Growth Hacking: The New Sow in the Village

Iterative solutions; it is always interesting how quickly the density of foreign words increases when new terms like growth hacking have not yet found their place. A new magic word is thus sweeping through the marketing landscape: growth hacking is described as the optimal synthesis of product, customer experience and marketing. That's certainly close to bullshit bingo, but perhaps this new way of looking at things will put the term marketing back in perspective.

What is Growth Hacking?

 Sean Ellis, CEO of GrowthHackers.com, is credited as the inventor of the term and is said to have first coined the term in 2010. All German translations like Wiederkehrrate, Wachstumstrick or Wachstumskniff seem strange, perhaps the literal translation Wachstumsstoß or Wachstumsschub still hits it best. Ellies tried a combination of creative marketing, intensive web analytics and process automation with limited financial resources in marketing. Because this was beyond the skills of a normal sales promotion employee - what is often incorrectly called a marketing employee - he invented the job title of growth hacker. Growth hacking is also referred to as an iterative approach, which describes a process of repeating the same or similar actions multiple times to approach a solution or specific goal. It is thus in the mode of operation of many startups that create a new product, learn from customer experience, and thus develop the product further.

Differentiation from other terms

 As Ur-Growth Hacking is the name given to Hotmail's campaign from 1996 onwards, where new customers were recruited for Hotmail by pointing them to e-mails, thus quickly gathering a large number of users. However, this has nothing to do with a systematic approach, but is nothing more than a creative idea to win customers with limited resources. The term guerrilla marketing would certainly fit better here. In addition, the campaign was probably not that sustainable, because Hotmail is no longer relevant today, let's call it the Nokia effect.

Guerrilla marketing was coined by Jay C. Levinson in the mid-1980s, who used it to describe unusual marketing campaigns that promise a big impact with a small investment of resources. This is more appropriate for the Hotmail campaign and can also be found in other growth hack campaigns.

Marketing or sales management ultimately refers not only to the marketing of products but also to a concept of holistic, market-oriented corporate management to satisfy the needs and expectations of customers and other stakeholders. It is not only about the buying decision, but also about the whole unified alignment of a company with the market. Growth hacking differs little from marketing on the strategic side and little from guerrilla marketing on the creative side. What is new is the way the market is conquered. Marketing looks at the 4 elements of product, price, distribution and communication and this is what most marketing agencies, which are actually advertising agencies, are overwhelmed with.

Target groups or products

Growth hacking especially for start-ups does not care about its target groups in the first growth spurts. Due to the low-cost possibilities of the Internet, it relies on customers finding themselves through tests and recommendations. This also means that target groups define themselves, which can then be worked on more intensively. Such a system works particularly well if the target group to be reached is particularly large, i.e. if it appeals to large sections of the population. In the B2B area, you will get further faster with a more precise target group analysis. For example, it will work well for new cereal bars, but not so well for a concept for increasing the efficiency of machine tools.

Growth Hacking for your own company

Mares & Weinberg describe in the book Traction 19 strategies how to get customers. They include almost everything that is used in advertising and sales, new and traditional. To find out which method is best for your company, it is best to use one of the many creativity techniques. Ice, for example, evaluates the selected ideas under three aspects; Impact: will there be a decisive effect, Confidence: how much do I believe in the idea and Ease: how easy is it to test this idea. In addition, there are of course hundreds of other creativity techniques to bring more personal certainty to a decision. The only important thing is to decide and to implement this decision. Most projects fail not because they are bad, but because you gave up too early.

Conclusion

Growth hacking is an element of marketing when marketing is understood in its causal meaning, which is considerably more than an advertising message. It is especially interesting at an early stage of a company, product or target group and is later complemented by other elements. Guerilla marketing can provide valuable ideas in this area. For the most part, creativity should not take place in self-contained spaces or structures. A study on creativity has shown that most ideas are generated while taking a walk and the fewest in creativity seminars. Creativity and continuity is usually the key to success, whether in advertising, sales or the Growth Hack.

This is an article from King concept, a consulting company with a focus on marketing, sales and sales organization. Königskonzept regularly publishes professional articles on management topics and develops competencies for these areas through consulting, seminars and teaching assignments.