How to Become a Growth Hacker

Growth hacking is a recent development in the world of marketing and startup culture. It's an umbrella term that refers to the process of generating a lot of growth in a business quickly, usually in the form of targeted advertising...

Method 1 of 3:

Developing a Skillset

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Study successful marketing campaigns to learn what works. Growth hackers must be fluent in modern marketing techniques. Study Superbowl ads, viral videos, and popular media to see what kind of techniques companies use to get attention. Whether it's humor, emotional manipulation, or direct marketing, being able to identify how an advertisement is functioning and seeing what makes an ad successful are essential skills for a growth marketing expert.^[1]
1. Growth hackers are experts in cutting-edge marketing strategies. For example, you must become familiar with clickbait, which is a marketing method where you use hyperbole and buzzwords to provoke customers and readers into opening a link. This is particularly important when you use content marketing to appeal to potential customers through other media.
2. You'll also need to utilize influencers by hiring popular social media users to showcase, use, or advertise your product. Look on Instagram or Tik Tok to find users that are popular with your target audience and contact them to see if they're willing to use and talk about your product.
3. Guerilla marketing is another strategy you should learn. To use guerilla marketing, create ad campaigns that use street art or publicity stunts to boost brand awareness without coming off as boring or unoriginal.
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Create work samples to put a portfolio together. To highlight your skills, put a work portfolio together based on your specific area of study or expertise. If you're in business, put together some business plans that emphasize viral marketing and consumer retention. If you're in copywriting, create a few sample campaigns to highlight your skills as a creative writer. Put 3-4 strong work samples together to share with potential clients and employers.^[2]
1. Professional portfolios are often a graduation requirement for college degrees in marketing, communications, advertising, or graphic design.
2. If your focus is in graphic design or coding, consider creating a few sample websites to showcase your work.
3. What belongs in your portfolio is entirely dependent on your area of expertise.
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Work on your presentation skills by practicing public speaking. Growth hackers have to be experts at communicating complex ideas in the simplest way possible. Get experience presenting information by volunteering to speak in class while you're in college and never shying away from a conversation with a stranger. Go to open mics or perform for your friends to have fun while getting used to being in front of a bunch of people!^[3]
1. If you really struggle with public speaking, consider working with a tutor to improve your public speaking skills.
2. Growth hackers constantly have to justify their choices and present ideas for campaigns.
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Tighten your skills as a writer and communicator by writing regularly. Practice your writing skills by writing every day. Even if your current job doesn't involve writing, keep a journal and jot down your thoughts to get used to finding the right word. Work on your creative language skills by writing short stories, poems, or songs. Any practice that you can get using language in a creative way will pay dividends when it comes time to write witty, funny, or poignant marketing campaigns.^[4]
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Major in a discipline related to your desired area of expertise. Marketing, business, and communications are the most obvious majors for growth hackers, but graphic design, coding, computer sciences, English, and advertising can all present viable paths as well. Select whatever field interests you the most and work hard to graduate with a high GPA.
1. Growth hackers can be consultants, designers, advertisers, or writers. There are rarely positions that are explicitly titled 'growth hacker' at a company or firm. To become a growth hacker, identify the type of position you want to excel in to master the techniques of growth hacking.
Tip: If you've already received your undergraduate degree, consider attending business school or enrolling in a graduate-level marketing program. If you don't want to pursue an entirely new degree, take some classes at your local college to get familiar with the basics of business and makreting.

Method 2 of 3:

