What is Growth Marketing or Growth Hacker Marketing

Posted in   Growth Hacker Marketing, Growth Marketing, Marketing   on  January 4, 2021 by  Sudha Mani0

This article is one of the five blog articles on Growth Marketing.

You will have answers to the following questions in this article;

What is Growth Marketing?

What are the goals of Growth Marketing?

What are the responsibilities of a Growth Marketer?

Before, I get into the beef of the article. Let me share this with you. Growth Marketing sometimes referred to as Growth Hacker Marketing. Sean Ellis coined termed “Growth Hacking” in 2010 when he was helping to skyrocket tech start-ups’ marketing efforts. However, lately term “Growth Marketing” seems prevalent than “Growth Hacking”. As “hacking” is a more tech term. So, I feel “Growth Marketing” is more relatable terminology outside the tech scene.

I used to refer to myself as a growth hacker. I even wrote an article about it on LinkedIn on April 6th 2016. Here is the link.

One of the non-spoken assumptions of growth marketing is to get as much brand exposure or awareness as possible by exploiting the organic strategies effectively through tracking the analytics.  Yes, they use paid advertisements, but they will avoid paid strategies as much as possible if they can help.

What is Growth Marketing?

Growth Marketing is a branch in marketing where it goes beyond the initial conversion target. Growth Marketing is a process where research and experimentation of specific marketing strategies can use them effectively to achieve business growth results in alignment with business strategy.

However, growth marketing cannot happen if there are no product-market fit.

So, what is product-market fit?

If the innovator or product created a product that fits the market demand. So, when marketing is done the product takes off virally.

Suppose a client comes, the growth hacker or marketer and says; we have this product created can you market? Then,  we have to go into marketing experimentation even if we know the target audience unless there is a clear demand valuation is done before the product was developed.

Growth marketing is a process where marketing campaigns focus on a particular growth metric. For example, if the growth metric we are concentrating on is Increase acquisition or increase customer base. Then, growth hackers or marketers have to close the gap by retaining existing customers before acquiring customers if the business is already established. Otherwise, it has to just create a new market by educating the market. This does take time and the business must be prepared for this.

It is a lot easier, quicker and cheaper to retain existing customers than acquiring.

Just because growth marketing runs experiments doesn’t mean it can run without a plan. Each experimentation has to have a goal and a plan to achieve that goal and go beyond in almost all cases.

What are Growth Marketing Goals?

In digital marketing where awareness, education and conversions are goals. Whereas in Growth marketing, the goals are multi-fold; 3As+3Rs. So, what are 3As? Brand Awareness, Customer Acquisition, Customer Activation. It is not growth marketing if the rest of the formula ignores it. So, what are 3Rs, Revenue growth, Customer Retention and Word of Mouth or Referral?

Above are all six goals which growth marketing has to achieve. Tomorrow, I will be talking about these goals in detail in addition to the differences between digital marketing and growth marketing.

You may ask where the experiment comes in place, and we already do all of these?

Of course, almost all businesses do cover these elements. However, they don’t do it cohesively; that is why their ROI (Return on Investment) towards marketing is a miss most of the time and looks like a bottomless pot for many business owners.

I have been referring to Growth Marketer repeatedly until now, and I have not explained the responsibilities of a Growth Marketer yet; let me explain.

What are the responsibilities of a Growth Marketer?

Growth Marketer role is a perfect cocktail of Researcher, Technician/Developer and Marketer. I use “perfect” loosely because it is not as exciting if you are the person who is not a numbers person, analytical, iron-clad, swift-pivoter  (I know it is not a word yet LOL) or all of the above.

It is not easy to think straight when the graph is going down. We growth marketers or growth hackers obsess about numbers, A/B testing, maps, swift tactical changes without losing the vision. For, a growth marketer GROWTH is a true north and the product-market fit is a MUST, not a choice. Whatever, we need to see the way forward and achieve growth even if we have to blur the black and white lines.

Now, that you know what a Magician Growth Marketer is.  For a Growth Marketer, there is always a reason(s) to the madness and the campaign can be well defined as organised chaos. We have a destination but there may be too many roadblocks and closures.

The primary skill a growth marketer has to have excellent analytical skills to look at the analytics and see the gap he/she/they can exploit even when others cannot see them. Yes, they have to be a God. (No, just joking)

The secondary skills growth marketer has to have are data management,  software development and a great understanding of marketing strategies downfalls to rewire the campaign for better results.

Remember, an experienced growth marketer never uses fictional methods or strategies or tactics. However, a growth marketer uses techniques that are not exploited by the typical digital marketer; sometimes, it will look like novel ideas or at other times, it will look more like common sense.

Now that you know growth marketing, its goals and the responsibilities of a Growth Marketer, we can talk about the differences between Growth Marketing and Digital marketing tomorrow. Also, I will cover similarities with other marketing disciplines.

Reference: Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday.

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