A vast majority of small business giants have admittedly succeeded, thanks to growth hacks. Just take look at companies like Airbnb, Quora, and Evernote. Smart and successful growth hacking relies on clever software used to implement lead acquisition and user retention strategies.
The following are the best tricks for ambitious small businesses.
Build an Extensive Email List
Imagine having an email list with 100,000 potential customers, right now.
Email marketing is a powerful customer conversion technique in every niche, especially if your product is digital. We’ll talk more about it by the end of this article. But first, we need to get you there – to convert customers via email, you need an email list.
Email list-building growth-hacks include:
- On-site freebies
- Sticky widgets
- Engaging pop-ups
- Header opt-ins
- Landing pages
- Fun contests
Using any of these tricks, you can easily convince your website visitors to subscribe to your email newsletter in exchange for something exciting. This can be a piece of 10x content such as an eBook or a well-written landing page call-to-action that really sells your product or service.
Generate Hot Leads with Quizzes
The online quiz is the ultimate growth hack, and here’s why:
- A quiz can greet your website visitors and help you build your email list.
- A quiz can collect insight from your visitors, thus revealing why so many potential customers bounce from your site.
- A quiz can also measure your success rate and tell you why users churn.
It costs nothing to create an online quiz – the only thing you need is a smart quiz maker. And your site is not the only place where you can use lead quizzes to attract subscribers. Social media quizzes are just as popular, which makes them a perfect engagement hack.
Employ a Retargeting Strategy
Since customer churn tends to impact your overall growth, it’s only natural that anti-churn hacks also belong to this category. Without any doubt, the most powerful of these hacks is retargeting. There are tools that can help you retarget every user who leaves your website, including website visitors who bounce too soon as well.
By using retargeting tools you can trace both rogue customers and indecisive leads as they continue to browse the web and show them your ads to gently nudge them into coming back. At least half of them will change their mind for the second time.
Implement a Referral Program
In the long thick book of small business tricks, there’s an entire chapter dedicated to referrals. Many successful small businesses have built an empire on referral subscribers. And depending on how clever you are, this hack may cost you nothing.
In referral programs, you offer something to your loyal users in exchange for – more users. Uber, for instance, boosted their business by famously rewarding customers with $20 for every time they convinced a friend to try out the company’s services.
If you can’t afford to pay for referrals, you can copy Dropbox’ strategy. In exchange for new users, they were offering a portion of their product for free.
Dominate Content Marketing
Content is still the king of digital marketing, as many small business leaders know.
Take Buffer, for instance. As only a startup, the social media tool company developed a content media strategy that helped them grow into one of the most influential niche blogs. Once they established themselves as field authority, getting more subscribers was as easy as selling cookies.
Content marketing does take some time, but it is a low-cost trick that works like a charm.
When you start creating content for your potential customers, bear in mind that the key selling point here is value. You’ll be writing about the same things as your competitors, but as long as you provide something useful and engaging, your content will stay on top.
Engage in Influencer Marketing
Alternatively, you can find someone else to speak of your expertise.
Influencer marketing is effective for all the same reasons that make referrals so attractive to aspiring companies. Modern-day consumers don’t trust traditional advertising. Instead, they go to their friends and niche experts for product and service recommendations.
And while referral programs work on a one-by-one basis, influencer marketing has a platform that is big enough to make you an instant success. The only thing you need is a person with more than 10K followers and enough credibility in your company’s target circles.
Let the Users Try Before They Buy
A different cautionary tale comes from Evernote:
The most popular note management tool on the scene, Evernote hasn’t started charging for its brilliant product until very recently. Up until that moment, the company was generating buzz and building its user base using only a freemium software model.
Unless you have a really good product, this growth hack can be risky.
But if your exciting freemium comes with a feature-rich paid version that people will want to invest in, then this model will help you grow really big. Alternatively, you can start offering a limited-day free trial, providing an engaging sneak peek into your product.
Offer the Best User Experience
Speaking of really good products, let’s end this list with an obvious, yet often forgotten growth hack – ‘be the best at what you do’.
Remember the old 80/20 rule and always put value before advertising. Only that way will you be able to provide the best user experience.
In this day and age of oversaturated markets, consumers are once again learning to recognize quality. Better yet, they are more than happy to invest in it. As growth hacks, quality and value may not bring instant gratification, but they sure bring long-lasting relationships.
Conclusion
Growth hacking is a cool way to succeed.
But even though some growth hacks are designed to be easy, it doesn’t mean that they will help your small business in the long run. When in doubt, always opt for a long-term solution – offer the best user experience and treat your customers with the respect they deserve.
