What Are Growth Hacks in Marketing? (examples+plan)

Growth hacking in marketing involves using minimal resources to achieve maximum results. 

The growth hack in marketing buzzword is largely used among new startups and small businesses who want to achieve results quickly. 

But what exactly are growth hacks in marketing and how do you do it?

Growth hacks in marketing use low/no cost methods to create a massive impact.  Marketing growth hacks are only limited to your creativity, and include strategies such as: guerilla marketing tactics, using “Free” in your marketing, increasing website conversion rates, creating massive referral sources, and finding breakthroughs in business.

In this article, we are going to provide a growth hack plan so you can hack your way to massive marketing success.

Let’s get started.

What Is a Growth Hack Strategy?

If a company has limited resources, is operating on a tight marketing budget, or simply wants to get more sales from what they have, it is the job of a marketer to specialize as a hacker. 

That is, devise a marketing strategy to multiply sales growth.

A growth hack strategy is a carefully developed set of activities used by marketing growth hackers to generate maximum growth using limited resources. This is done through a variety of creative tactics including: database marketing, email marketing, direct mail, guerrilla marketing, public relations, joint ventures, list swaps, local event marketing and digital marketing.

Growth hacking can take many forms and is really only limited by your creativity. There are no rules, except, to get the most out of the resources you have.

As we get started on growth hacking and examples, for a specific plan on creating massive exponential sales growth, go here:

How Do I Increase Sales? | 3 Strategies (+Free template)

Additionally, depending upon your experience level in marketing (marketing beginner or seasoned marketing consultant), it is highly suggested that you review this resource before starting your marketing growth hack journey:

Beginners Guide to Marketing (+7 easy steps)

Ok, to give you a fast and efficient, actionable growth hacking plan right now, for this article, your growth hacking marketing strategy can be grouped into three main categories. These include:

1. Content marketing growth hack

In content marketing, marketers create and share materials through the internet. Social media posts, blogs, and even videos may not promote the product directly. But if you can drive more low cost / no cost traffic to your website, and you have your website conversion rates dialed in to convert at excellent conversion rate, this could be a game-changer for you. These methods below can generate a lot of interest and website traffic for you. 

Examples of content marketing include:

• Influencer marketing
• Holding webinars
• Guest blogging
• Podcasting
• Getting product reviews from bloggers
• Participating in contests
• Getting your product listed in relevant marketplace places
• Email marketing

For an excellent tutorial on how to increase your website conversion rates, visit:

How to increase website conversion rates (examples and guide)

2. Product marketing growth hack

Product marketing is a step above content marketing. Here you are not just creating interest in a product but marketing the actual product or service. The hack builds a user base by making the product more appealing.

Product marketing techniques include:

• Offering incentives to new users
• Rewarding clients who bring referrals
• Affiliate marketing
• Making the sign-up process fun and rewarding
• Making people feel they are being left out for not using your product.

Excellent food companies are masters of this type of marketing. Not just McDonalds who have built the ideal food business model advertising to kids with the purpose of bringing their parents and whole family, who undoubtedly make purchases. 

But is it well worth your time to study products marketing and advertising strategies from companies such as Nestle (owns Gerber), Archer Daniels Midland (the largest food manufacturer in the US), Pepsi (owns Muscle Milk), and Modelez (owns Chips Ahoy).

For more information and lots of product marketing examples to help you generate your growth hack strategy, go here:

• Marketing lessons from the most popular food companies (Top 10 brands)
• How Do Food Companies Advertise Their Products? (6 tasty ways)

3. Social advertising growth hack

Social advertising is a way of promoting your business by serving social interests using public forums. The most prevalent social advertising technique is clickable ads, for example, pay per click. In most cases, growth hackers use social media platforms.

In this way, you increase brand influence and reputation using media platforms and social networks.

For a precise and clear plan to help you build an excellent per per click growth hacking strategy, review these this very helpful website marketing tutorial:

Website marketing with helpful examples and a sample marketing plan

How Can I Hack My Business Growth?

Now that you know the meaning of growth hacking in marketing, let’s use it to boost your business growth. 

The biggest secret to growth hacking your marketing?

Keep it simple. 

You or your marketing team should devise a growth hacking plan and make adjustments based on what the market is telling you.

This may sound difficult to do, but again, keep it simple.

If you did nothing else for your growth hack strategy, make it this and … 

Soon you will be one of the highest paid, happiest and most successful marketers on the planet!:

What is the first rule of marketing? (Solved!)

Onward. Here is how to hack your business growth:

1. Conduct Market Research

This is the first step in the implementation of your growth hacking strategy. Do thorough and precise market research. The market analysis you do will enable you to understand market trends and more importantly, understand your customer. Armed with that information, you can quickly pinpoint your target audience and what they really desire.

Go here for strategies on how to do this exactly:

8 Market Research Strategies used by Marketing Professionals

2. Develop a New Product or Make Modifications to the Current One

The information gained from market research and analysis should help you tailor your product or service according to the customers' needs. You can also twist the current product to match the client's desires. The improved or new products are known as market-fit items. In most cases, they are perfect or next to excellent.

As mentioned above, there is a lot that us marketers can learn about growth hacks from excellent food brands and how they hack their way to product growth. Review some of those companies such as Pepsi Co, Cargill, Tyson Foods, Kraft Heinz, and General Mills here:

What are the biggest food companies in the US? (+Amazing brands)

3. Marketing Campaigns

The third step of hacking your business growth is creating and implementing marketing campaigns to popularize your products. You can use one or a combination of the campaigns below.

a) Referral Programs

You can devise a program where you reward your current clients when they bring you a new customer. Call it minimal input for maximum results! This method also pairs with a reward campaign where active contributors to your business are rewarded for their efforts. The participants contribute passionately, knowing there is a reward at the end of it all.

b) Email Marketing Campaigns

This technique involves sending emails to target clients, informing them about your products. It is an effective way of educating and engaging potential clients about your new products. The method is very cheap compared to other forms of marketing.

c) Internet Marketing

Internet marketing is the way to go, and Google Ads is an excellent tool for hacking your business growth for a few reasons. First, the platform collects information about potential customers and helps you organize this into a usable format to help you make better decisions. Second, you can then create ads using target keywords, pricing, locations, and other collected data.

Google Ads is a great tool to help you bring customers into your front door, and then sell them more using email marketing and direct mail. In fact, this is the exact strategy you could use to literally scale up almost any business on the planet.

4-step growth hack marketing plan for 2022:

1. Optimize your website to convert and make sales
2. Use Google Ads to send buyers to your website
3. Use email marketing strategies to convert buyers
4. Use direct mail to sell to your best customers
5. Repeat

If you are serious about implementing this growth hack digital marketing plan, you can get all you need to do it right here:

Website Marketing and Online Advertising

Performance Analysis

Lastly, and to bring this entire marketing hack strategy full circle, it is time to review the results of your growth hacking strategy, and what it actually means to your business.

In this step, you review the process to determine what you achieved. If you achieve excellent results, go ahead and optimize your efforts and build systems to keep them running, and do more. If the results were weak, make the necessary adjustments, and keep focused on the high level growth hacking strategy and figure out how to move forward.

Here are two performance analysis strategies you can model for your own use:

• 5 Important Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in Marketing
• Food manufacturing financial ratios (Hormel vs Pepsi vs Nestle)

References

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681319301247

https://snov.io/glossary/growth-hacking/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_hacking