Growth hacking, growth hacking, everyone's always talking about growth hacking. Can't we just go back to good old fashioned computer hacking? I'd love to wear a floor length leather trench coat, tiny glasses, and fingerless gloves.
Although growth hacking doesn't have a uniform, it is pretty fashionable. And for good reason. Growth hacking allows start-ups and lower-budget companies to become, and stay, competitive. With just a few clever ideas, and nifty tricks.
Growth hacking is, basically, a term used for any strategy focused on growth, especially in regards to early-stage start-ups. This is usually who needs to see a large amount of growth, in a small amount of time.
Think small budget, small amount of time, big growth. So, growth hacking answers the question: "How can I gain as many customers as possible, with limited resources?" It's about focusing on the most cost-effective solutions.
Let's have a look at an example: Airbnb.
Airbnb gave an option for anyone listing their property on their site the opportunity to post it on Craigslist. If they agreed, the listing would appear on both sites. Then, any clicks on the Craigslist site would be linked back to the original posting on Airbnb.
On top of this, Airbnb combed through posts on Craigslist, contacting users. If they were looking to rent out their place, they would be sent an email tempting them to also list it on Airbnb.
So basically, they infiltrated Craigslist, and overtook 'em from the inside. Like a cool spy, or a parasite.
But before you get started, you're gonna need some growth hacking context. So, we've got some stats and trends to show the current state of the space. You're welcome.
Growth Hacking and Search Engine Marketing
- Google receives 100 billion searches every month that is an average of 40,000 searches every second.
- 61% of companies reported that one of their biggest priorities is improving their SEO activities in 2019.
- By using SEO, the average conversion rate is 14.6%, while using the traditional outbound marketing strategy results in an average of 1,7%.
- By 2020 marketers plan to spend 45% of their total marketing budget for SEO.
- 72% of potential customers who run a local online search will visit a store within 5 miles of their location.
- From 2018 to 2019, the total number of devices around the world with ad blockers has grown from 142 million to 615 million.
- Most of the companies that use paid advertising earn double compared to their ad costs
- 46% of people can’t distinguish paid advertising from other content on search engines.
- Paid advertisements have the potential to increase brand awareness by 80%.
- Over 40,000 searches are generated every second on Google
Growth Hacking and Lead Generation
- Long landing pages can generate up to 220% more leads than landing pages with above-the-fold CTAs
- 61% of B2B companies said that generating high-quality leads is one of their biggest challenges
- 37% of B2B companies utilise marketing automation tools in order to generate leads
- Over 80% of social media-generated leads come from LinkedIn.
- Following up on leads within the next 5 minutes gives 9 times bigger chance to convert them
Growth Hacking and Content
- Around 80% of customers prefer watching a video to reading your help files.
- The research shows that between 2-5% of webinar attendees make purchases, so running webinars is a great growth hack.
- 52% of marketers say that link building is the most challenging field when it comes to SEO.
- 77 percent of B2B companies use newsletters to amplify their content.
- Alone from 2010 to 2012, the number of searches for infographics increased by 800%.
- Websites that contain a blog section receive 97% more backlinks.
- 3 Million blog posts are written every day
- 25% of companies utilise in-house content creation
- Content creation leads to 434% more indexed pages than websites without updated content.
- 78% of consumers say that personalised content increases the likelihood of buying from a company.
- Content marketing generates 3x more leads than PPC campaigns
- 86% of B2C organisations and 91% of B2B organizations use content marketing.
- For each $1 you spend on email marketing, marketers expect an average return of $42.
- 51% of B2B marketers prioritize creating visual assets as part of their content marketing strategy
- 78% of video marketers say video has directly helped increase sales.
- Guest blogging is a successful method for entrepreneurs and business executives to spread their messages onto larger platforms.
- A recent experiment posting 44 guest posts on 41 platforms resulted in a 20 percent increase in traffic and increase in domain authority
- Over 60 percent of companies who responded to a recent survey share third-party content with their customers are least once a week.
- 78 percent of companies have a dedicated content curator on their team.
Growth Hacking and Conversion and Retention Rates
- CRO tools have an average ROI of 223%.
- Top converting companies spend more than 5% of their budgets on optimisation.
- B2C Companies that use marketing automation tools have seen an average of 50% increase in CRO.
- Using videos on landing pages can increase conversions by 86%.
- Only 52% of companies test their landing pages whether they are engaging enough to convert. At the same time, only about 22% of them are satisfied with their CRO metrics.
- At a SaaS company anything above 35% for a retention rate is considered outstanding.
- Products offering a credit card linked free trial show a 30% or higher conversion rate.
- 92% of consumers will believe friends and family over advertisers.
- Referrals from friends, family or industry influencers relatively convert a lead much faster than other means. The CPA of referral customers is less, allowing you to cut down your costs too.
- Such customers have better retention rates that result in a 16% higher LTV.
- Additionally, sales experts with referral programs also earn four to six times higher.
- The fact is that 30% of new businesses won’t make it past 24 months. But by attending the best start-up events, you can acquire the tools and insights you need to make sure your business doesn’t fail.
- PayPal’s growth hacking strategy was to use a referral program. They began to incentivize users who brought in more users by using their referral program. As a result, PayPal’s business began to grow by 7% to 10% on a daily basis.
- 80% of sales are made on the 5th to 12th contact.
- Quick Follow Ups Give 9x Chances Of Conversions
- By adding, “P.S I love you. Get your free email at Hotmail” in 1996, Hotmail founders secured 3,000 new users one day and within 6 months they had 1 million. 18 months following its launch, Hotmail was purchased by Microsoft with 8.5 million users.
Growth Hacking and Social Media
- Social media is an excellent referral tool. In 2017, Facebook alone drove 20% of referral traffic.
- Proven, a job board, utilised their existing content to boost organic traffic by 43%
- 94% of B2B companies use LinkedIn for social media marketing
- Influencers who have over 50,000+ followers are most impactful.
- 95% of respondents to a recent survey said they usually tell at least one other person about a bad customer experience.
- Over 90% of B2B Companies Use LinkedIn For Marketing
- Twitter added 60,000 users in one day by obsessively looking for ways to grow and optimize every possible touch point. For example, Twitter realized that the odds of a new user returning to the platform increased dramatically if they followed at least 10 people immediately upon signing up. So, it included suggestions of some of the top people to follow as part of the Twitter signup process. User retention rates went up significantly.
- Some companies, like Starbucks, found success crowdsourcing ideas. Through the My Starbucks Idea program, the company was able to implement 277 ideas generated from its community of fans.
This post is part of our Martech stats series, which compiles key data and trends. Others include:
- Martech Stats and Trends.
- B2B Marketing Stats and Trends
- Social Video Marketing Stats and Trends
- Customer Experience Stats and Trends