Even though growth hacking has only been around for a few years, but now it’s one of the inclined terms in the tech world. Every startup is looking for growth hackers. Because, they too want to grow fast, and get millions of users and dollars in revenue.
Growth hacking is how startups like Tinder grew users from fewer than 5,000 to almost 15,000 overnight. It’s how Airbnb became Airbnb and Product Hunt became Product Hunt.
Though growth hacking for startups is a proven element of success, but not every marketer and organization do growth hacking in the right way. You need to implement the right growth hacking strategies to get the result overnight.
If you search for growth hacking strategies or techniques online, you will find tons of resources about grow hacking strategies. Often newbies have so much confusion on which strategy to follow and what to do?
So to make things easier and find the effective strategies, I took a different approach. I asked 41 experts a simple question:
“What would be your Growth Hacking Strategies in 2018?”
Here’s what they answered!
Growth Hacking Strategies for 2018
#1) Glen Gilmore: [Website | Twitter]
To keep ahead of the competition, marketers must always be learning, sharing and evolving. Make time to benchmark, evaluate and adjust. If you do, as a marketer or agency, you’ll grow.
As a content marketer, growth hacking depends on agility. It’s not enough to have an artistic flair or a skill at writing and graphics. Keeping a close eye on “disruption”, consumer data and consumer preferences need to be a constant occupation.
Many early predictions about the prominence of video in 2018 were caught by surprise by consumer interest in live-streaming and augmented reality. Staying ahead in the content marketing space requires an avid interest in tech and an ability to understand when and how to weave that tech into contextually relevant content. Think personalization.
#2) Andy Crestodina: [Website | Twitter]
In 2018, things are going to get a little crowded. But there are always open spaces where you can become active in a less competitive context. The key is to simply do what most other people don’t do. It can be something more specific, something more difficult or something less common.
Here are some examples:
• Niche down into a more specific target audience
• Create an event, and move your audience offline
• Produce a series of videos, rather than blog posts
• Add an audio version of your content to ever article
• Print your next article and send it to key members of your audience in the mail
It’s not that hard to be in the top 1% of marketers. Just do what 99% of people don’t do! For a benchmark on what bloggers are doing today, take a look at our 2016 blogger survey. https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogger-trends/
#3) Tyson Quick: [Website | Twitter]
The two biggest Growth Hacking Strategies Instapage will be implementing in 2018 are:
1.) Greater collaboration
We’re stressing more meaningful collaboration among our team members and with or customers. With the right tools, process and structure we can work together faster, more efficiently and get work to stakeholders or customers, get their feedback, implement that feedback, push it live and prove our value. That kind of collaboration.
A couple stats that are spurring us on are:
96% of execs cite lack of collaboration as the main source of workplace failures.
39% of employees say people in their organization don’t collaborate enough.
The ability to more efficiently and effectively collaborate is going a big thing; it’s essential to our growth.
2.) Advertising Personalization
Personalized advertising is the act of using insights into who a customer might be to increase the relevancy of an ad. These insights can be as simple as human wants/needs, geolocation and basic demographic information to more specific insights such as a niche interest, buying intent, and even behavioral patterns.
All of these insights are variables brands should consider when targeting ads to get more audience engagement and ultimately sales. Without them, you may as well use the shotgun approach and blast your messages to the masses in hopes of seeing positive returns.
I’ve put together a classification system that I think will
* Level 0: Targeting based on need or want and broad geographic location (country, state).
* Level 1: Targeting based on the combination of need or want and more specific geographic location (city).
* Level 2: Targeting based on the combination of need or want, micro-geographic location (zip code), and demographic information (age, gender, income, etc.).
* Level 3: Targeting based on the combination of need or want, micro-geographic location, demographic information, and general individual interest (sports, travel, technology, etc).
* Level 4: Targeting based on the combination of need or want, micro-geographic location, advanced demographic information (political preference, brand loyalty, type of vehicle, etc.), specific niche interest (Genre of music, famous person, hobbies, etc.), and buying intent (search keyword).
* Level 5: Targeting based on the combination of need or want, exact geographic location, advanced demographic information, specific niche interest, buying intent, and historical behavioral patterns (purchase history, voting record, web page visited, etc.).
