In order to expand a business, it is essential for entrepreneurs to market their products effectively. There are many difficulties down the road. However, scalability is achievable with the best startup hacks and strategies.
To reach out to a large audience, entrepreneurs require to choose various startup hacking methods. Although some of these techniques have only been around for a few years, they show to play an important role in modern-day businesses’ Growth.
What is growth hacking?
In simple words, growth hacking is a creative and unconventional way to get extensive results fast while neglecting old-established processes.
In marketing terms, growth hacking suggests implementing non-traditional marketing strategies driven by creativity and data to get tremendous results fast while spending limited to no money on getting these outcomes.
It is called growth hacking because a hacker gets it done with a fast, cost-effective, but innovative approach to achieve Growth rather than following conventional processes.
Many entrepreneurs have made them an essential part of growing their business because they noticed profitable results, and it is the right time you do so too. Growth hacking is often done by early-stage startups that are bootstrapped for funds.
Entrepreneurs search for different growth hacks and want to proliferate by uniting millions of customers that increase their profits. Growth hacking ideas for businesses are a proven factor of success. But not every company can do these marketing growth hacks in the best way.
Who is a Growth Hacker?
A growth hacker is a clever, unique, and creative person who works to grow a business in affordable ways, aiming to get and keep customers for as long as possible.
They might use different tactics like writing interesting content, making things go viral, sending emails, improving website searches, testing what works best, or breaking down systems to see how they work.
It’s important to know that while all growth hackers are marketers, not all marketers are growth hackers. They believe that combining a great product with smart growth strategies naturally leads to success.
Best Startup Hacks for Growing
The following are some of the effective best startup hacks for growing your business.
1. Launch on product hunt or related platforms
A launch on Product Hunt is a crucial checkpoint. Week after week, there is a number of startups launching. Such platforms enable you to deliver your message to new audiences.
Product Hunt continues to remain a market leader to show your business to a global audience. It’s your “golden ticket” to get constant attention to numerous innovators and journalists—your opportunity to receive feedback and opinions for new opportunities.
2. Referral Marketing
Referrals from friends, family, or famous people in the industry help get leads faster and cheaper than other ways. When someone comes recommended, they’re cheaper to get and stick around longer, making them more valuable over time. Plus, sales folks with referral programs sell way more.
Take Uber for example. They started by sharing rides and used referrals to spread the word. They gave users $5 credit for every new person they brought in with their code. This move was so good that now every ride-sharing app does the same thing.
3. Create a community around your brand
Social media is super important for business marketing. You can use it to support your business, get feedback, and talk to big names in your industry. It takes time to make cool content and get lots of followers. But, it’s important to make sure your social media work helps your business grow.
A smart way to use social media to help your business is to start a Facebook group for your brand. In this group, you can get people interested in what you sell by giving them valuable stuff. This way, even people who haven’t heard of your brand might become interested if they like what your group shares.
For example, the person who created Lead – a tool for getting leads – made a Facebook group called Growth hacking & outbound marketing.
It’s for people who might want to buy his product, and he keeps them interested by sharing top tips on growing a business every day.
4. Make a Pre-Launch Email List
Email marketing remains head to find both leads and progress when it comes to an effective startup growth strategy.
This is a perfect growth hacking technique.
You have probably heard the famous saying, “The money is on the list,”
That’s referring to an email subscriber list, and it’s one of the essential things you need to build for your startup.
Focusing on building an email list is crucial for reaching your audience and effectively conveying your message. Email marketing is instrumental in generating pre-launch hype for products or events, allowing businesses to attract potential customers even before launching. However, it’s important to actively engage with your list, building excitement for your launch over a few weeks.
5. Build a Dynamic Content Marketing Strategy
Customer feedback is super important for your business. It helps you quickly fix any complaints or questions. Plus, it makes handling customer issues a breeze.
To grow your business, you need a strong plan for creating content that focuses on what customers say and helps you show off your product easily.
