Growth Hacking: what it is and how it works

What exactly does Growth Hacking mean and what makes this innovative concept different from traditional marketing? Find out everything you need to know about the subject and how to become a growth hacker in this article.

Growth Hacking is a marketing process or methodology that aims to accelerate the growth of a company quickly and at minimal cost.

Growth Hacking translates as growth hacking, i.e. growth trick or ploy. This might make you think of something improvised (or the so-called "pirate marketing") , but the reality is quite different: Growth Hacking develops within a rigorous framework in which no idea is implemented (and no resources invested) without prior experimentation.

This is the true growth hacking revolution.

How Growth Hacking works: techniques and strategies

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, AirBnb, Dropbox, Reddit and GoPro are just a few examples of startups that, using Growth Hacking techniques , have achieved record growth figures in less than a decade.

The professionals who made this result possible have set aside the traditional marketing manual in favor of a new methodology that starts from product development.

What are growth hacking strategies?

In Growth Hacking there are no standard strategies, as in traditional marketing: Growth Hacking, in fact, is an approach that indicates the way forward , based on creativity and experimentation.

The goal of growth

When a company starts thinking about the importance of a product's impact on its user base, it's much easier for the entire team to think about growth. And growth accelerates when the team starts experimenting.

Growth Hacking is a permanent process which, through continuous experimentation at every level of the strategy, leads the marketing team to the Growth Hack , the growth hack, i.e. the perfect equation which allows us to obtain the greatest possible growth for the business.

Experimenting is vital to growth – you don't know how people will react to changes in your product, so you need to test your assumptions.

The Growth Hacking Funnel

The Growth Hacking methodology follows a precise development process and phases. To understand how it works, it is useful to introduce the Pirate Funnel , so defined for the initial letters of each of its levels, which when placed side by side evoke the most typical expression of pirates: AARRR .

The Pirate Funnel develops in the following phases:

• Acquisitions,
• Activation,
• Retention,
• Revenue,
• Referrals.

The Growth Hacking Funnel is essential for establishing your priorities and deciding where to invest the available resources. Each stage of the funnel has specific strategies.

The history of growth hacking

Marketer Sean Ellis coined the term “Growth hacking” in 2010 to describe a new, more operational and less dispersed approach to marketing.

Growth Hacking was born to help startups , notoriously short on budget and personnel resources, but quickly aroused the interest of companies of all sizes.

At the time Ellis was a point of reference in Silicon Valley for having created revolutionary systems, processes and mindsets with which several tech startups had accelerated their growth.

Sean's idea was to give the company a framework with which to grow independently. Unfortunately, however, as soon as he left the project management, the company stopped growing.

This prompted him to publish a job advertisement : "Find a Growth Hacker for your startup" .

This is where the word “growth hacker” first appears.

The skills Ellis was looking for were not the classic ones of a marketing expert, which is why in his ad he explained what a growth hacker is (we'll go into that shortly).

Digital marketing vs Growth Hacking: the differences

Growth hacking has the growth of a company as its sole objective. For marketing, on the other hand, growth is just one of many goals to pursue.

At this point, however, you might be wondering what changes, in practice, from Digital marketing to Growth Hacking.

Here are the main differences:

• the approach: Growth Hacking has a more operational approach, focused on the last steps of the sales funnel. Traditional marketing, on the other hand, focuses its efforts on the initial levels of the funnel (awareness and branding);
• the method: Growth Hacking starts from a creative phase, applies a rapid testing logic and implements the solutions which, according to the tests, are the most performing;
• The budget: as a quantity but also as a logic for allocating resources. While in traditional marketing the budget is assigned per campaign, in Growth Hacking it is divided between various quick tests that are used to test the various ideas and, based on the results, the investment is increased on the most promising ones;
• the conception of the marketing activity: traditional marketing starts from the product; Growth Hacking starts with understanding its user base to develop products that are easier to sell.

Going into the differences between Digital marketing and Growth Hacking in more detail we see that the growth hack route uses the same online channels and tools as traditional marketing – SEO, PPC, Email Marketing, etc. – but does so with a more agile, creative and experimental mindset .

The role of the growth hacker: who he is and what he does

A growth hacker designs, implements, and oversees marketing strategies that enable a company to increase sales and customer engagement.