Finding Work as a Growth Hacker

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Develop a resume that highlights your ability to connect with customers. Whether you're a seasoned graphic designer or entry-level marketing prospect, orient your resume to emphasize your ability to connect with people. Get references from people that can vouch for your interpersonal skills, creativity, and ability to establish camaraderie.^[5]
1. Growth hacking is seen as a younger person's game, so lean into your youthful spirit by opting for a more modern typeface and design for your resume.
2. If you have any experience with analyzing data, be sure to include and emphasize that as well. Successful growth hackers operate at the intersection of creativity and data analysis.
3. Having some experience with coding is a great selling point since growth hackers are popular among startups, which often rely on digital products and marketing strategies.
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Intern at an advertising agency or marketing department to get a start. If you have no experience, look online for intern postings related to marketing and your specialty. For example, if your background is in data analysis, search 'data analyst,' 'marketing,' and 'growth' to yield results that will relate to growth hacking. Once you've interviewed and landed a position, you'll have a venue to get important experience and build your professional portfolio.^[6]
1. Look for internship positions that have a possibility of hiring. While most positions will be unpaid, many of them will hire interns that do exceptional work!
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Become a freelance growth hacker to build experience with clients. Freelance growth hackers are essentially marketing consultants that help a company identify customers and grow quickly. Become a freelance growth hacker if you want to work with a variety of different companies and products to help grow businesses from the ground up.^[7]
1. Upwork and Fiverr are the 2 most popular websites for freelance designers, artists, writers, and marketing experts. You can sign up for free at https://www.upwork.com/ and https://www.fiverr.com/.
Tip: Freelance marketing can be a really tough field if you don't have a firm to vouch for you. It's also a highly competitive field. If you've got a great portfolio though, it can be a great way to work on your own terms.
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Get experience at an entry-level marketing position. Even if your area of expertise is graphic design, you still need some experience in marketing to become a growth hacker. Look online and in local job boards for positions hiring entry-level marketers. Spend at least 6-12 months doing entry-level work for a marketing team and absorb everything you can. Pay attention to the way campaigns are created, implemented, and analyzed to learn the basics of marketing.^[8]
1. Avoid positions as a telemarketer. Growth hacking is a new and exciting field, and nothing screams 'old-fashioned' in marketing more than reading from a prompt and calling strangers.
2. While you may be able to find positions as a 'growth hacker,' most growth hacking occurs in the context of a marketing or advertising department of a company.
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Join a startup company and emphasize your interest in growth. Due to the fact that growth hackers work to generate growth quickly using atypical marketing strategies, they're often highly valued by startup companies. Look for job postings at startup companies. When you go to interview, be forward and express your interest in growth hacking. Startup companies are always on the lookout for ways to generate growth, so you'll have a huge advantage over other candidates.^[9]
1. If your work with a startup leads to legitimate growth, you'll be seen as a highly-attractive candidate by companies in the future.
2. If you do find an open position for a growth hacker, it's likely going to be at a startup company. Keep in mind, many startups fail or struggle to turn a profit in their early years.

Method 3 of 3:

Creating Successful Growth Campaigns

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Identify your target audience and describe them. Think about your company's product or service. Ask yourself, what type of person is your customer? What do they like, and what are they interested in? Growth hackers develop a psychological profile for their customers and use their interests and beliefs to appeal to them. Use surveys, anonymous questionnaires, and focus groups to gather data points from the people that may be interested in your product or service.^[10]
1. While this may sound like a digital marketer's job, digital marketers only focus on acquiring customers. Growth hackers start out as digital marketers, but follow an advertising campaign all the way through to the end where they analyze the data.
Tip: Growth hacking is all about generating growth quickly. If you can identify 1-2 key interests or beliefs in your target audience, you'll have a solid foundation to begin developing a growth campaign.
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Generate an idea for your targeted customer to identify with. One way to generate growth quickly is to develop a story for your audience to latch on to. The narrative can be simple, like 'our product makes you cool,' or it can be complex, like 'our services will make you more successful because we know what your customers want better than you do.' Communicate this idea through the design, implementation, and images included in your advertisements.^[11]
1. The simple choices, like whether to advertise on buses and trains, or billboards and TV can influence the way your customers view your goods or services.
2. Nike's campaign with Colin Kaepernick is an excellent example of a marketing campaign designed to make customers identify with a story. Nike used Kaepernick's social justice beliefs generate a series of ads that put their brand in the middle of the conversation to appeal to younger people interested in politics.
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Create a social media campaign to appeal to younger audiences. Social media campaigns use metadata and online traffic information to target specific audiences and groups with marketing materials. Use an online campaign that leverages wit, humor, and popular iconography to get a ton of people interested in your product or services. In some cases, being provocative or strange is a great way to draw interest.^[12]
1. Going viral is a growth hacker's ultimate goal when creating a social media campaign. If you can get random people to share or comment on your advertisements, you'll be able to generate a ton of interest quickly.
2. Direct marketing campaigns on social media involve representatives of the company interacting with people online. Wendy's Twitter account is an excellent example of a popular online campaign that involved direct marketing.
3. Old Spice's advertisement campaign with Terry Crews is an excellent example of a successful viral campaign. The humor of the videos were pushed online, and viewers found them funny enough to reference them and make memes out of them.
4. Offer incentives for people to share your posts, like a discount on a service or a special opportunity.
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Use content and hidden links to generate traffic. Another way to generate growth quickly is to trick consumers into clicking links that redirect them to your website. Working with blogs or influencers to share links to your products can generate a ton of interest quickly. Content marketing—essays, articles, and videos that appear that are designed to appeal to customers—are another form of growth hacking that can have phenomenal results. Reach out to popular sites that welcome or sell guest content to see if you can host your campaign materials on their site.^[13]
1. This is a common trick that you see on sites like HuffPost or Buzzfeed, where an article will have links to secondary sites where people can buy goods online.
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Analyze the data from your campaign and use it to inform next steps. Growth hacking emphasizes fast growth. Review the traffic to your site, number of products sold, or phone calls inquiring into your company's service daily to identify what's working and what isn't. Monitoring web traffic and the number of customers that you're acquiring is a key element in the growth hacking process, and you'll be able to use your data to adjust your campaign's focus.^[14]
1. Google Analytics is a free data-collection tool that will help you monitor how much traffic your website is getting. Sign up at https://analytics.google.com/analytics/.

growth marketing work use

Marvin Fry

Update 04 March 2020

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