Landing pages are a personalized experience because the online ads connected to them should be targeted accordingly. Ideally, targeting is based on level 4-5 personalization, which is now available with digital technologies. Targeting that includes micro or exact location, niche interests, advanced demographic information, buying intent, and sometimes historical behavior all make this personalization a possibility.
#4) Mike Allton: [Website | Twitter]
While I have some big plans for 2018 to help grow my own blogging business, as well as that of SiteSell where I’m the CMO, there’s on strategy in particular that would be best be described as a hack. I’ve intended for a while now to create a course that can help my blogging audience, as well as create a new stream of revenue for myself. The hack is that before I create the paid course, I will create an initial course that’s free and designed to be a precursor to the paid course. This does double-duty. First, it helps to gauge interest in the content before I invest too much into the real product. And second, it helps to create a stronger list of interested leads.
#5) Christoph Trappe : [Website | Twitter]
The easiest way to growth hacker the system is by sharing and then quickly distributing our authentic stories. It cannot be commoditized and when done right can help us reach and really tie our target audiences to us.
#6) Barry Feldman : [Website | Twitter]
Keep hacking away at the development of your personal brand. Build name recognition by being visible, valuable and vocal.
Visible—Publish. Podcast. Speak. Take advantage of the many media opportunities new media presents.
Valuable—Create content related to your area of expertise that helps your audience tackle their challenges.
Vocal—Raise your voice. Bring your original point of view to all you do and don’t try to please everybody.
#7) Josh Steimle: [Website | Twitter]
To growth hack PR go old-fashioned and build real relationships. Why? Because it works and hardly anybody else is doing it.
In a real relationship value goes both ways voluntarily, without guilt, without begging, without pushing. While your competitors are looking for the quick win by blasting out a press release to 300 journalists at once, hoping that one of those journalists writes a story, here’s what you do instead:
1. Follow 20 journalists you wish would write an article about you on Twitter. Turn on mobile notifications so you get an alert about everything they post. When they tweet something you like, heart and retweet it. Do this for 2 weeks.
2. Which journalists have followed you back? If none, follow another 20, and do the same things with them, while continuing to do it with the original 20. If any journalists have followed you back, reach out to them and ask “What stories are you working on right now? Is there any information you need or any sources you’re trying to connect with?”
3. If you get a response and you can help, then help. If you can’t help, tell them what you’re an expert at, and say “If you’re ever writing a story on what I’m an expert on, let me know and either I can help you or I know others who can.”
4. For those you’ve been able to help, do it 1-2 more times.
5. For those you’ve been able to help 2-3 times, ask to meet in person or have a phone/Skype call, just to get to know them and see how you might be able to help them out more. Make it short–ask for 15 minutes and stick to that unless they make the conversation longer.
6. Keep helping. Keep communicating.
That’s it. “Wait, where do I get the article?” you ask. Don’t worry about it. Don’t think about it. Just help. The article will come, and more than likely you’ll end up in multiple articles from each writer you do this with. Why? Reciprocation. If you provide value, people naturally want to provide value back to you. If you help journalists, they’ll want to help you and you’ll never have to ask for anything. And the less you think about getting, the more you’ll get.
#8) Alan See : [Website | Twitter]
In one way or another we’re all trying to create growth with resources that are subject to being hacked. So, let me offer my “power triangle” that may help you growth hack your 2018 marketing plans.
1. Blog: I know; you’ve been blogging for years now. But you need to get more people involved. One person creating one post a month means you are far behind in the content-marketing arms race. Attention spans are short and quality expectations are high. So, keep them short and entertaining with relevant stories. Focus on building trust, rapport and credibility. And remember, relationships are not developed overnight. Think long-term, not every communication needs to blast a “call-to-action.” You can create focused content by leveraging your in-house subject matter experts to provide material that supports each phase of your sales cycle. As always, make sure the content is search engine-optimized so certain keywords are likely to be picked up in industry-specific searches.
2. LinkedIn: Too many people in your organization still consider LinkedIn a resume application. They don’t understand that LinkedIn may very well be the best business development tool on the planet. Help your organization understand how adding blog posts, video, projects and presentations to their profile helps increase their credibility. The decision makers your sales force is trying to contact are reviewing their profiles. If they don’t like what they see, chances are they won’t be returning any phone calls or accepting any meeting requests.
