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“Growth Hacking is more of a mindset than a tool kit” – Aaron Ginn
What is the most common feat startups live in? It is the one that hounds them, the fear of forming a firm ground in the industry’s red ocean.
The prominent fear of the inability to reach their target audience and build a loyal customer base in the presence of huge competition. It seems nearly impossible to achieve this with traditional forms of marketing. This is where “growth hacking” comes into light and presents a robust solution for startups to compete with the heavy-duty competition.
What Is The Hype About Growth Hacking?
Sean Ellis created the term “growth hacking” in 2010 to describe an unconventional approach to marketing. It’s a technique that combines analytics, creativity, and innovation to get the highest returns within a short period.
Growth hacking strategies generally aim to increase the customer or user base as quickly as possible while keeping the spending to a minimum.
There are three main types of growth hacking strategies:
- Content marketing (using content to promote your business)
- Product marketing (promoting your product)
- Advertising (paid promotion)
These strategies are aimed to optimize the following stages of the growth hacking funnel:
- Acquisition
- Activation
- Retention
- Revenue
- Referral
Growth Hacking Strategies To Drive Your Startup
Growth hacking focuses on rapid growth, due to which it is appealing to startups. As we all know “Slow and Steady” no longer win the race today, it is vital for startups to encounter one growth strategy that can skyrocket their growth and boost their conversions.
1. Craft a compelling website home page
The human mind has an attention span of about 8 seconds. While on your website a new user has about this time to be assured of an extraordinary or problem-solving product or service.
Mind-boggling! Isn’t it? That’s where the growth hack comes into play. Make the sales message clear and concise in the headers of each page. Tests different combinations of headlines if necessary to reach a concrete conclusion.
For example: If you are a nurse recruitment startup a perfect sales message for your website home page/landing page would be as below:
We help nurses in India to get placed in top hospitals around the world so that they get handsome compensation and an elevated standard of living.
Jessica Webb of Trello experimented with 11 different headlines to increase their website’s homepage conversion by 2%.
2. A/B Testing Is The Key
How do you know that A worked better than B? Only when you compare the results generated by both of them in a comprehensive manner. A/B testing is a must for all start-ups for their conversion heavy areas like below:
- Homepage Headlines
- Sales Messages
- Sales Pages
- Social Media Ad Hooks
- Offers Showcased
- Contact Us Page
The key is to focus on one area at a time to reach a definite conclusion.
3. Use Short Opt-in forms
The main aim of an opt-in form should be to capture lead to further nurture it with other forms of marketing. It should be short and concise. If a customer has to fill up a rather lengthy form, he may opt-out and never return to your opt-in.
4. Create FOMO
Brands are capitalizing on people’s anxiety to miss out on things – popularly known as “FOMO” (Fear of missing out). This greatly increases their desire and want for that product/service.
A startup can leverage this and introduce a ‘Limited time offer’ or ‘limited availability to instill FOMO in them and make them take out their credit cards.
A brilliant FOMO strategy by Booking.com is when they show the frequency of a particular property booked while customers are on the page.
Or when amazon.com shows limited stock while people are looking for products.
It is all about presenting your service in a way that makes way into the need base of the customer and he promptly buys it.
5. Limit The Freemiums
Giving customers free access to more and more services gives a huge customer base to startups but it brings their revenue drastically down.
Startups should limit the free access by:
- Limited downloads
- Limited access to free content
- Limited time
Pepper.AI is a writing assistant tool that limits the usage of their free plan by only giving customers 10000-word curation. Post this the customers have to purchase the paid plan to continue the usage.
6. Find New Social Media Channels
Every social media platform has become a red ocean with all the brands crowding and fighting to reach out to new customers. Find new social media platforms to reach and influence your customers. This does not mean that one should not capitalize on popular platforms. It simply opens a new route for start-ups to tap into less explored channels.
These days Clubhouse has become the new hub for many startups to dominate authority and make a strong customer base. The Dots is another unexplored platform for freelancers to network and build clients.
These days, Clubhouse has become the new hub for many startups to dominate authority and build a strong customer base. The Dots is another unexplored platform for freelancers to network and build clients. Partnering with a social media marketing agency in India can also help navigate these new avenues effectively.
7. Interact, Interact and Interact
Your customers on social media have to be treated as humans craving a real conversation. Indulge them into interesting things your startup has to offer. Posting just a creative will no longer cut it to long-term growth.
Start-ups can use the following creative content to interact with their customers:
- Stories with polls and quizzes
- Ask Me Anything (AMA) exercise
- Lives addressing pain points and inviting questions
- Short problem-solving videos with call to action
- Infographics to educate customers
- Survey questions
- Broadcasting brand story with real-time videos
- Replying personally instead of chatbots
- Ask compelling questions, requesting answers in comments
- Interacting with customers which engage with your content
8. Give Incentive For Referrals
Referrals are one of the fastest ways to exponentially increase your startup’s customer acquisition. That’s because people are more willing to buy a product or service recommended to them by someone they know and trust.
SaveIN, a fintech startup, rewards its existing customers with attractive cashback when they onboard a referred customer. This approach aligns well with the strategies of any social media marketing company in India aiming to enhance customer outreach.
The Conclusion
Growth hacking is a fairly new strategy that many startups are experimenting with. It has long-term results and has proven to be a game-changer for many start-up brands.
Forming a reliable and strong growth hacking strategy is not an overnight process. It takes persistence and a growth mindset to achieve it.
We at TZS Digital work with small to mid-sized businesses to skyrocket their growth on the digital platform. Our expertise and young minds at work use tested and proven models to achieve our client goals. Reach out to us if you think that you have still not circled your ace growth strategy. We being a social media optimization company help you in reaching your goal faster.
Out of the strategies mentioned above, which one do you think is the most sustainable for your brand? Do comment below.
In today’s competitive landscape, partnering with the best social media marketing agency in India can provide startups the edge they need to implement effective growth hacking strategies.
