have had success with Growth Marketing. It focuses on where companies built growth into their product