Lately, there’s been a lot of buzz about ‘growth hacking’. Most of us might still not be sure of what this concept really means.
We all are acquainted with this term, however, it doesn’t have a clear-cut definition. Growth Hacking is the process of finding the right ‘hack’ or trick that helps accelerate the growth and allow accumulative growth.
Growth hacking, in the simplest sense, uses “hacks” or shortcuts that bypass traditional marketing approaches to drive business growth.
The concept of ‘Growth hacking’ was first used by Sean Ellis back in 2010 (that’s just 6 years ago). Growth hacking is people interact with products online differently that they do in person. For instance, purchasing a dress on Myntra vs a physical shop. Growth hackers are able to understand this behavior and thereby, use it to their advantage.
Growth hacking means finding underused and creative ways to get the word out. This means using a product that fuels interest and drives traffic.
Here are some examples of Growth Hacking:
1) 1000% Increase in Sales when Choices are Less
The common rule is that the lesser choices you have available, the better are the conversions. This concept is known as analysis paralysis.
More choices, more options, more services, and more features decrease your conversions. This is because the consumers feel pressured to make the perfect decision, and thereby, usually experience a sense of fear of making the wrong decision.
The state of paralyzed inaction can affect people in many scenarios like professional decision, and relationships. But it is highly prevalent in customer choices where an abundance of choice, budgetary constraints, and social pressure can create a hurdle.
In a well-known analysis paralysis study conducted in a supermarket (2000), it was found that a jam tasting kiosk was set up in order to offer different flavors to its consumers. The study compared the impact of varying the number of choices between 6 and 24.
It was found that in the Kiosk with 24 flavors, only 3% of customers went on to purchase whereas when it was just 6 flavors, about 30% of them went to purchase. This huge difference pointed that the kiosk with 6 flavors converted the customers at a 1000% higher rate than the one with 24 flavors!
2) Sales Increased by 262% by Adding Reference Point
Humans have the tendency that they need a reference point in order to make a decision. Either you provide them with a reference point or they will choose one for themselves.
In a study by Economist.com, adding a reference point increased their sales by 262%.
The company had 2 subscriptions options, that is,
- Web-only version that costs $59
- Print + Web versions for $125
There were only 32% of the customers who bought the Print + Web version. They changed their pricing along with addition of a new point:
- Web-only for $59
- Print-only for $125
- Print + Web for $125
After adding a new reference point, i.e Print Only at the same price as Print + Web, they saw a great hike in sales. The last option lured the customers more. The addition saw an increase in the sales by 262%.
3) Pop-up Increased Email Subscribers by 500%
The University of Alberta increased its Email subscribers by 500% in less than a year with the help of a pop-up survey.
The University of Alberta has a daily news email which it sends out every morning with an aim to recap the stories that were posted a day before on their site. Started in September 2011, there were only 400 subscribers in a year’s time. The number is small considering the unique page views, the size of the university community etc.
By using a pop-up survey by Qualaroo that asked anyone who spent more than 10 seconds on the site: “You seem interested in UAlberta news. Would you like to sign up for the Daily News email?”
Before this small tweak, there were only one or two sign-ups at maximum per day which grew to as many as 12 to 15 sign-ups. The subscriber list has grown almost 500% in less than a year whereas the open rate for the email was consistently over 30%.
4) Monthly Sales Leads Increase to 300% with Exit Pop-up
Gr8tFires, a manufacturer of wood-burning stoves and fireplaces found that the biggest customer headache was the cost of installation.
By installing an exit popup which shows up when the user is about to abandon the page. In the popup, they offered an installation calculator for free in exchange for an email address. This small hack helped them increase the monthly sales leads by 300%.
Some of the tools to create exit popups are ExitMist, GetSiteControl, and GetRooster.
5) Increased Revenue by 367% in a Year
Sales isn’t a channel, sales is a behavior. It’s a way of personally helping your customer get real value. And that starts with your user onboarding process.
It seems to be a common expectation to focus on your product’s churned free trial users. And that’s what Popcorn Metrics did when they were struggling to convert their free trial users into paid subscribers. Therefore, to overcome this struggle, Popcorn Metrics decided to help every free trial user in order to successfully achieve their goals via company’s product.