What a growth hacker does:

• conducts market research,
• perform A/B tests,
• analyze data,
• identifies industry trends,
• collaborates with UX/UI teams.

What character, personality, skills and experience should a Growth Hacker have?

Growth hacking requires the ability to combine strategic vision with practical execution and analysis. For this reason, a good growth hacker must have a creative mind, a strong analytical ability, be disciplined and think quickly: the ability to adapt to changes in the sector or negative test results is essential.

"The Growth Hacker is a person whose true North is growth" .

Sean Ellis

This is the first ever definition of a growth hacker.

But what does it mean that the North is growth? That every decision, every tactic, every strategy adopted by a growth hacker has growth as its goal .

Is it better to have an engineering or sales background to be a growth hacker?

As Ellis pointed out, the background is not binding. The aspiring growth hacker must have 3 main qualities:

• the ability to take responsibility for growth;
• an entrepreneurial drive;
• a burning desire to connect the reference market with the solution that his company proposes.

What you study to become a growth hacker

Given the success of companies that have implemented Growth Hacking, more and more CEOs are looking for professionals capable of applying this working methodology.

Do you want to become a growth hacker? There is currently no "Bachelor's Degree in Growth Hacking" but if you have a degree in Marketing or Business, you may have more career opportunities. Mastery of Google Analytics and other data collection software is also essential.

Having experience in Digital marketing , and therefore knowing how SEO, online advertising, content marketing and social media marketing work, is an important requirement. Because only when you know the rules can you figure out a way to break them, which is what a growth hacker does.

As we have already said, the growth hacker is a professional with specific skills – a creative and open mind, an analytical intelligence and an excellent ability to adapt to change. These skills can be learned and above all trained.

How to become a growth hacker in 4 steps

• Step 1: Invest in your training. Attend specialized courses, read books on the subject, follow discussions on forums and groups where growth hacker communities gather.
• Step 2: Work on your technical skills. Mastery of programming, as well as UX/UI and analytics software will be very helpful to you.
• Step 3: Get experience. Experiment with small projects, explore different paths than usual, collect data and study the results you obtain to establish patterns to be replicated on increasingly larger businesses.
• Step 4: Find a mentor who can walk you through the best growth hacking strategies and network with other professionals. For example, you can join growthhackers.com , the largest international community of Growth Hackers founded by Sean Ellis and his longtime partner Morgan Brown.

The best growth hacking books to read

In just over 10 years, dozens and dozens of books have been written on the subject, from those for beginners to the more advanced ones.

The 5 books on Growth Hacking that you absolutely cannot miss are:

1. Hacking Growth , by Sean Ellis. Here are collected the basic concepts of the methodology and the hacks of the different stages of the Growth Hacking Funnel.
2. Don't make me think , by Steve Krug. A book that helps you think about user interface to improve your UI designer skills.
3. Growth Hacking Mindset – There is no innovation without experimentation , by Raffaele Gaito. This book contains 25 case studies of Italian companies of all sizes and sectors that have applied Growth Hacking.
4. Traction , by Gabriel Weinberg & Justin Mares. This book on growth hacking investigates why some startups succeed and others fail.
5. The Growth Handbook , by Des Traynor, Karen Peacock and Andrew Chen. It delves into the current subscription-based economy, explaining how to experiment with growth and what are the most common mistakes.

Growth Hacking feeds on lateral skills and innovative approaches to marketing problems. To broaden your training, use strategy manuals, specialized texts and books containing case studies from the best growth hackers.

Growth hacking courses

Taking a course is a great way to learn Growth Hacking techniques and the mindset behind this approach. There are courses of all types, from beginner to more advanced level, online or face-to-face.

Growth hacking for startups: aspects to consider

Startups need to achieve exponential and sustainable growth quickly and on a small budget. This makes them the ideal terrain to travel unconventional roads.

The experiments that growth hackers conduct on startups make it possible to quickly understand what will make the business grow and what will not, investing resources only where the results are positive.

Furthermore, startups are perfect for this approach because they don't have a rigid structure like that of large companies: here it is possible to overturn the traditional management of product development and marketing much more easily than in already consolidated companies.

