5 Growth Hacking Strategies and the Successful Companies That Used Them

Standing out from the crowd in the business world

Every entrepreneur dreams of growing their company as quickly as possible. The faster it grows, the more it’ll be worth the investment. But growth doesn’t happen overnight. And it doesn’t happen without the right marketing strategies.

One of the best ways to dedicate yourself to growing your business is to adopt a growth hacking mindset.

Growth Hacking: what is it actually?

Growth hacking is based on experimenting with different marketing and product development channels to discover the best methods of growing a company. Marketing, design, testing, and data analysis are all used in this process.

The term “growth hacking” was coined by American entrepreneur Sean Ellis to describe the vision and approach of a specialist that would be solely responsible for the development of a startup.

Ellis believed that marketers only took into consideration things like budgets, costs, and conversions but that a growth hacker wouldn’t be concerned with any of these issues directly. He was looking for a person whose real goal was progress, a person strictly focused on growth.

How can you use growth hacking for your own company?

Growth hacking only works if your business is open to experimentation. Experimentation comes with risk, but on the other side of risk is the opportunity for substantial growth. Each growth hacker has to decide which strategy works best for their organization.

Today’s leading companies have learned this lesson the hard way. Here are five examples of growth hacking strategies you can use as inspiration and the brands that prove their methods worked.

1. Raise awareness

How customers come across your brand should be the first aspect of growth hacking you think about. The goal of this stage is to come up with innovative ideas for marketing your business and to give your brand an image that the public can recognize anywhere.

Example: Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is the best example of a company that has managed to distinguish itself in its industry. Some 94% of people recognize the famous red and white logo. And even though most consumers prefer Pepsi over Coke in a blindfolded taste test, they choose Coke once they know what they’re drinking.

How did Coca-Cola spark this sense of loyalty that its consumers have? Simple. It knew how to be different and how to communicate that difference.

One way it achieved this was by creating the iconic Coke bottle. The company held a competition to develop a design that would make the brand stand out from the others and be easily recognized. As a result, it created the popular bottle design.

Coca-Cola has maintained a consistent visual identity since the beginning, with curved white letters on a red background. But it didn’t just do that. The company knew how to advertise itself, for example, by advertising its image side by side with Santa Claus. It has thus infiltrated the minds of consumers and earned its place among iconic brands.

The brand built its way to success with many strategies. But above all, what guaranteed its popularity was this: making sure people were aware of its product.

Give your brand an image that the public can recognize anywhere

2. Influencer marketing

There’s a reason why companies pay influencers to promote their products. A successful strategy to reach a wider audience is to work with public figures who have a large following.

For new startups that can’t afford to compete with established brands in terms of marketing budgets, leveraging the large fan base of influencers is an effective growth hacking strategy.

Example: Puma

Puma, one of the most popular sportswear companies in the world, demonstrated its marketing skills in the 1970 World Cup final. Before the match started, star player Pele was asked to tie his shoelaces while all the cameras were on him. That way, the public saw what shoe brand one of the most famous football players wore.

Although social media didn’t exist back then, Puma was able to use a strategy that worked. In today’s time, fortunately, collaborations of this kind, with influencers or micro-influencers, are accessible to anyone.

The bottom line is that it can be very useful for a company to find an ideal audience and ask an influencer to do what he or she does best. To influence.

Work with public figures who have a large following

3. Referrals

We’ve all come across that question that brands ask us when we use their products or services: would you recommend us to a friend? But this question is actually a very powerful one. Because businesses can expect to make at least 16% more profit from referral customers.

A referral program is a growth hacking strategy that motivates new customers to recommend a product or service to their friends, relatives, or colleagues. Often referred to as advocacy marketing or word-of-mouth marketing, the strategy combines simple methods of using incentives.

Example: Tesla

One of the best referral strategies is the program used by Tesla. The company used to offer customers a thousand dollars if they recommended Tesla to a friend. Now their new program rewards Tesla owners who promote the brand with incentives like invitations to private events or free car batteries.

Incentives, whether VIP services or exclusive products, make customers feel valued by the company they’re buying from. And this increases the possibility of recommendation even more.

Would you recommend us to a friend?

4. F.O.M.O.

F.O.M.O. — fear of missing out — is the anxiety people feel when they imagine they’re the only ones not experiencing something interesting.

People are always risk averse. And before making decisions, they want to think not only about the advantages but also about the disadvantages. If they see that something has more advantages, they worry about missing out on that opportunity or experience. Many companies feed this anxiety.

Example: Netflix

F.O.M.O. is a powerful engine of growth, and Netflix is ​​using it to fuel the success of original TV series. The topic of the newest TV series is often brought up in conversation, especially when you meet a colleague on your break from work and are racking your brain for what to talk about. You can very easily bring up the latest episode of the most watched Netflix TV show.

But only Netflix subscribers can watch these popular productions. Through this simple psychological trick, Netflix makes money by promoting popular shows that people don’t want to miss simply because they don’t want to feel left out.

If people see that something has more advantages, they worry about missing out on that opportunity or experience

5. Standing out from the crowd

It’s difficult to establish yourself in a competitive market. First, you need to know what others offer and what needs your service or product can meet. You can’t win the race to originality by offering more of the same.

The best way to stand out is to develop a feature that no other brand offers.

Example: Spotify

Spotify users are well aware of the “Wrapped” feature. Launched in 2016 and updated annually at the beginning of December, it displays the artists and genres of music that users listened to the most during that year.

Wrapped also provides information about how much time they spent listening to music, what their most played song was, and much other data about their own use of the app.

Spotify took a simple feature like this based on data collection and turned it into the popular trend it is today. People post their own Wrapped stats on social media, which organically amplifies the company’s presence in consumers’ feeds.

After Wrapped launched, the app saw a 20% increase in downloads in the United States. So the effect of this unique function is undeniable.

The best way to stand out is to develop a feature that no other brand offers

Growth hacking means not letting customers come to you but making the magic happen yourself. Don’t be afraid to experiment and discover what works best for your company. Who knows? Maybe your own company will eventually be listed in a success story article.

“The end goal of every growth hacker is to build a self-perpetuating marketing machine that reaches millions by itself. — Aaron Ginn” — Ryan Holiday

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