The last days of summer caught us in our monthly online marketing explorations, this time with growth hacking. Our Timisoara Online Marketing Meetup #5 had Toma Grozavescu as a guest, the best fit to tell us more about the secrets behind an emerging vertical of online marketing.
First of all: what is growth hacking?
The general goal of growth hacking is to acquire as many users or customers as possible while spending as little as possible. It represents a mix of different marketing strategies that test the best and fastest way to get results: persuasive copy, combined with SEO tactics and different tools that increase conversion rates.
Initially started by startups looking for fast growth and scale-up, growth hacking has rather become a state of mind for today’s marketers, as it has recently extended to other types of companies.
“As growth is the make-or-break metric for startups (either they grow fast enough or they die), that’s the only metric that a growth hacker cares about.” Neil Patel.
To put it shortly, every decision or tactic chosen by a growth hacker is influenced by growth.
What did we discover at TOMM about growth hacking?
Toma gave us a few examples of international known growth hacking stories which helped big names like Facebook or Airbnb and why he was inspired to take this road. First of all, he assured us that growth hacking has nothing to do with the creative processes that are usually discussed in this industry, and that we were going to concentrate on metrics, statistics and how to optimize faster.
From Toma’s experience as a growth hacker, the growth pillars go like this:
→ Awareness: How can you make your target audience hear of you?
→ Acquisition: How do you attract your audience towards your site/ offline location?
→ Activation: How can you convince them to experience your service/ product? What is your USP?
→ Retention: How do you maintain your relationship with your audience?
→ Conversion: How do you convince them to buy?
→ Upvalue: Which ways can you offer your audience more value? What additional services/ products can you offer them?
→ Referral: How do you convince them to recommend you further?
“If we were to narrow it down to a definition, Growth Hacking is a marketing approach that uses rapid experimentation, creativity and a series of concepts and methodologies to accelerate a business. The keyword here is approach. Growth Hacking is not about ideas or tactics, but about the vision as a whole, even about the way we define marketing today.” says Toma Grozăvescu from Smarters.
What’s next on our TOMM agenda?
Well, this autumn comes with new perspectives and new plans, but we’re not going to tell you anything yet ? Meanwhile, you can take a look at how last month’s TOMM unfolded and register on our meetup.com group to keep in touch with upcoming meetups.