3. Twitter: This element of the power triangle is where most organizations will fall short. They don’t understand the value of Twitter to help build and nurture a targeted audience. You can use Twitter in an integrated way to start conversations that actually develop into business relationships. So, renew your perspective on this application and build your audience.
By integrating your social media platforms and content strategies you can create a focused marketing program that can make a cost effective difference in both your lead generation and lead nurturing programs. It will also help you maintain your customer-focus while you’re trying to do more with less.
#9) Shane Barker: [Website | Twitter]
There’s a quote from American jazz pianist, Dave Brubeck, that I just love. He said, “Take a chance on making mistakes to create something you haven’t created before.”
What does jazz have to do with growth hacking? One word: creation. In 2018, the best way to hack your business growth will be to create unique, engaging content. Don’t be scared to make mistakes, and to try new things to create content that you, and no one else out there, has ever created before. Content marketing, done correctly, is a sure-fire way to drive massive traffic to your site.
Creative, unique content that offers value in new, and exciting ways can do a whole lot more than just drive traffic. It can help your brand stand out from the crowd, and position yourself as a key influencer and expert in your niche.
Think about your UVP (unique value proposition), and use it to create valuable content that showcases your brand’s unique voice in the market. What makes your products or services so special? What do you offer that’s better than everyone else? Focus on that while developing your content marketing strategy for 2018.
#10) Tamir Jerby: [Website | Twitter]
There are two things I would advise most CMOs to focus on in 2018:
Content is (still) king.
Cliches aside, face it: content is everything. All of our favorite brands are clocking in intense hours and sweating over quality content. Beyond just answering users’ questions and feedback, content in 2018 must create emotional value for customers. It has to touch upon your nerve- it has to quench users’ thirst. It has to bring out some sort of passion, address a concern or pique curiosity. We’re all bombarded with information from all sorts of channels, online and off, so creating real content that users truly care about and feel connected to will have a long term impact. They may stick around and (gasp!) read the whole thing, and perhaps even sign up for the newsletter.
Get to know your users. Like really.
A lot of websites today push their visitors on their first visit to immediately buy their products and services. The visitor is exposed to multiple CTAs, from the top to the bottom of the page, all aiming to create a sense of urgency and push the user to “Buy now!’ Although that aggressive way of doing business has its benefits, there’s a bigger picture here that will go a long way. Get to know your users. Understand what their needs are, and why your product could be the perfect fit. Then, get the user interested and engage – perhaps just getting them to leave their email address. You’ll convert them later on, no worries. You see, conversion should be a relationship between the brand and the user, and not just an immediate “buy and bye bye”. Your users’ satisfaction will increase LTV, and reduce churn.
#11) Brian Massey: [Website | Twitter]
#12) Sean Si: [Website | Twitter]
#13) Erik Emanuelli: [Website | Twitter]
Guest blogging works like charm for me, both for branding/link building. And it helps me connect with new people in my market.
#14) Sam Hurley: [Website | Twitter]
#1: Ensure you have a hook or lead magnet on your website with clear CTAs. Offer something for free in return for email addresses.
#2: Utilise the power of Facebook ads to drive low CPC, targeted traffic to this page.
#3: Leverage the audiences of influencers either by paying them to promote on Social Media and/or writing guest posts for them with links back to your hook page.
#4: Nurture those who sign up using marketing automation.
#5: Apply a reward-based program whereby signups receive some form of incentive when they successfully persuade others to join.
#6: Continue to build email lists in this way and before long, you will have a huge, enaged database for lifetime sales. Nobody can take your list away from you and besides; email marketing has an ROI of $38 for every $1 spent!
#15) Marcus Miller: [Website | Twitter]
One of my favorite growth strategies is always to experiment with new marketing platforms and targeting methods. When anything is new if you are happy to work with tools that can be a bit rough-around-the-edges then you can often get a much higher return for your budget.
