Hot growth hacking tips with Nathan Barnwell: Despite the importance of product, it would be foolish to restrict your activities to only the product. The same internet that redefined product has also redefined distribution, and not all distribution is within the product. Those with a strong understanding of how people flow online will be able to use that knowledge for the sake of their startup’s growth. What does the “hacker” in growth hacker mean? The word hacker has a few different definitions and connotations that inform the meaning of growth hacker. Hacker is sometimes used to refer to someone who is clever, original, or inventive. They will use whatever is at their disposal to create a solution that might have been overlooked by others. A “life hacker” would be an example of this use of the term. This same attitude is found in growth hacker because they are forced to be ingenious if they are going to achieve growth. Paths to growth are not usually obvious and it takes extreme creativity to find them.

The focus and the ultimate goal of all these growth strategies are to achieve growth by gaining new customers. It is not possible to achieve long-term and stable growth without a regular and loyal customer base. You can clearly identify how you must use a growth strategy in the light of various criteria such as market, customer profile, your field of activity and your product. In this context, the growth strategies used by some brands can be read as successful growth strategy examples. Cloud storage, which is used widely today, was a very new technology when Dropbox was introduced in 2008. The way of growth was to persuade people to use such a system instead of the physical storage devices used until then. The growth strategy that the company used for this purpose was market expansion. This method, which is performed through a viral loop, is based on users recommending the system to others. Normally offering 2 GB of free storage, Dropbox offered 500 MB of extra additional storage for each user registered with your referral link. In doing so, users who wanted to have up to 16 GB of free storage space recommended Dropbox to their friends and colleagues. By all means, this kind of viral method was not effective in the first months of the company. It started providing positive results in the following months and the company reached its one-millionth customer at the end of its first year. The number of customers increased to three million in the next two months. Today, the company serves more than 500 million users.

Nate Barnwell growth hacking strategies: Instead of needing as many leads as possible at the top, a viral loop funnel requires just one satisfied user to share with others. As long as every referral results in at least 1.1 new users, the system continues growing. The milestone referral model is similar to the viral loop in that it relies on incentives to kickstart and sustain it. But milestone referrals add a more intricate, progressive element to the process. Companies that leverage viral loops generally offer a flat, consistent offer for individual referrals — businesses that use milestone referrals offer rewards for hitting specific benchmarks. In many cases, “milestones” are metrics like number of referred friends. For example, a business might include different or increasingly enticing incentives that come with one, five, and 10 referrals as opposed to a fixed incentive for each individual referral. A company will often leverage this strategy to encourage users to bring on a volume of friends and family that suits its specific business goals. The strategy also adds an engaging element to the referral process. When done right, milestone referrals are simple to share with relatively straightforward objectives and enticing, tangible products as rewards.

Marketing managers often lead the marketing function in small companies. As such, they are generalists — writing blog posts, sending customer emails and running paid campaigns. They think holistically about the company and its growth, but are less data and metrics-driven than growth marketers. Demand generation marketers are the closest to a growth marketer, says Sookraj. However, they typically focus more narrowly on top-of-funnel activity, like attracting leads and customers. What do growth marketers do all day? A typical day for Jordan Finger, growth marketer and CEO of Noal Partners, involves checking the dashboards for paid media accounts; tweaking spend, messaging, and creative; and summarizing the week in custom reports for clients.

The first is a product that people actually consider a “must have.” In the startup world, this is generally referred to as “product/market fit.” Once you’ve validated product/market fit, it then becomes important to define an overall success metric. This success metric should be a “North Star Metric” for the entire team to gauge the success of the business. The right North Star Metric tracks cumulative value delivered across a growing customer base. This is a much more sustainable growth indicator than something like registrations, downloads or even revenue (many subscription businesses have inactive users that are still on a paid subscription but will likely churn). Read more information on Nathan Barnwell.

This action plan should contain a list of action items, deadlines, teams or persons responsible, and resources for attaining your growth goal. The last step before acting on your plan is determining any requirements your team will need through the process. These are specific resources that will help you meet your growth goals faster and with more accuracy. Examples might include: Funding: Organizations may need a capital investment or an internal budget allocation to see this project through. Tools & Software: Consider what technological resources may be needed to expedite and/or gain insights from the growth process. Services: Growth may be better achieved with the help of consultants, designers, or planners in a specific field.