They called this newfound mindset of personally helping their users to extract real value a change in their behavior. They personally reached out to early stage users to offer help via skype calls or any other medium. They also made it easy for the customers to have live conversations.
This helped Popcorn Metrics increase its revenue by 367% in a matter of 12 weeks. By spending the time to help your users along with building a great marketing analytics stack and offering amazing value could help you crack the code.
You should put deliberate efforts in spending time with your new signups as it is a part of nurturing. You could probably offer a one-hour video session or leave them voicemails.
6) Email Conversions Increased by 26% by Decreasing Options
Email is the key to long-lasting relations in the business world. To increase the prospects’ chances of being activated, you need to get their email address, everything else is later.
Even if you need details like their name, surname, social profile, phone number, credit card data, website or anything else that is highly important to your specific case, you would still need an email id for that purpose. You can get the rest of the details in the next step or even later. If there are more fields, the lower is the conversion rate.
For instance, Noah Kagan’s submission form had 4 fields: Name, Email id, URL, and Revenue. After deciding to remove the revenue field altogether, there were only three fields left – Name, Email, and URL.
After reducing the number of fields, the conversion rate improved by 26%.
7) Increase Opt-ins by 70% With Welcome Mat
Fedora installed a SumoMe widget called Welcome Mat in 5 minutes and boosted their opt-ins by 70%.
- SumoMe, a free tool by Noah Kagan (a former growth hacker at Mint & Facebook) should be set up.
- Open your site.
- Click the crown.
- Fill in your email and password.
- Click the option ‘Sumo Store’.
- Click Welcome Mat.
- Free, which after a while will turn into Open. You have to click it.
- Click ‘Paused’ to switch to Active.
- Click ‘Design’ in order to set up your texts and colors.
This 5 minutes trick will improve your opt-ins by 70%.
8) 349% Increase in Total Lead Inquiries
You can make people feel the need by either a hard way or an easy way. The hard way is to convince and push them whereas the easy way is to ask and help. 
ActiveNetwork, a large event management software provider conducted a study to find out what email tone would result in more lead inquiries.
With the help of A/B single factor split, the company made two email forms. It goes like:
- Selling tone: The sound was like “You are one step away from getting free access to something, here is our award winning product, you can quickly get something, try it now.”
- Helping tone: The sound for helping was like “We’re just here to provide you with whatever assistance you need in reaching your goal.”
The helping tone saw a 349% increase in total lead inquiries.
9) Sign-ups Increased by 116% with Credit Cards
By talking to your prospects and customers constantly doesn’t mean it will work this way forever. If they asked a question and you answered them, will this remain constant? Given that the world is fast changing!
For that matter, you need to know what questions are still left unanswered by your clients. In a study by CrazyEgg, they found that prospects had some doubts on the checkout page, they were:
- Why the service required their credit card for a free trial.
- And that, they were scared what they would be charged.
In order to fix this, they showed the question “Why do need my credit card for a free trial?” on the checkout page along with an answer: “To prevent multiple free trials for one person.”
Also, the CrazyEgg team added an explanation: “Nothing will be billed for 30 days. You can cancel at any time.” They included a list of companies that use their products. Along with these hacks, they changed the order total from “$49 per month” to “$0 for 30 days” + “after 30 days: $49 per month.”
These little tricks and modifications increased their free trial sign-ups with credit cards by 116%. By surveying your prospects right on the checkout page, you can learn what’s on their mind. An option: survey widgets or online chats.
10) Change in Headlines made 40% Difference
A comprehensive and clear headline can improve your click through rates.
- “The simple test that increased our referrals”
- “The simple test that increased our referrals by 30%”
The second headline looked more promising and therefore, it improved the click-through rates by over 40%.
Therefore, it is clear that data makes your headlines stronger. You can get a good amount of data at statista.com, and smartinsights.com.
Which Growth Hacking Example you liked the most? Mine is lesser options to avoid analysis paralysis and helping tone in the email id. Let us know in the comment section below!
Image Credits: marketingexperiments.com, kissmetrics.com.