When something becomes popular like Google search ads or even organic via SEO then competition grows and returns diminish. There was a time when I could get maybe ten times the return from Facebook ads for a client given the targeting fit than they were getting from their paid search ads. That platform has got more competitive now but there are always new platforms and new targeting options within established platforms – Gmail Sponsored Promotions are still pretty new and we are seeing some solid returns there.
Ultimately, most of the more scale able strategies revolve around content and how you can use content marketing to improve your SEO, Social and paid reach. If you want to scale your marketing and grow in 2018 consider how you can create tactical weapons like great content pieces and then utilize an array of channels to push that content out there.
#16) Gail Gardner: [Website | Twitter]
Marketing automation is now inexpensive enough that any small business or freelancer can afford to use it. By setting up workflows that segment your new subscribers and leads into more targeted lists, it is possible to reduce the time it takes to increase conversions. Workflows can also surface the hottest leads so your sales team can focus their efforts on those most likely to convert soon.
Where once it was a challenge to set up automation that required multiple tools, in 2016, GetResponse integrated their email marketing, landing page creation, split testing and webinar tools into one price under $50 a month. This makes it much easier for non-technical people to get automation working for them. They can use templates and drag-and-drop images, text, and call-to-action buttons and modify them to create professional-looking landing pages. Then use them to sign people up for your webinar, automatically send them reminders, and even send them the recording of the webinar when it is done.
Now that automation is affordable for anyone, 2018 should be the year when serious businesses and marketers use it to become more efficient and focus on increasing profitability. I explained here how to use workflows.
#17) Karola Karlson: [Website | Twitter]
Data-driven CRO Many growth hackers spend a lot of their time optimizing websites and online products. While there are conversion rate percentages and visitor numbers involved, this doesn’t always mean that CRO decisions are data-driven. If you want to conduct high-quality optimization campaigns in 2018, avoid these mistakes that so many growth marketers are guilty of:
1. Don’t run CRO campaigns without sufficient traffic to produce statistically significant results. You need at least 500 conversions to draw conclusions on an A/B test
2. Don’t run multiple overlapping A/B tests on your website or in your product as they’ll affect each other’s results – you’ll get no accurate data on the results. Use an A/B testing tool to help you out Sounds simple, but keeping to these guidelines demands lots of patience and smart data analysis. But the rewards are bigger as well!
#18) Brandon Doyle: [Website | Twitter]
Not enough people are utilizing Twitter and Instagram for social listening. Track certain hashtags on those platforms, reply to them individually and authentically, and your engagement and follower levels will grow!
#19) Marcus Tandler: [Website | Twitter]
Don’t sell! Educate!
Don’t constantly try to pitch your service or sell a product, but rather give away actionable and valuable content. Go for popular questions people are having within your industry or niche and aim for offering the best possible answer. This also holds true for posts on social media – people just grow tired of brands ceaselessly promoting their own wares. Today’s progressive brands think beyond products or features. A great free tool to get you started researching popular questions related to any keyword is AnswerThePublic.com. Don’t sell! Educate!
#20) Nir Eyal [Website | Twitter]
The key to growth is retention. Acquiring users without keeping them is a waste of time. Therefore, to grow sustainably, you need to understand how to build user habits for your product or service.
#21) Roger Dooley: [Website | Twitter]
Focus on your customer’s brain and how it really works. Logical, rational appeals won’t be enough. Instead, look to behavior science and psychology for techniques to influence your customers and to understand their hard-wired biases.
Digital marketers should use tools like digital analytics, click tracking, scroll tracking, etc. that record what customers are actually doing – it’s probably not what you expect, or want them to. Last, be aware that tools like eye tracking, implicit testing, and more are getting much less expensive than in the past – these techniques are no longer just for big brands.
#22) Erika Heald: [Website | Twitter]
Get to truly know and understand your audience. Become a part of their communities. Only then should you plan your strategy.
#23) Mikko Piippo: [Website | Twitter]
Measure everything with Google Analytics
You need to fuel your growth with data and analytics. For this, I recommend learning to use Google Analytics properly. It is a powerful growth hacking tool when you implement it correctly. That is, you stop using it as a plug and play tool and and completely customize your setup.
