No matter which industry a company operates in, one thing is clear: the market is highly competitive, and customers are rightly selective. After all, competitor offerings are just a click away. The most colourful, loudest, and unusual advertisements bombard us daily. Not least because of this, ad blindness in our society is steadily increasing. While we, as potential buyers, often put on blinkers to avoid being annoyed by advertising, as entrepreneurs on the other hand, we are increasingly struggling. How can we generate sustainable growth in such a dense market – both digital and analogue – today? Specifically: how do we generate attention, acquire new customers, and retain satisfied ones? To meaningfully break through this confusion, companies need a marketing strategy that works differently and thinks further ahead than before. Growth Marketing could be precisely this strategy, which is why we want to take a closer look at this approach.
What is Growth Marketing?
Growth Marketing is next-generation marketing, as it is by no means limited to the marketing department itself. Growth Marketing involves the entire company, from product development and support to corporate communications. In Growth Marketing, the company itself, with its corporate philosophy as much as its banner advertising, acts as a growth driver. Growth Marketing works through every fibre of the company and has only one goal: to provide users with the best experience and outcome at every touchpoint, thus turning them into satisfied customers, fans, and ultimately brand ambassadors. That is the grand idea behind the comprehensive marketing concept. Broken down to the daily work of a Growth Marketer, this means: Growth Marketers use growth hacks and techniques to regularly interact with users on different channels, along the entire sales funnel. An experimental approach is crucial here, as one should not be afraid of making mistakes. It is about quickly testing measures, quickly obtaining valid data, and then quickly drawing the right conclusions from it. The term "Growth Marketing" itself originated with Sean Ellis, a former marketer at Dropbox. At the time, he used "Growth Hacking" to describe the evolution of traditional marketing beyond departmental boundaries, with the aim of achieving the fastest possible user growth. From then on, the concept of Growth Hacking began its triumph and is now indispensable in any marketing strategy.
Growth Marketing in Practice
Traditional marketing repeatedly pulls the same measures out of the hat to reach potential customers: sales, promotions, newsletters, advertising campaigns with the same old keywords, online and digital ads… the results achieved here are usually below expectations. The user-market behaviour described above is then cited as an "explanation". However, nothing changes in the strategy or approach. Classic marketing measures tend to be put in place and forgotten. Growth Marketing is completely different; here, the constantly incoming data and figures are immediately fed back into the optimisation of the implemented measures. And the tools? These are usually well-known to us: A/B testing, content marketing, email campaigns, SEO, etc. However, the measures are usually combined in a new way and interpreted data-driven. Growth Marketing is therefore heavily data-driven. At the same time, it is also a stochastic process – with many innovative, creative, quirky measures, you simply do not know in advance whether they will deliver the desired results or not. Coincidence is therefore a constant companion in Growth Marketing, which is kept in check by the love of numbers and data.
What Makes a Good Growth Marketer?
Growth Marketing is enjoyable when the right person is assigned to it. A person born for Growth Hacking:
- loves numbers, data, facts. They are the loyal companion and are perceived not as a burden, but as constantly incoming feedback that guides one's work in the desired direction.
- is creative and playful. In the spirit of Pippi Longstocking, Growth Marketers simply see the world differently: "I've never done that before, so I'm sure I can do it well!" is a central guiding principle for these personalities.
- has a strong product focus. He or she is absolutely convinced of the product's benefits and does not sell with tricks or features. Growth hackers inspire!
- is a Swiss Army knife in terms of know-how and skills. Only those who understand the full range of all possible and necessary measures, and ideally can apply them themselves, will use them purposefully.
- is not afraid to make mistakes. Only by trying things out can one know if and how they work. Numbers and data help to quickly correct implemented steps.
- tells the best stories! Despite all the data, the story being told must also be fitting. Here, understanding the corporate philosophy and conveying it to the customer is paramount.
- always maintains an overview.
- calmly accepts stress and setbacks, after all, it is part of the game.
Key Elements of a Growth Marketing Strategy
Growth Marketing can be integrated very well into existing marketing, but it places a special focus on certain points in the strategic approach.
