Growth Hacking Strategies to Help New Startups
The sheer number of new startups being created each year shows no signs of slowing down. According to a study by Gallop, in 2019 around 28% of Hispanic-owned businesses in the US were less than two years old. Similarly, research from Amazon showed that in the same year, US-based entrepreneurs started 570,000 businesses.
This rise in startups brings with it the need to find effective ways to scale fast and create growth. One technique you can use to get ahead is growth hacking, which relies on creative strategies for quickly boosting your business’s growth potential.
Below, we’ll discuss some of the most useful growth hacking strategies you can use to give your new startup a boost.
What is Growth Hacking?
Growth hacking encompasses a range of strategies for quickly bootstrapping growth for a startup. It’s a versatile approach that gives you the tools you need to rapidly scale your business without relying on VC funding or traditional marketing tactics.
Growth hacking integrates marketing and analytics with product development, allowing you to find creative ways to accelerate your startup’s growth. By focusing on these strategies and tactics to increase your user base and followers, you can rapidly grow your startup while keeping your costs low.
Benefits of Growth Hacking
Before delving into specific strategies, let’s take a look at the benefits of growth hacking.
• Quickly Reach Your Goals: The development and implementation of growth hacking strategies allow startups to move faster and achieve their growth goals more quickly.
• Lower Costs: Growth hacking usually entails tactics that cost less to implement than traditional marketing, meaning startups can quickly and affordably boost their growth.
• More Detailed Analysis: By using data-driven analytics, startups can track and measure their progress more accurately and find weak spots as well as strong points in their strategies.
• Increased Innovation: With growth hacking, startups can take risks and innovate more quickly without the worry of spending too much time or money on new ideas.
Growth Hacking Strategies to Help New Startups
Now that we’ve reviewed the benefits of growth hacking, let’s take a look at some of the best growth hacking strategies you can use to fuel the growth of your startup.
- Leverage Your Existing User Base
One of the most effective ways to quickly and efficiently drive growth for your startup is to leverage your existing user base. Everyone who is currently using or has ever used your product is a potential evangelist for your business – you just need to give them the incentive to spread the word.
Some tactics to consider include offering a rewards program, discounts or promotions for referred customers, affiliate partnerships, and referral incentives.
- Analyze Your Audience
Taking the time to understand your customers’ needs and concerns and then designing a product that specifically meets those needs can drastically increase user engagement and new sign-ups. Focusing on user feedback and data-driven analysis can help you easily spot where your product and marketing strategies fall short.
When launching a new product or feature, measure the performance more closely and use the feedback to make improvements and craft an even better user experience.
- Harness the Power of Social Media
Social media offers a powerful platform to spread the word about your startup. With a focused and careful approach to social media marketing, you can quickly raise brand awareness and bring in new users.
Your social media content should focus on producing value for your customers and highlighting how your product can improve their lives. You can also use targeted ads and influencer marketing to reach a wider audience and build relationships with potential customers.
- Focus on Automation
From marketing campaigns to customer support, technology is giving startups more power and control over their processes. Automation allows you to quickly scale and reliably execute campaigns with minimal personnel or cost.
You can use automation to easily build loyalty programs and to track customer engagement, both of which can be used to boost your startup’s growth.
- Encourage Word of Mouth
Word of mouth marketing remains one of the most effective forms of advertising, as referrals from friends and family are more likely to lead to conversions. Offer incentives for referrals, run bug bounty programs and make your product as simple and intuitive as possible to make sure it’s easy to talk about and recommend.
In addition to incentives, think of ways to make your product stand out and make a lasting impression in your customer’s minds; this will ensure your users remember your product and tell others about it.
- Create Quality Content
Quality content helps to attract and engage with potential customers, build relationships, and grow conversions. Investing in content creation, either in-house or via external contributors, can help you quickly drive your growth.
Focus on producing valuable content that closely relates to your product and encourages engagement. Use popular content formats such as video, podcasts and articles to expand your reach and showcase your product.
- Utilize A/B Testing
A/B testing is a great way to compare two versions of a campaign or feature in order to determine which one works best for your customers. With accurate A/B testing, you can quickly identify which strategies work best for your startup and optimize it for even better results.
You can use A/B testing to test different versions of product interfaces, marketing messages, landing pages, campaigns, and more.
- Leverage Product Experiences
Providing a great user experience that focuses on convenience, simplicity and effectiveness can quickly set you apart and help your startup stand out. Analyze user data to ensure you’re constantly making improvements and coming up with new ideas to keep users engaged.
Every interaction a user has with your product should be straightforward, accessible, and provide added value. Additionally, think about how you can differentiate yourself from your competitors by experimenting with features and services.
- Collect Reviews
Collecting customer reviews is another great way to quickly increase the visibility of your product. Reviews are a great way to build user trust, offer transparency and show potential customers that your product is reliable and trustworthy.
Ensure you provide a simple and efficient way for customers to leave reviews that is available on all devices. Taking the time to reply to these reviews might also help you improve your product and raise customer satisfaction.
Growth hacking can be an effective and scalable way to quickly boost the growth of your startup. By leveraging existing users, understanding your audience, taking advantage of social media and automation, encouraging word of mouth and creating quality content, you can position your business to take off. Investing in A/B testing, product experiences and collecting reviews can also help ensure your startup is successful in the long run.
The techniques we’ve discussed are just a few of the countless strategies you can use to grow your startup. With the right combination of creativity and data-driven analysis, your business can rapidly climb the ladder of success.