Start by tracking conversions, funnel steps, buttons, video views, mailing list registrations and social media shares. Track all your marketing channels using utm tags. Take care of cross-domain tracking if necessary and exclude payment channels. Next implement cross-device tracking based on user ID. Send custom dimensions and metrics to Analytics to understand your customers better.
Only when you measure everything correctly, you can find the best customer acquisition channels for your business. And this is critical to your success.
#24) Lilach Bullock: [Website | Twitter]
2018 is going to be a highly competitive year, particularly in terms of content marketing so I’m planning on diversifying my content offering. One area that is often overlooked by marketers is the online course/webinar industry, which is massively growing as there’s a huge demand for it, so next year I’m going to take part in a lot more courses and webinars.
Another growth hacking tip I have is to create more interactive content – quizzes, surveys, etc. – not only will your audience interact with you more, but you will also get to find out more information about them which you can then use to create better, more efficient marketing campaigns.
#25) Richard Lorenzen: [Website | Twitter]
My growth hacking strategies of 2018 would be: using PR to get in front of millions of people for much lower cost than advertising, and harnessing the power of social media influencers to promote your product.
#26) Justin Rondeau: [Website | Twitter]
If you are only looking at growth in terms of traffic acquisition, you’re only seeing part of the puzzle. You need to focus on ways to turn that traffic into something meaningful, e.g., prospects or sales. The only way to do this is to improve your messaging and user experience such that you are meeting the expectations of your visitor at their stage in your customer journey.
Traffic is a commodity, you can buy traffic. It’s what you do with it that matters. I’d focus on developing relevant offers (this is product and content centric) for the relevant audience (this is targeting and personalization centric). Focus on converting the traffic you’re already getting to help you prove and finance larger scale media campaigns.
#27) Lukasz Zelezny: [Website | Twitter]
In my opinion social media as a channel is more powerful then ever before. Twitter, LinkedIn as well as Facebook gives fantastic opportunity to engage audience. Aside from everything related to paid social media activity I would like to talk a bit about organic social media. So let me start from first tool I would recommend which is a Commun.it – this tool helps everyone to group people by their activity. That is where growth hacking sits. You save days of manual work with Commun.it. And it works with Twitter as well as Facebook. A swiss knife for someone who is dealing with audience daily basis and in a very reactive way.
Second suggestion is LinkedIn – an undisputed champion in B2B activity. I am personally using paid version of LinkedIn and I believe it is the best 20 GBP I am spending every month. Using paid account user can granulate audience better way in many other factors like company size or seniority level. It is a priceless option when You are looking for a b2b customers / partners.
Additionally, using chrome plugins like Dux-Soup or Hunter can also help to speed up process of gathering and grouping potential clients.
#28) Aaron Wall: [Website | Twitter]
As so many people focus on scalability, one way to differentiate is to intentionally focus on some strategies which don’t scale. The fake news narrative, the ugliness of politics, the filter bubble, etc. … these things are making the web become more of a low-trust environment.
About a month ago the WSJ published an article which mentioned many of the leading online plays in China had many boots on the ground driving partnerships, awareness & trust offline.
#29) Juntae DeLane: [Website | Twitter]
The best growth hacking strategy for 2018 is to become more personal. Social networks are updating their algorithm to reward personal messages over brand communications.
Meaning, if you want to reach more target consumers on social media, you’re brand communications must have personality.
#30) Adam Singer: [Website | Twitter]
My best strategy would be never use the buzzword Growth Hacking again 🙂
#31) Matt Janaway: [Website | Twitter]
The best growth hacks are the ones that you can do with your existing audience without having to grow your traffic. If you operate an eCommerce store, you should reevaluate your buying process. It can be a relatively simple process, but it can return serious improvements in your conversion rates.
Pop over to a hiring marketplace like Upwork or Guru and hire 50 website testers. Ask them to find an item and complete a purchase on your store. Set up a screen share and make notes as you watch them.
If at any point it looks like they are struggling, or their purchase process is being interrupted, write down the URL and the stage of the buying process. Afterwards, you should have a clear indication of whether there are and holes on your websites buyer journey. Optimizing this process can seriously increase the conversion rate on your site.
If you aren’t an eCommerce store, you can still repeat the above process, but you can replace the buying process with the conversion goal of your choosing.
