Recommended growth hacking tips with Nathan Barnwell: Sean had helped a number of internet companies achieve incredible growth, and a few of them even had an IPO. Needless to say, Sean became the guy that the valley went to when they needed to grow their user base, and he would take equity and payment in exchange for his services. He essentially became a one man growth shop, setting up systems, processes, and mindsets, that could be maintained after he left. Eventually, he would hand over the keys to his growth machine to someone else, and he would ride off into the sunset. This is where the problems started.

There are four classical methods called growth strategies. In addition to these four strategies, there are also different growth strategies that can be implemented according to the structures of companies by diversifying them. But basically, all growth strategies emerge and are shaped by these four classical methods. One or more of these may be used together. These are: Product Development Activities such as producing new products and increasing the existing product range with improvements and developments. Market Penetration: The main approach here is customer acquisition. It includes strategies such as product price reductions, product grouping for specific customer profiles, advertising activities. Market Development: It is carried out with approaches such as opening offices and branches in different locations, selling through different online channels and giving dealerships. Diversification: Diversification can be made by starting to operate in a completely different and a new market than your current market by introducing brand new products.

Nathan 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.

What is a growth marketer? Similar to “marketing managers” of the past, growth marketers know enough about paid search, paid social, CRO, user experience, email marketing, content marketing, and SEO to be dangerous. They’re more focused on strategy than execution, though; you will likely need someone more specialized to 10x the plans a growth marketer puts in place. A growth marketer is someone who runs constant, iterative tests throughout the funnel, and uses the results to craft data-driven strategy updates that lift key performance metrics. Think of them as a CMO-lite, or a modernized marketing manager. Growth marketers look like this T-shaped model of growth marketing skills. They are well-versed in a ton of topics, which is helpful for the entire organization, and go deep mostly in acquisition marketing and conversion-rate optimization.

It is important to instrument for growth so that you can truly understand what is happening. Another important part of instrumenting for growth is testing tools such as Google Optimize, that allow you to implement a/b tests across your website and product. Finally, you’ll need a system to bring all of this information together so that your team can learn how to improve growth. Now you’re finally ready to start accelerating growth, which is level three of the pyramid. In this stage you should focus on building a growth team that can effectively execute a growth process. The purpose of this growth process is to uncover better ways to accelerate growth in the business. Your goal here is just to build a rhythm and habit of testing. Every test you run will lead to additional learning — even if it doesn’t directly drive immediate improvement in growth. It’s important during this stage to catalogue this learning so that the team keeps getting smarter about how to accelerate growth. Find even more info on Nate Barnwell.

Once you’ve determined what you’re growing and why you’re growing, the next step is to determine how much you’ll be growing. These goals should be based on your endgame aspirations of where you ideally want your organization to be, but they should also be achievable and realistic – which is why setting a goal based on industry research is so valuable. Lastly, take the steps to quantify your goals in terms of metrics and timeline. Aiming to “grow sales by 30% quarter-over-quarter for the next three years” is much clearer than “increasing sales.” Next, outline how you’ll achieve your growth goals with a detailed growth strategy. Again – we suggest writing out a detailed growth strategy plan to gain the understanding and buy-in of your team.