Does growth hacking really work? The most sincere answer lies in the results achieved by companies such as LinkedIn, Uber, Dropbox, Airbnb, born as startups and today among the most powerful companies on the market, international and listed on the stock exchange.

How to build a growth hacking team

Creating a Growth Hacking team is a hot topic for startups today: more and more companies are publishing invitations for growth hackers and growth marketers to join their team on specialized sites (such as AngelList).

What is a Growth Team?

In the book "Hacking Growth," Sean Ellis and longtime partner Morgan Brown describe a growth team as a cross-functional, collaborative team made up of experts not only in marketing and sales, but also in programming, analytics, and product management.

How a Growth Hacking team should be composed and which professionals you cannot do without

The team in charge of designing, developing and following Growth Hacking strategies must be made up of highly qualified, versatile, courageous people who are guided by data.

If your reality is a startup, you may have few resources to hire all the professionals your Growth Hacking team needs. In this case, the profiles to prioritize are:

• Head of Growth.
• Programmer.
• Data Analyst.
• Ux Designer.

Steps to create a Growth Hacking team

1. Set your business growth goals
2. Define your KPIs
3. Choose your growth hacking team model: independent (like Uber and Facebook) or functional (like LinkedIn, Pinterest, Dropbox or Twitter)
4. Find and hire the right professionals
5. Cultivate a growth-friendly culture within your team
6. As your startup starts to grow, expand your Growth Hacking team.

How to do Growth Hacking with the agency

If the budget you currently have does not allow you to create a Growth Hacking team, you can rely on an agency specialized in this type of activity .

Here you will find trained and experienced professionals, capable of planning and managing the testing process you need to accelerate the growth of your business. In this way you will have at your disposal a team of growth hackers with experience in companies of different sizes and sectors, without having to hire them directly .

Growth marketing agencies combine marketing, sales and technology services with a global vision and centralized leadership. They analyze the problems of your business and think about the Growth Hacking Funnel of your business. Then, together with you, they define SMART growth objectives and KPIs to measure.

Growth Hacking: Practical Applications

Growth hacking and social media

You can also use the Growth Hacking methodology to quickly grow your audience on social networks , not only in quantitative terms but also (and above all) in qualitative terms.

Growth Hacking and Email Marketing

Email Marketing is a great Growth Hacking tool, thanks to its low investment cost and ease of implementation . The solutions that Growth Hacking can suggest are based on the type of business and the stage in which the user base is located.
As in other fields of application, the ability to measure and analyze data, combined with the use of machine learning and Automation processes are an indispensable ally.

Growth Hacking and CMSs

A CMS, like Wordpress or Joomla, is the perfect Growth Hacking tool : flexible and controllable in every aspect, it allows you to carry out any type of experiment – A/B testing on landing pages, marketing campaigns, optimizing buttons, titles, structures of blog posts, etc…
WordPress and Joomla are loved by search engines, are mobile-friendly and, thanks to the thousands of plug-ins available, allow a Growth Hacking team to test different versions of a site to improve user experience and conversions.

Growth Hacking FAQ: The most common questions

Is Growth Hacking or Traditional Marketing Better?

There is some overlap between growth hacking and traditional marketing, but while traditional marketing focuses on selling a company's products or services, growth hacking has a big picture view of the business and a more holistic approach to the problem of growth.

Traditional marketing is more suitable in the early stages of the funnel, those of awareness and branding, while Growth Hacking can make the difference in the activation, retention, revenue and referral stages.

How often should growth hacking be implemented?

Growth Hacking isn't a tactic or a strategy, it's an approach, an ongoing process that, ideally, never ends. To achieve exponential and sustainable growth over time, tests must be carried out continuously and the results obtained must be measured before taking any action.

To do Growth Hacking when budget is needed?

Growth Hacking is a solution that was created to help companies with few resources available, such as startups, but it is not an activity that can be developed without the right budget.

You can start with a small budget , to conduct the first tests, and then increase it, as you start to get the first results and economic returns.

Is growth hacking only for startups?

Absolutely not! Startups are realities with small budgets and high hopes that show us how we can accelerate the growth of a business when we proceed by testing and reasoning on data. But Growth Hacking can and should also be applied to medium and large companies to allocate the budget more effectively and profitably.