Growth Hacking: Data and Product Driven Marketing
There is one secret that sets you apart from exponential growth in your startup or company. The “divine chromosome of marketing”: Growth Hacking.
In this process we use many scientific methods, but the “blow up” moments are made of the creative ideas — that bring the “spikes” in the goals you set for your organization, such as content virality, user acquisition and becoming the number one platform in the market.
Are you ready to take off?
To explain this subject, I want to first get the concept clear. We will also get real-world examples and even utilities. Let’s start from the beginning.
David and Goliath
In one of his books, Malcolm Gladwell writes on this battle as a methodology for victory of the small over giants. In this book — “David and Goliath”, Malcolm focuses on the motivation and hidden drives that makes us act. This preview represents this entire text, which is supposed to make you think beyond just give you tools.
Not just an analogy and not by chance
3,000 years ago, on the battlefield of ancient Israel, a small shepherd boy took down a giant warrior with not more than a sling stone. Since that day, the names of David and Goliath are a metaphor for battles between small and giants.
What caused this victory?
David used the force of momentum. He used a tool that he knew well, and by maximizing its power he managed to take down the giant. David acted swiftly, elegantly and did not try to be something he is not or use technologies that he does not have.
David was not motivated by fear and “flat facts” that indicated, generally, “you stand no chance”. He arrived and was motivated by belief that he can and will win — and the rest is history.
Wars and Chances
What are the odds that a small army will win a large army? If we look at a summary analyzing wars in the last 200 years, it appears that 28% of the time the small army wins. If the small army used special combat tactics, guerrilla and subversive methods, the chance skies up to 63%!
If we try comparing this battle to our millenium, we can try to figure out how things work in the modern era. For example — what are the odds that a small company wins a battle against a large company, like the FAANG?
Humans learn through stories … copy and paste?
#1 — Listerine
The Challenge
Listerine has had a difficult time in marketing their mouthwash product to customers.
The Hack
The Listerine team found out about a latin word that connects with a bad smell of breath and issued an article on the subject — thus making it into a “medical condition”.
Since the moment they got it into the medical territory, it is no longer a “nice product” but a medical product that gets you out of the medical condition you’re in.
Halito (latin for breath) + Osis = Halitosis.
After that, they made up a fictional woman character named “Edna”, which is unattractive and everyone runs away from — all because of her bad smell of breath. Since that day, Listerine has become something.
The Results
Listerine has in fact created a problem for a solution they already have and broke into the market using a smart hacky market education.
#2 — Hotmail
The Challenge
Finding people, customers to use their email service.
The Hack
Hotmail started a referral campaign. In every bottom title in the email they added the saying: “P.S. I love you. Get your free email in the address ‘Hotmail’.”
The Results
Hotmail was first launched in July 1996. 18 months later, they have already acquired 12M users and were bought by Microsoft.
#3 — Dropbox
The Challenge
User acquisition (through Google Adwords) was more expensive than users’ LTV (life-time value)
The Hack
Dropbox introduced a simple plan — invite your friends and get free extra storage.
The Results
The method was cheaper and more efficient than ads. After 15 months since, Dropbox has gone from 100,000 users to over 4M.
#4 — Airbnb
The Challenge
Finding users to use the platform — especially house renters.
The Hack
Airbnb understood where to find its target audience online.
They used an existing big platform at the time — Craigslist. Using a web-scraping algorithm they wrote, Airbnb has had house renters automatically get in their database.
The Results
Lots of traffic and exponential growth. Today, Airbnb has more than 12M renting places and over 100M users around the world.
#5 — Whatsapp
The Challenge
Whatsapp wanted to be the successor of the not-so-great messaging services by telecom providers.
The Hack
“Invite your friends to Whatsapp via SMS. There is no fun in messaging when your friends are not there”.
The Results
In one year, Whatsapp has replaced 90% of the traditional messaging services.
The gold rush? It’s nothing compared to what your marketing teams should feel if you still haven’t begun to implement those methods.
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