A lot of companies have been shifting their focus from traditional marketing to organic growth marketing in recent years and have seen exponential growth in their marketing efforts.
As companies are able to gather more and more data, the marketing 2.0, also called growth development marketing, has been picking up pace. But what exactly is growth marketing and why do companies need to make use of it in their marketing efforts? Let's explore below.
What is growth marketing?
Growth marketing is a marketing approach where decisions are based on the actual consumer data that companies can rely on to make marketing decisions. It is focused on identifying and scaling the most effective ways to acquire and retain customers.
Growth marketing employs a variety of tools and techniques like business blogging, webinars, value-driven email campaigns, search engine optimization, creative ad copy, A/B testing, and analytics to test different hypotheses and make data-driven decisions.
Growth marketing teams looks for ways to:
- Identify low performing areas to test and improve upon
- Optimize the inefficient marketing and sales processes
- Analyze campaign results for making informed decisions
Growth marketing definition
Growth marketing is a data-driven approach to marketing decision-making in order to identify and capitalize on the most efficient strategies for acquiring and retaining customers.
Why do businesses need growth marketing?
Business growth marketing is essential for companies to survive and thrive in today's competitive market and to ensure long-term business growth and success.
Growth marketing and user acquisition go hand in hand when a company is thinking of acquiring potential customers from their marketing campaigns.
Businesses need growth marketing to:
- Identify and use the most effective marketing channels to acquire and retain customers.
- Improve marketing campaign performance and efficiency.
- Identify new growth opportunities.
- Optimize marketing budgets and get better performance from their marketing spend
What types of companies need business growth marketing?
These days any company can benefit from employing growth marketing teams to fill up their growth marketing funnels. Most of the established companies that used to rely on traditional marketing methods only are moving to the growth marketing model.
New startups, especially technology startups hire growth marketers right from the start since fast customer acquisition is critical for them.
Traditional marketing vs growth marketing: What’s the difference?
Companies can acquire and retain customers either through traditional or growth marketing strategies. Traditional marketing campaigns use methods like brand advertising through mass media, billboards, and print material. On the other hand, growth marketing is a data-driven and holistic approach to growing a business.
Growth marketing is centered around the idea of basing the marketing decisions on the data acquired through various means. Thus growth marketing teams use methods like email marketing campaigns, content marketing campaigns, webinars, A/B testing and analytics etc.
The main difference between traditional and growth marketing is that traditional marketing focuses on increasing brand awareness and reaching a wider audience, while growth marketing is focused on identifying, testing, and scaling the most effective ways of acquiring and retaining customers for driving revenue growth.
What are some of the top growth marketing best practices?
Here are some of the top growth marketing best practices that you should consider while developing your growth marketing strategy.
Monitor trends
In the world of marketing staying up-to-date is essential. Marketing methods that were beneficial a few years ago may not work in today's environment. Analyzing marketing trends and taking advantage of new strategies and ad options is crucial for effective growth marketing.
Create valuable content
Do not create content just for the sake of creating content. Any content that is not useful for the target audience is a hindrance to growth and wastage of valuable resources.
Any content a company creates in any format must focus on the actual problems that the prospective customers of that company face.
Use automation
We are living in the age of automation and smart growth marketers make sure that they are automating as much of the marketing processes as they can to make life easier and efficient for them as well for their target audience.
There are a number of automation tools available these days at very affordable prices that can help any growth marketing team automate various tasks. Make use of these tools in your marketing campaigns.
Collect data
Growth marketing is pointless without data so collect as much data as possible without affecting the user experience. Any touch point that a company can rely on to gather customer data is an opportunity for a growth marketing team to make sure that they don't pay twice to gain the attention of the same prospect.
Never lose an opportunity to collect emails and phone numbers of your prospects and add them to your marketing funnel for future marketing campaigns.
Make sharing easier
Anything valuable that a company creates whether it be a blog post, social media post, email newsletter, webinar, podcast, or video should be shareable. The more shares you get the better. Make it easier for your customers to share your content wherever they like
.
What are the key components of a growth campaign?
Here are the top components of a growth marketing campaign.
Data-Driven Optimization
A well laid out growth marketing plan absolutely needs to be based on the data acquired. Your growth plan needs to include important information such as your hypotheses, goals, target market, channels, and budget.
Gather data that helps you answer these questions:
- How are people finding out about your product?
- What is the engagement rate?
- Are they clicking on your CTAs?
- What is the conversion rate?
Once you have the data, use these insights to optimize your campaigns accordingly
A/B Testing
A/B testing is a critical component of any growth marketing campaign. There are a lot of tools available in the market today that let you compare results from two different sets of marketing assets like blog posts, emails, social media posts etc. you should use this data to develop and continuously improve your growth marketing strategies.
Feedback Loop Creation
Soliciting customer feedback and optimizing your marketing campaigns based on the insights gathered through data collection is important for any growth marketing campaign.
Customer behavior data that you can gather using tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console and other analytics tools can help you identify the areas where customers resist an action that you hope them to complete. Once such an area has been identified you can contact the prospects and ask for their feedback as to why they were unable to complete a desired action.
Customer feedback can help your product development team develop better products and your customer support teams improve the customer experience and increase conversions.
Multichannel And Cross-Channel Targeting
When creating growth marketing strategies always use a multichannel and cross-channel approach. That is the basis on which any good growth marketing campaign is based on. You don't want to be targeting only a specific marketing channel but instead what you want to do is to focus on multiple channels at once.
Focus on targeting different channels, like blogging, email, SMS messages, direct mail campaigns, social media, and more to get the most out of your strategy and maximize your ROI.
Key takeaways
- Growth marketing is the future of marketing and most companies should be using growth marketing techniques for better customer acquisition and retention.
- As growth marketing approach is based on the data gathered, companies should gather as much customer data as possible using the tools available in the market today.
- Your growth marketing plans should use the data gathered to make customer experience better while helping you acquire and retain more customers efficiently.
FAQs
What is the difference between growth marketing and growth hacking?
The difference between growth marketing and growth hacking is that growth hacking is all about getting marketing results fast by focusing on tactics that are new and innovative.
Growth marketing is a more holistic approach that is mostly focused on consistent brand growth while growth hackers are more focused on finding and implementing "quick wins" or shortcuts to drive growth.
Growth marketing is a long-term strategy, while growth hacking is a short-term, test-and-learn approach.
What does a growth marketer do?
Growth marketers strive to maximize growth potential for a business throughout the funnel by focusing on customer acquisition, retention, and building a reputation. In simpler terms, their primary goal is increasing the customer base and ensuring customer retention and loyalty.
Where did the term “growth marketing” come from?
In 2010, entrepreneur Sean Ellis coined the term "growth marketing" when he was looking for a specialized marketing role focused chiefly on expanding the user base quickly, rather than factors such as cost-per-acquisition that traditional marketers worry about.
What is a growth marketing channel?
A growth marketing channel is the medium through which a company can bring new customers into the business and keep them there. There are numerous growth channels that can be implemented in a company's growth marketing plan.
Which departments do growth marketing work with?
Growth marketing usually work with sales, product & engineering, design, and customer success departments in a company.
