The Fundamentals of Growth
The term growth hacking responds to a single premise: growth. This new digital marketing methodology has increased the pace at which companies expect to progress . Growth hacking, which was created to provide growth responses to start-ups when they enter the market, is now implemented by the entire business scene because it has proven its efficiency in terms of expansion. However, this type of accelerated development requires some essential requirements for its execution, which we will call the fundamentals of growth , and which are advanced by the growth hacker, Brian Balfour .
Firstly, and as a consequence of this new opportunity that new technologies have given us, data analysis is positioned as key to the development of effective growth hacking . Hence its name. This methodology is constituted as a kind of pirate data sucker. It is well known that data is a more than useful element in the viability of a company. However, prior to the normalization of an emerging digital scenario, data was abundant, provided a large amount of information, but little time was devoted to its analysis. Data analysis tools have solved this problem.
Big data is now seen as an inviolable instrument in a company's decision-making process, because once processed, the data is capable of multiplying a company's return on investment. The massive abundance vp facility managers email lists of data has given rise to a new era in which extreme personalisation, constant experimentation and new business models are the order of the day, as McKinsey predicts. In other words, data analysis allows for the identification of new ideas and solutions in order to generate the results that a business seeks to achieve : growth, for example.
The information obtained through marketing techniques generates significant benefits: identifying the ideal markets in which to act, understanding the behaviour and trends of our target accounts or improving pricing policy. In this sense, the American consultancy, in its report “ Using data to make better pricing decisions ”, foresees four steps to convert data into benefits :
It is necessary to listen to the data and understand it. It is not only essential to manage it, but also to use it to make decisions.
Data automation and mechanization tasks are an essential requirement for fine-tuning data analysis.
It is essential to create optimal positions regarding data , building skills and confidence in these positions that are the information foundation on which companies operate.
Active performance management is also an essential task, since data gives us the opportunity to redirect our strategies if they have not obtained the expected results.
However, the data supports a second task: the creation of quantitative models , which is consolidated as the second foundation for growth. Big data must be translated so that the information collected serves as a forecast of future scenarios. The company, through the growth hacking methodology and in view of its growth objective, must use the data to create statistics, metrics and percentages on the phenomena that have been observed, so that it knows the behavior of its product in the market or how it is perceived by its target audience.
The third and fourth commandments for achieving business growth have to do with people . Knowing the psychology of our buyer , on the one hand, allows us to identify the stimuli to which users respond and make adjustments to the marketing strategies implemented. Today, the recognition of trends and changes in the user population is more accessible than ever. Social networks have become the expression of behaviors, opinions and judgments issued by the public and the challenge for companies is to join the conversation in search of a better understanding of the public.
This psychological knowledge, on the other hand, is of great help when trying to connect with the audience . Companies must work to know the keys to build a message that is convincing for target accounts. In this sense, storytelling is the ultimate foundation for growth since the art of storytelling is a crucial element to link a company and its respective users.
From digital marketing to growth hacking
Although we have already defined growth hacking as a methodology that evolves from digital marketing, there are some points where the biggest differences between both methods can be discovered. Firstly, it should be noted that, if digital marketing can be implemented for various reasons or objectives, such as brand recognition and its positioning on the web, attracting new customers or increasing the number of sales, growth hacking pursues a single reason: growth .
In view of this objective, traditional digital channels are outdated for growth hacking. Instead, innovation in digital channels is an essential element to establish more direct connections that have a greater impact on the user . These new channels must be at the same level as the product, since when we work with the growth hacking methodology, we indicate in all phases of the product that it must meet one premise: its virality. Therefore, it is vitally important that both, channels and products, are in agreement.
