In 1996, an email company named Hotmail launched with a small group of users. By the end of 1997, that company had 12 million users. True growth hacks weren’t they?
How did they grow so dramatically in just a year and a half? Well, they looked at their initial numbers and saw that approximately 80 percent of new users came by referral from current users. To make the most of referrals, Hotmail created its iconic email postscript: “PS. I love you. Get your free email at Hotmail.”
That single line, added at the end of every email sent through Hotmail, drove millions of new users in an ever-widening ripple effect. Hotmail successfully created one of the first documented growth hacks.
Growth hacking is the combination of product design, marketing, and data with the overall goal of driving customer growth. Initially popular among fast-growing startups, the principles of growth hacking have since spread to the wider business world. With a focus on understanding the customer and designing the right product, successful growth hacking drives growth in both the short- and long term.
So how can you apply a growth hack like Hotmail’s to build your own business?
Let’s explore nine innovative and data-driven growth hacks that you can adapt to your own situation.
1. The Webinar Hack
When you’re trying to find potential customers, you don’t just want to reach a massive number of people. In fact, you might not need to reach very many people at all. You just need to find the right people.
Unbounce uses a variety of content marketing techniques to reach customers. They write a popular blog, produce quality ebooks, and even offer a free email course. But when they started focusing on webinars those quickly became their number one acquisition strategy.
Because webinars offer an urgent incentive (“join before it fills up!”), you can drive significant interest. Once in the webinar, you get the opportunity to provide high-value teaching, which improves the perception of your company.
And at the end of the webinar, you get a few minutes to explain your product.
Here’s how to run a successful webinar with very little work:
1. Pick a topic or get a guest speaker.
2. Create the webinar on GoToWebinar.
3. Make your landing page where people can join.
4. Do a dry run to make sure everything works.
5. Host the event and provide epic value.
6. Follow up with an email and encourage people to become customers.
Then assess how the webinar went, make a few changes to your strategy, and do it again.
2. The Giveaway Hack
AppSumo, a daily deals website focused on digital goods, has been extremely successful at running giveaways to increase its email subscription list. In just 10 months, 147,973 new subscribers. Since each subscriber resulted in an average of $0.83 gross revenue, that’s a pretty significant marketing campaign.
So how’d he do it? Simple: He ran a steady stream of targeted giveaways.
He gave away Evernote subscriptions, in-person courses, and even MacBook Airs (the MacBooks performed worst!). Some giveaways drove a few subscribers and some drove thousands, but giveaway by giveaway the email list (and bank account) grew steadily.
So how can you run your own giveaway?
1. Find a specific product that only your target customers would like (broadly popular products attract generic leads).
2. Create your giveaway with something like KingSumo or Gleam.
3. Promote your giveaway with Facebook ads and your current email list.
4. Encourage social media shares for your giveaway participants.
5. Send a drip campaign to your new leads to convert them to customers.
If you choose the right product and audience, the money you spend on Facebook should start a chain reaction as current participants share your giveaway with their friends.
3. The Guest Post Hack
When Charlie Hoehn wanted to drive sales for his first published book, he turned to guest posting to reach potential readers. During the first month after publication, Charlie published nearly 20 guest posts and also made guest appearances on a couple of podcasts.
The result? He reached nearly a quarter of a million people and sold 2,000 copies. His self-published book landed at the top of its Amazon category.
Guest posts are a powerful tool that can drive highly targeted visitors to your website. So how can you do the same thing for your site?
Here’s how you can create guest posts to drive customers to your own website:
1. Find popular blogs with audiences that match your target customer profile.
3. Email the blog author with your proposed guest post.
4. Continue emailing until you find a blog that’s interested in publishing.
5. Repeat … and make your posts better each time.
To make your guest posts even more successful, put together a custom pack of bonus materials for readers who join your email list. You can use extra information like PDF checklists, case studies, and exclusive videos to convert more leads from each guest post you publish.
4. The Two-Sided Incentive Hack
Since 2009, the car service Uber has raised millions of dollars and is currently valued at $18 billion. It’s now available all over the world and is even planning to break into the lucrative mainland China market in the near future.
How have they achieved this kind of growth? While many growth tactics factor into their speedy ascent, word of mouth (a.k.a., the viral factor) has driven their growth “substantially”.
To spur word of mouth even further, Uber uses a two-sided referral program. All current customers are automatically enrolled and given their own referral codes. When they give those codes to their friends, both the referrers and the customers they refer get a nice credit to their Uber account.
This gives the new customer a chance to try the service for little or no cost, and it gives the referring customer a friendly “thanks” for sharing.
To create your own double-sided incentive:
1. Make sure your product is worth sharing.
2. Find something current customers will value. Free credit is an obvious win, but swag or VIP status might be good too.
3. Find something that will hook new customers. Free trials or credits will let them try your product without any risk.
4. Promote it to all your current users through email and in-product messaging.
If done right, two-sided incentives can drive significant word of mouth, increasing the impact of all your other marketing endeavors.
5. Exit Popup Hack
WPBeginner, a free resource site for WordPress beginners, grew their email subscription list by using an exit popup display. In less than 10 minutes, WPBeginner increased their email subscribers by 600 percent. Prior to the change, they gained 70 to 80 new subscribers each day, and after the change they gained 445 to 470 every day.
How did they drive such a significant improvement? Using a simple popover with exit intent tracking. When a visitor arrives at their website, WPBeginner starts tracking their mouse movements. If the visitor’s mouse starts moving to close the window, a non-intrusive popover invites the visitor to subscribe for more articles.
By giving the visitor time to read before offering the upsell (i.e., the subscribe box), exit popups reach potential users at a time when intent is high, thus boosting conversions. Additionally, these popovers are non-intrusive, so the user can easily close the tab without any of the annoyances of a traditional popup.