A/B TESTS
Testing different variations in real-time operation – and yes, there can be more than two variations! – is one of the central control elements in Growth Marketing. These tests are used in various areas: whether for social media advertising, newsletters, landing pages, or calls to action… little is left to chance here, and much is tested against each other. The winning variant is chosen – but only until the next round!
MULTI- AND CROSS-CHANNEL MARKETING
Our potential customers are active on various channels; some on many, some on only a few. A successful marketing strategy takes this into account – and so does Growth Marketing. Therefore, it is particularly important for Growth Marketers to think in multi-layered channels. This requires a deep understanding of the target audience's preferences and communication habits that characterise our customers. Meeting people where they are, with the means that appeal to them, is the core of a growth-driven multi-channel strategy.
CUSTOMER JOURNEY
Speaking of target audience understanding: the customer journey, the customer lifecycle, is the most important compass for successful Growth Marketing. Those who do not understand where potential customers come from, how they become aware, make decisions, and use purchased products, will find it difficult in marketing in general, but especially in Growth Marketing. It is precisely along this customer journey that typical Growth Marketing success stories can be told.
Growth Marketing Success Recipes
Where can Growth Marketing approaches be particularly effectively applied? This question probably burned under our nails at the beginning of the article and is now being tackled.
NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION
New customer acquisition is a tough business. Those who push too hard for sales here often lose the customer right from the start. Growth Marketers try to build a long-term strategy that is based on trust and always offers the potential customer the opportunity to decide for themselves. Thus, content marketing is one of the central measures when it comes to acquiring new customers in Growth Marketing: Stop selling, start being useful!
Starting with a precisely developed persona, the initial focus is always on better understanding the trigger points and interests of potential buyers. However, it is also about conveying the company in its entirety, with its corporate philosophy and purpose. As Simon Sinek rightly says: “People don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it!” It is up to marketers and communication professionals to deliver this message.
ONBOARDING
Once a new customer has made a purchase, we have an ideal opportunity to increase engagement with our brand and gather even more information and data. The goal of Growth Marketing at this stage is to design the customer journey as effectively as possible and supportively for the new user – across multiple channels. Growth Marketers don't just want happy buyers; they want to understand what excites customers and what they need for absolute satisfaction, so they can then inspire even more (future) customers.
REFERRALS
Who is more credible than an absolutely enthusiastic user? No one. That is precisely why referral campaigns are exceptionally well suited for Growth Hacking. The social proof that arises from referrals is huge; after all, we all value recommendations from friends, colleagues, and family members. The central question at this point: What do you offer the referrer and what do you offer the new user? This opens up a colourful playground for enthusiastic Growth Hackers. Not only the perk, but also the path to it offers a colourful palette of possibilities and many potential measurement points.
LOYALTY AND CUSTOMER RETENTION
We all know it: it is better to retain existing customers than to constantly generate new ones. Nevertheless, this final stage of the customer journey usually receives the least attention – not so in Growth Hacking! Why? Existing customers buy more easily than unknown individuals do. The prerequisite for this behaviour is a high degree of satisfaction with the existing product. The goal at this point must therefore be to show our customers that they are particularly important to us and "part of the family". Therefore, they always receive VIP treatment. Customer loyalty campaigns are a great way to convey this sense of belonging to our existing customers. It is important to know what our customers love about our products and what is still missing for perfect satisfaction. Again, it is numbers, data, and facts that we need to derive meaningful and effective measures here.
Nowadays, Growth Marketing is certainly something we should all embrace. The beautiful thing is that everything we need for it is already available to us. Our focus as marketers should be on continuous testing and optimising our implemented measures to increase engagement and improve our customers' experiences. We must move away from the scattergun approach towards highly personalised strategies. And while we are creatively drawing from a wealth of resources, we are constantly gathering experience in the form of data, which we iteratively incorporate into our next measures. What sounds like extensive, interconnected, and multifaceted work can also be seen as a playground for creative, courageous, and data-driven marketers. We certainly like this perspective very much.
