Growth Hacking: what is it, benefits and how to apply it in companies?

When we talk about Growth Hacking, we are referring to a set of actions that will guide faster growth than is traditional for most companies.

This strategy is widely used and has become a craze in innovation entrepreneurship, being widely applied in startups, marketing and in the area of ​​information technology.

Its aim is to find shortcuts (hacks) that can accelerate business growth.

This, in turn, can be expressed in an increase in the number of units, an increase in revenue or in brand recognition .

In fact, the proposal of Growth Hacking is to subvert the traditional logic of the gradual development of a business, finding gaps and opportunities that enable leaps in growth.

Growth Hacking VS Traditional marketing

The benefits of Growth Hacking make this approach more attractive than conventional marketing strategies, including digital .

This is because, as proven by well-known Growth Hacking cases, the focus of this model is on exponential growth.

It's almost as if, in traditional marketing, the company grows on an arithmetic scale, while in Growth Hacking this growth happens on a geometric scale.

In other words, while in one the company grows at rates of 1+1+1, in the other it grows at rates of 1+2+4 and so on.

Of course, the differences don't just appear in the results. To reach them, there are a series of good Growth Hacking practices that do not appear in traditional marketing. We will talk about them throughout the text.

How is Growth Hacking applied?

The methodology is very focused on experimentation .

Thus, it values ​​empirical knowledge when making decisions about which strategies need to be discarded, which should remain and even identifying those that should be implemented.

In practice, it brings together several actions that, in themselves, do not represent anything new, but which, if used together, can bring surprising results .

Anyone who wants to apply Growth Hacking to their business must first stop and analyze what the company's main bottleneck is, always asking themselves: what could be a lever for my growth?

Or even: what, within the organization 's daily routine , has been an obstacle, limiting the potential for business expansion?

By identifying your area of ​​focus, it will be possible to come up with possible solutions to optimize production, making the process faster, easier or cheaper.

For this to work, it is necessary to establish collaborative management , investing in honest and constructive communication, capable of listening to everyone and prioritizing the best ideas.

Based on the team's input, the Growth Hacking manager will develop the simplest ways to develop the practice, simulating all hypotheses in a controlled environment.

It is necessary to ensure that these tests serve as a learning experience, and that everyone can observe what went right and what went wrong at each stage of the production process.

It will only be possible to ensure that the experimentation efforts were worthwhile if special attention is paid to observing and recording successes and failures, learning more with each step taken.

Growth Hacking will be complete if all the knowledge acquired during experimentation serves to implement new, more efficient flows.

Furthermore, it is important that all learning inspires new tests, to ensure continuous improvement and constant growth.

How did Growth Hacking come about?

The concept of Growth Hacking was born from the hands of the American Sean Ellis , who coined the term in 2010 .

Ellis started his career as a marketing professional, but ended up opening the Growth Hacking department during his time at Dropbox.

He realized that, to achieve the company's growth goal, it was necessary to look for new tools.

After being the first marketing professional at Dropbox and becoming the head of the department at LogMeIn, he realized there needed to be a specific term to describe what he does at these companies.

This is because, whenever he left for a new project, Ellis had difficulty finding a replacement who was up to his standards.

Most resumes coming in from marketing professionals didn’t have the same approach.

And their experiences indicated that other skills would be needed to fill the position.

Main Growth Hacking Strategies

It is no coincidence that Growth Hacking is applied so frequently in the world of startups.

For these companies, responses have to be much faster , taking into account the emergence of competitors that can surpass their business models in the blink of an eye.

The margin for error is minimal, as potential investors are constantly monitoring the market for new opportunities.

It can be said, then, that the strategies are much more aggressive , although this does not mean trampling on ethics.

Viral acquisition

Launching a new product or service is always challenging.

It is necessary to create a market from scratch, overcoming the natural distrust when trying to sell a solution whose effectiveness is not known or guaranteed in the eyes of the consumer.

So how can we overcome this obstacle?

In Growth Hacking, the answer to this lies in creating incentives for users to share the product with others, increasing the reach exponentially .

This is what companies do when they use referral programs, shareable resources and interactive campaigns on social media , among other measures.

Conversion rate optimization

Growth Hacking cases show that this is a growth acceleration strategy based on numbers and data .

To do this, it is necessary to improve each stage of the conversion funnel through A/B testing, with increases in persuasive design and strategic copywriting.

The focus is on working on small changes that can generate significant increases in conversion rates.

In Growth Hacking, every detail counts and nothing can be done by chance or without knowing why it is being done.

Therefore, conversion rate monitoring must be carried out constantly, almost obsessively, so that they can be constantly optimized.

Marketing automation

If we are looking for high-rate growth , we will need an extra boost in the marketing actions that will be carried out.

In this aspect, automation is the best solution to do what the human hand cannot do alone.

It is necessary to implement tools that automate and personalize communication with users, such as segmented emails, chatbots and push notifications, ensuring greater engagement with less manual effort .

This is also a way to work with the generated data , which serves as the basis for generating growth reports and personalized insights.

Retention and engagement

Strategies must be created to keep users active and satisfied , using gamification, personalized notifications and constant improvements to the product experience.

The AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action) must be followed to the letter, so that no customer gets lost or stops buying.

It is worth using content strategies focused on storytelling , real cases and testimonials that make the brand and its products irresistible.

Let's see how to do this next.

SEO and high-impact content

Growth Hacking strategies focus on producing content optimized for search engines, increasing organic traffic and continually attracting new users.

Blogs, educational videos and rich materials such as e-books are some of the media recommended for this.

In addition to attracting and helping to retain customers , they are in themselves products, or rather, information products , which can also generate predictable revenue .

Data usage and experimentation

This is only possible when developing a data-driven culture, which consists of constantly analyzing metrics and testing hypotheses to discover which strategies generate the most growth.

Digital strategies tend to deliver outcomes that are superior due to the additional ease of collecting, processing and analyzing data online.

These processes are only possible when using traffic monitoring and mediation tools , such as Google Analytics, Search Console etc

Strategic partnerships

Growth Hacking is about growing quickly.

To this end, it is essential to have strategies that accelerate the processes of attracting and retaining customers.

There’s nothing better for this than forming partnerships with other brands or influencers to expand your reach and reach new audiences .

Co-marketing appears to yield good results, especially when one company's products or services complement those of the other.

The same goes for those who use the cross-promotion strategy, in which customers are encouraged to buy one product by purchasing others.

Growth engineering

Without infrastructure, it would make no sense to talk about growth, much less at an accelerated pace .

In other words, it is not enough to attract customers if, on the front line, the company is not able to serve them or offer products with the expected quality.

Furthermore, customer experience is always a decisive factor in purchasing processes, both in digital and physical environments.

Online, it is worth investing in technical solutions to scale user acquisition and retention, such as API integrations, automations and optimizations in product performance to improve the overall experience.

Smart Paid Advertising

Company websites don’t just live on organic traffic.

Ads are essential in this regard because they generate qualified traffic very quickly.

Highly targeted campaigns on platforms like Google Ads and Meta Ads can be continuously optimized based on data analysis to maximize return on investment (ROI).

Exclusivity and scarcity models

As we have seen, Growth Hacking strategies are heavily focused on the AIDA model.

The flow of customers must be intense, constant and uninterrupted, so that the “wheel” is always turning at high speed.

A good strategy for this is to use mental triggers , with emphasis on urgency and scarcity.

The idea is to generate desire and expectation in the public through waiting lists, early access and limited-time offers, encouraging immediate action and increasing the perceived value of the product or service.