Even if you’re on a tight budget, you can make a content plan that helps people see why your product is awesome. No matter what your business does, your content should always pull in the right people.
When making content, aim to make stuff people want to share. For example, videos are a big deal because they can pack a lot of info into a small space.
Look at Marketo, a marketing tool that uses videos instead of just text to teach users. This is tough for creators since there’s no magic formula to make something go viral. But the good news is, no matter your team’s size or budget, you can make content that people want to share.
Just add emotion, value, and the right hooks to get potential customers to visit your website.
6. Follow Your Biggest Competitors
Competition can come in different forms and sizes, but it always exists. Once you have recognized your competitive landscape, it is essential to showcase your company’s competitive advantage in any respective market.
Make sure as an entrepreneur you zero in on your business venture and remain knowledgeable of the changing factors in your competitive landscape. This will position your business to adapt and leverage its strengths quickly.
Many businesses collapse due to following the competition without an action plan. As a consequence, they fail to deliver the desired results. A good plan should concentrate on discovering all the conversations that are happening around the target brand. For this, you require to be at the same digital places (social media, forums, etc.) where the target (and its target audience) hangs out.
The plan should also involve a thorough and routine analysis of the competitor blog (and the keywords in those blogs) so that you can tailor your content for maximum result.
Similarly, you should also follow their backlinks to have a decent idea of marketing their products and services.
7. Work with Influencers
Brand building works well when brands team up with popular people on social media to promote their stuff. Working with influencers who have lots of followers, especially those with over 50,000, can really help a brand get noticed by more people.
Business owners should think about partnering with these influencers to spread the word about what they offer. Doing influencer marketing the right way can make a brand more popular and reach a lot of people.
For new companies that don’t have a big budget for marketing, using influencers is a smart move. These influencers already have lots of fans, so businesses can see these fans as potential new customers.
Look at Gymshark, a brand that grew big by working with fitness influencers. In the beginning, Gymshark got a lot of attention and sales by partnering with people in the bodybuilding and fitness world.
8. Implement gamification into the product
Gamification is a cool marketing trick that’s not used enough. It’s about adding game-like elements such as scoring points, earning ranks, and competing with others to make products more exciting. This approach works because people naturally love to achieve and win, and when you turn using a product into a fun game with rewards for doing well, people get more hooked on it.
A great example of this in action is LinkedIn. LinkedIn encourages users to complete their profiles by offering different achievement levels, like “All Star” or “Expert,” depending on how much info you add to your profile. These titles are like badges of honor that show off your professionalism to others in your network.
Another cool game feature on LinkedIn is endorsements. This lets users give each other thumbs-up for different skills, and the more endorsements you have for a skill, the more it stands out on your profile. LinkedIn says that profiles with endorsements get looked at 13 times more than those without them. So, basically, adding these fun gaming elements can really help a product or service stand out and keep users engaged.
9. Create a viral waiting list
A cool way to grow fast is by using a viral waiting list. Usually, when you’re about to launch a product, you make a landing page to tell more people about it. The trick is to use this landing page even before your product is out.
10. The Data fueled growth hack
Ask any growth hacker, and they will say data analytics is by far one of the most valuable resources they can have at their disposal.
This is because recognizing the correct data can tell you a lot about what is working in a business, what is not, and what requires to be done.
Twitter used data to solve an onboarding query it faced early on in its life.
Twitter found out that a new sign-up will likely become a core user if it follows 30 or more people.
Following this, Twitter began to suggest new users an option to import contacts to hit this number.
Lastly,
Growing a business is tough for many. The main issue is that your potential customers don’t often see creative marketing. To grow in a competitive field, you need to use the best startup hacks and strategies mentioned earlier. Trying new things is good – in fact, it’s the top tip from experts. But, it’s also important to stick to proven growth strategies.
There’s no magic solution for all problems. So, don’t be scared to try new ways to grow.
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