#32) Ben Acheson: [Website | Twitter]
Blogging, Instagram, targeted paid social, email lists & using paid channels to generate data for organic.
#33) James Reynolds: [Website | Twitter]
If you are tired of your prospects telling you they’ll buy tomorrow then this tip is for you:
Use expiring coupons in your marketing.
When there is no compelling reason for your prospects to buy today, you’ll leave piles of money on the table and stunt your business’ growth. To ensure you have cash in the bank for advertising and recruitment (and all the other things you need to help your business expand) give your prospects a genuine deadline to act on.
My favourite way to do this is using coupon codes with expiry dates.
At SEO Sherpa my SEO agency, we limit the number of customers we take on each month so we never compromise service delivery. Sometimes, however, we fall short on our target which leaves us with spare capacity. When that happens we send recent prospects a custom discount coupon code with an expiry date and instructions on how to sign up:
The combination of several persuasive techniques; customization, scarcity, deadline, financial gain and unexpectedness compels these prospects to act and ensures we are growing fast and in line with our capacity to fulfill those orders.
#34) Marko Saric: [Website | Twitter]
Content. Without great content there’s no growth hacking so that would be my best advice. Create great content.
#35) Aaron Orendorff: [Website | Twitter]
In a word: questions. In two words: more questions. Growth hacking isn’t about creativity or invention. At least, not the lion’s share of it. Instead, it’s about listening to your market. You can do this through product testing, direct emails (esp. to people who made it right up to purchase, but didn’t finish the job), social media, or onsite surveys. Seeding your onboarding process with questions is also vital to capture the experience of new users and find out why they made the plunge. You can even do this by review mining your competitor’s customers.
The point in all of it is to find out what your market actually wants … and bake that into product development, product iteration, and all your marketing. And the only way you find out is to ask and then shut up.
#36) Tabitha Jean Naylor: [Website | Twitter]
If you want your business to keep growing, you can’t stand still. One of the best ways to keep branding your company and reaching your target market is to blog. Yes, blogging has gotten a bad rap, and you know why? Because too many bloggers are creating sub-par content that taints the whole notion of blogging with a negative brush. So what do you do to change that? Well, it’s really simple: create content that is actionable, useful, entertaining and bite-sized. Wait, what? Bite-sized? The truth is, everyone has a short attention span these days, and who can blame them with all the digital distractions out there? Your job? Give them content they want and need and don’t have to spend a long time reading. And if you’ve properly targeted your market, your blog will resonate with useful content that makes your audience want to engage more and click on your bold and colorful call-to-action (CTA) buttons that can lead to conversions and viola…growth.
Another growth hack that we sometimes forget is to test and analyze what we’re doing so that we can learn what we’re doing wrong. What do I mean? Well, for example, conversions are one of the biggest keys to growth, right? So are you testing your CTAs to see if they are effective? Are you poring over the number of clicks on your landing page versus visitors who didn’t do a single thing when they viewed your site? Are you testing which pages on your site convert the highest, and then figuring out what makes those pages different than the ones that convert at a lower rate? See what I mean? Test and analysis are a key growth hack, because that’s the only way you can figure out what’s working and what isn’t, and then…adjust based on what you’ve learned. Sometimes we spend so much time worrying about the new things we can do to grow our business, when the answers may often lie in adjusting and refining what we are already doing.
#37) Rich Page: [Website | Twitter]
In 2016 there was huge growth in websites using free incentives to capture more leads, and they often converted very well. Unfortunately many people are now getting wise to these free incentive tactics and are starting to often ignore them (particularly popups) unless they are really engaging and valuable.
Therefore, in 2018 to capture more leads you really need to make your free incentive stand out from what most websites offer and be much more compelling. To do this it is vital that you use A/B testing to find out which type of incentives convert more, e.g. a buyer’s guide versus a checklist (be as creative as possible), and also to discover which headlines, imagery and call-to-actions convert better. You should also A/B test different ways of presenting your free incentive, e.g. an exit intent popup versus a sidebar form, and using tools like Optin Monster makes this A/B testing much easier.
#38) Sujan Patel: [Website | Twitter]
Building a brand and audience. It’s not really a growth hack but it works.
