WHAT IS GROWTH HACKING?

WHAT IS GROWTH HACKING?

The term growth hacking gets thrown around a lot, but what do these words actually mean? Ultimately, growth hacking is the art of getting maximum exposure and/or new users with smart, creative and affordable marketing strategies. 

EXAMPLE

A great example of going viral and growth hacking done right is the ALS ice bucket challenge. For those that don’t remember or didn’t see the trend, click here. The ALS Ice Bucket challenge was a video centred around people pouring ice buckets over their heads (seriously), with them then saying how much they donated to ALS charity. It ended with them nominating their friends to do the same, with the videos then typically be uploaded to Facebook or YouTube.  

The ALS Ice Bucket challenge was a monumental brand awareness push for the neurodegenerative disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis - which few people had heard of in the mainstream.

 So, why did it go viral? 

Why did people suddenly seem to give a shit? 

We’re going to explore that later on when we’ll be dissecting each component of the campaign, and seeing how you can apply similar methodologies to your brand and marketing. 

The reason the Ice Bucket challenge is such a great example of brilliant growth hacking is that it costs the charity nothing. They were able to get people to promote their cause for them, turning hundreds of thousands of people into personal brand ambassadors and promoters overnight. That’s what growth hacking is about. It’s about coming up with creative campaigns, tactics and ploys to get maximum exposure or new users without spending much (if any) money. “” It’s about coming up with creative campaigns, tactics and ploys to get maximum exposure or new users without spending much (if any) money.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO GO VIRAL

What does it mean to go viral? 

It’s different for each brand. 

For some of my clients getting 20,000 views on a YouTube video is viral, for others it’s hundreds of thousands or millions. For me, you’re viral once you have at least half a million to a million views. 

THE BENEFITS OF GOING VIRAL

This is the real question. I’ve had dozens of brands come to me and offer me a large portion of equity and money to make them go viral, then I have to tell them a simple truth - I can get them viral, but it won’t help them. Going viral isn’t always the magic pill that everyone thinks it is. 

Let’s look at this from two extreme examples:     

1.  A local mechanic    

2. A dating app

I’ve had both of these clients, and both had the same goals. Initially, you may say, of course, they do, everyone wants to go viral. However, you need to always think in terms of opportunity cost. The local mechanic has a very small budget, and can only service a handful of customers each week. It turns out they were running at 60% capacity when they came to me, and their solution to increasing business to 100% was to go viral.  

So, I pitched them 2 proposals, one to go viral, and the other to show them how to dominate their local competitors. They chose the first, and after much consideration, I had to decline the deal. 

Sometimes learning how to dominate your local competitors is 100x more valuable than going viral. Evaluate your business and choose what’s best for you.