What is growth hacking?
Growth Hacking is a term that describes the marketing practices of a person whose 'north star' (leading) metric is growth. This can be the growth of an audience, database, followers, or even customers. Growth Hacking generally refers to non-traditional methods of marketing. It is a process that involves being agile and experimenting with various marketing methods to immediately achieve tangible results! If you're a business owner, you're a growth hacker!
I'm going to share 3 Growth Hacking Practices every small business or start-up should be doing now!
(1) Offer Free Content
Offer a free piece of content to your website, social media, or blog visitors in the form of a short guide, checklist, educational paper, or reference piece to download in exchange for their email address. For example, if you are a Yoga teacher offer a 'Free Guide to Yoga for Beginners' or if you are a plumber create a PDF showing '3 tips to fix a dripping tap'.
The immediate benefit of this is that it grows an email list of interested people - so, the Yoga teachers now knows who to target with beginner classes and the plumber knows who has a leak. This can now define your first email. Even if these people don't need your services now, chances are when they are in the market for a yoga teacher or plumber they'll go to someone who has already added value to their life, YOU!
Build Trust Quickly
60% of people reported that 'trust' is extremely important when buying a product or using a service. A good way to build trust is by adding social proof to your website or social media. A quick way to do this is to request quotes from happy customers about their experience with your product or service to add to your site.
If you're struggling to get reviews, send an email to all recent customers saying the first five to review will get a £10 Amazon Voucher. This might cost £50 but these reviews could increase your sales by up to 60% as suggested above.
If you don't currently have a Google My Business Page - Get one quick! (I can show you how to set it up if you get in touch).
(3) Know your customers & where they hang out online
Not traditionally a hack but if you haven't set up a 'Buying Persona' template then I'd suggest doing one pretty quick. This will define where to focus your energy. I personally use 'Buying Personas' in order to work out where to target my ideal customer.
A common mistake when putting together a persona is focussing on demographics (age, education, gender) but often it's better to focus on psychographics like aspirations, feelings etc as these will tell you more about where your prospects consume information.
In my next post, I will be sharing a Buying Persona Template with some sample questions that will guide you. Stay tuned for more & if you wnat to stand out from the crowd, subscribe to one of my plans
🔥