#39) Peter Shankman: [Website | Twitter]
Something good out there is better something perfect delayed. Get what you have out there and rely on feedback to build a better animal.
#40) Michele Linn: [Website | Twitter]
My growth hacking strategy for 2018 is to focus on how you are spending your time — and dedicate your productive time to working on what is important to the growth of your business. This is often not the daily minatue that takes up so much of our time, so it requires you to make decisions on what is most important. Once you know what work is key, shut off all distractions and truly focus.
There are many methods for doing this, but one of my favorites is the simple Pomodoro technique. I love this article from Chris Winfield on How to Work 40 Hours in 16.7
#41) Mario Dealmeida: [Website | Twitter]
Since my passion is Search Engine Optimization, I would say one of the biggest growth hacks you should be taking a look at in 2018 is developing a sound strategy around SEO.
It sounds simple, but it’s rarely talked about and it could mean the difference of staying stagnant or growing your sites traffic hand over fist.
Relying on one kind of tactic to get you more traffic will get you stuck. The go-to SEO strategy is building more links, but more links isn’t always the answer.
If you need more traffic, rewrite your pages, rewrite your titles and think about how you can increase your click through rates as opposed to just stuffing keywords, add better content, get more topical relevance, clean up your on-page (broken outbound links, internal 404s, forgotten 302’s, etc.) and think out an inner linking strategy that makes sense to support the pages you want ranking.
In essence, STOP doing more of what’s not working and think about the overall picture.
If your link building or traffic strategy stopped working, then use these growth hacks to switch up your strategy to get your traffic growing again.
I’ve used these tips to increase traffic from 10,000 monthly visitors to over 80,000 visitors per month in organic traffic. They work!
#42) Paul Rouke: [Website | Twitter]
Turning your current A/B testing efforts in to a genuine growth lever and competitor advantage.
A/B testing has been around for many years, yet for almost all businesses, it is a marketing tactic, not a core part of the businesses DNA.
There are four pillars for intelligent, strategic conversion optimization that businesses need to focus on:
- Strategy & Culture
- Tools & Technology
- People & Skills
- Process & Methodology
Investing in intelligent, strategic conversion optimization leads to three fundamental changes to a business.
- evolves from being product led to customer led, therefore walking the walk to becoming customer centric
- provides the critical foundations for digital transformation
- instills far greater humility from the CEO down
So what is intelligent, strategic, transformational conversion optimization that brands like Booking.com, Expedia, Shop Direct, Skyscanner and Amazon have rooted in their DNA?
The answer is provided in PRWD’s Conversion Optimization Maturity Audit, developed over three years working with some of the world’s most progressive brands. Based on the four pillars, there are 21 assessment points. Anyone from any business across the world can use the maturity audit for free, and within 10 minutes understand what level of maturity their businesses current approach is to conversion optimization – whether beginner, aspiring, progressive, strategic or transformative.
Whether you deliver your conversion in-house, outsource to an agency, use managed services from a tool provider, or work in collaboration with an agency, the audit is relevant to your business.
The free 10 minute audit is here.
#43) Alina Bradford: [Website | Twitter]
I would say give this Twitter growth hack a try if you are wanting to grow your social media following by leaps and bounds. It is used by many professional marketers and will work great for anyone, no matter the skill level.
#44) Meryl Evans: [Website | Twitter]
Make sure your messaging matches expectations. For example, a title of a blog post tells a different story than its article. Companies create email campaigns with a call-to-action that sends prospects to a landing page. The subject line and body of the email need to match what people expect to see on the landing page. It’s surprising how often there’s a mismatch. And when there is a mismatch, people move on. Clickbait may get people there, but if the landing page tells a different story, it won’t fare well for the company. Such tactics speak volumes about the company and affect its reputation.
Conclusion:
44 experts shared their growth hacking strategies for 2018. Hopefully, these techniques will help you to set your growth hacking strategies for 2018.
I would like to thank all experts who contributed to the roundup and shared their experience with us.
Now over to you. Would love to hear what you think about their opinions, whether you agree with them or not. Let me know your opinions in comments 🙂
Sir, amazing work you have done here. All industry experts in one go. Thumbs up