Is Growth Hacking the New Advertising?

A positioning in the digital jungle

The title is provocative and raises a number of key questions that concern the advertising industry: Are we being controlled by the USA? Or is Google the new Federal Office for Advertising? Do only hard KPIs and precise predictions count today? Do we now have to hack the advertising machine to get something back from it? And do we only need the digital channel for contemporary advertising? Questions upon questions that cannot be answered conclusively, but stand like an elephant in the room.

In the western world, digital media took the lead in media strategy years ago. Traditional media act as a niche and supplement. If you can't communicate digitally today, you no longer exist. This reality has also arrived in Switzerland. And what about good-old storytelling? Do we still need it at all? Of course, good storytelling is timeless and as long as we don't advertise for machines, a good story will continue to be an important part of communication (more on this later). However, marketing managers know only too well that before the pleasure of storytelling can begin, the duty of sales must first be fulfilled. And so we end up directly and bluntly with growth hacking. So let's take a closer look at the term and its meaning.

Growth hacking, where do you come from?

First of all, growth hacking sounds like a person. Can you learn growth hacking? And where does this movement even come from? Wikipedia mentions Sean Ellis, who mentioned the term "growth hacker" in 2010. Today, growth hacking methods are widely used in digital start-ups and small companies in digital sales. In recent years, however, the trend has also spread to more mature and larger companies.

Simply put, the responsibility of the growth hacker is to generate and manage growth. This growth can affect an entire company, but usually focuses on one or more KPIs such as growth in customers, sales, leads, margin, newsletter sign-ups, second sales, cross-sells and upsells, or even reducing the retention rate, i.e. customer churn. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? The marketing manager thinks: I need that too. Someone who constantly gives me positive KPIs and never stops. That's always on, baby!

To demystify things a little, I would like to briefly summarize the most important points: The methods of growth hacking are based on the tools and methods of digital marketing. In other words, a digital funnel with digital marketing tools such as Google Analytics, ad servers, social channels, marketing automation, eCommerce platforms, content platforms and email marketing form the growth hacker's toolbox. The growth hacker can be one person, but parts of the process can also be automated.

Growth can be controlled by one or more dashboards, tools or mathematical models and rules. The growth hacker (let's stick with one person for the sake of simplicity) ensures that one or more KPIs remain in positive territory. In other words: on course for growth. For example, they generate new leads and lead them to sales conversion, take care of more newsletter registrations and reactivate store abandoners. The growth hacker uses tricks or hacks to further motivate users in the funnel. Of course, successful growth hacking is not just based on hiring a suitable person. All relevant tools, working methods, KPIs and digital marketing skills should be aligned with this.

How do I get started with growth hacking?

The following procedure should be followed for the task and thus for getting started with growth hacking. Many companies and partner networks already have many of the ingredients they need. A strict procedure helps to align all necessary aspects with growth. Growth hacking is basically at home in operations. Nevertheless, this area must be established in advance as part of a project and continuously improved in an agile manner:

1. Inventory of tools, methods and skills in digital marketing
2. Review of the marketing tech stack (entirety of marketing tools) for growth hacking use
3. Conversion, adaptation and expansion of the marketing tech stack
4. Identify and define a market-relevant KPI set along the funnel - including a desired corridor of results (thisrequires dashboards and daily updated figures)
5. Determine, train and organizationally anchor the growth hacker
6. Collect hypotheses for hacks along the funnel (benchmarks from other industries serve as a good and useful source here)
7. Establish an always-on organization by introducing SCRUM tools such as daily standups, backlog of hacks and sprints for toolset changes
8. Start growth hacking, analyze, improve, etc.

It sounds so simple, so "Let's do it!" However, our experience shows that the radical alignment of the marketing tech stack in large companies in particular can quickly take 12 to 24 months. It is therefore advisable to draw up a well thought-out plan and a budget before starting with action area 1. After all, the costs of the conversion should be able to be financed with the newly generated profits. In other words, the overall business case must be positive. In most cases, however, growth hacking is simply superior to traditional methods in terms of cost efficiency and is therefore the logical step towards increasing efficiency in marketing.

And what about the brand story?

Of course, one doesn't work without the other. Because without a strong brand and a guiding and motivating story, you won't get anyone through the funnel. With highly digitalized brands, however, the brand value is somewhat more diffuse than we are used to from the good old logo era. A smart, smooth funnel can have just as much impact on the brand as catchy storytelling. And the story is the much-quoted carrot that, when freshly peeled, must make the consumer "gluschtig" and animate them through the funnel. In other words: without a story, you can hack your fingers to death. In fact, I am firmly convinced that the areas of brand, story and growth funnel must be dovetailed, as as a mixed team they create the best performance, i.e. the greatest growth. And yes - growth hacking works both to increase sales figures and to support and improve brand values.