Growth hackers are stealing the limelight away from traditional marketers, and for good reason. These computer engineers have a gift for implementing strong marketing ideas during the development phase of a new product. They test, re-test and test some more. And, they are really, really smart people. Should you be worried? Of course not. Unless you don’t know any growth hackers.

Understanding Growth Hacking

Growth hacking is a new approach to marketing that has already proven its roots by successfully growing sites like Facebook, Amazon, LinkedIn and Twitter. What all these brands have in common is that they were built from basically nothing and went from zero to hero in a short time. This is a far cry from the traditional methods of marketing where brands pay a significant amount of money to launch their product. By the time they start selling the product or service, the brand already has debt.

Growth hacking bridges the gap between selling the product and bringing in a positive cash flow. Instead of using high-cost commercials, flyers, billboards, advertisements and publicity, growth hacking only uses measures that are easy to test and track. Growth hacking tools include:

  • Emails

  • Websites

  • Pay-per-click ads

  • Blogs and guest blogs

  • Organic search

  • SEO

  • Landing sites

  • Social media

Using Growth Hacking Tools

With growth hacking, marketing becomes a part of the product design, being considered alongside the creation of the product or service rather than after. Using the above channels, marketers test and and re-test to see which channels are most effective at growing customer interest. With organic search, for example, compelling content is created and includes key phrases and words, allowing marketers to improve their odds of being found by prospective customers.

The tools available for growth hacking go on. In order to drive more traffic to the content, marketers use blogging and guest blogging opportunities. Growth hackers add new landing sites and install social buttons on all content. They continue to measure every small detail, as the end result is to bring in more users from each action. If something doesn’t work, they move on without having wasted precious advertising money.

A New Trend With a Lot of Potential

Growth hackers are smart, creative, innovative and never afraid to take risks. They don’t need fancy offices or an expensive marketing campaign to get the product sold. Instead, they know how to take advantage of platforms and loopholes that traditional marketers overlook. Most importantly is that for the first time ever, growth hacking offers a clean palette for everyone, whether they make a $60,000 or $60 investment.

Growth hacking can be an effective way to grow your business, regardless of which channel you use. The goal is to continually test which measures are working for your brand so that you can fine tune the product and pitch to reach the largest – and most profitable – audience possible.