Companies such as Dropbox, Airbnb and countless others have used growth hacking to rapidly increase their acquisition rate. As a result, it’s no wonder that the term ‘growth hacker’ has become nearly synonymous with digital marketing success.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the term, Neil Patel makes it clear in his definitive guide: “A growth hacker is not a replacement for a marketer. A growth hacker is not better than a marketer. A growth hacker is just different from a marketer. To use the most succinct definition I have seen, ‘A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth.’”
When it comes to marketing automation, entrepreneurs want growth. Why else would you spend hundreds of rands on software each month? It’s quite a hefty investment for most small business owners.
That’s why you must ensure you’re getting the most out of your system.
I love the growth hacking culture. It’s centred around people who think outside the box and use creative solutions to solve everyday problems. When you overlap the benefits of marketing automation and growth hacking, magic happens.
With a bit of creative problem-solving, you can come up with several marketing automation hacks to boost your company’s attention, acquisition, activation and retention rates.
Related: Put the And Back in ‘Sales and Marketing’
1. Create sequences of hyper-targeted content
Essentially, you’ll use the information you gather about leads to tailor your offer to their unique pain points, triggers and needs. Think of it as a one-on-one conversation with them. See examples 1 & 2 below.
2. Gain behaviour insight with alerts
It’s difficult to figure out how to properly work the new leads you gain. That’s why much of the top marketing automation software has a feature called Alerts. You can receive an email alert when:
- A new lead is assigned to a rep
- A lead lands on your site
- A lead requests a demo or trial
- A lead watches a video marketing piece on your site
- Leads attend webinars or virtual events.
A few well-placed alerts can hack your sales process and give your team an advantage.
3. Go viral with automated incentives
If I asked 100 entrepreneurs the following question, I’d guess that all of them would give me an emphatic “yes”:
“Would you like to reduce your cost per acquisition?”
It can happen through automated incentives. This kind of marketing automation hack is exactly what Dropbox used to increase sign-ups by 60%. See example 3 below for Dropbox’s incentivised referrals offer.
Related: Micro-Transaction Marketing
4. Remove yourself from the sales cycle
What if you could completely remove the element of human error from the sales process? Certainly, that’d be an amazing feat. But while it’s not 100% possible, you can use sales automation to systemise and automate the sales process. A few ideas include:
- Setting up dynamic email workflows to interact with customers
- Automating your follow-up process
- Using intelligence to make a more efficient sales pitch.
5. Send a drip campaign after each purchase
In the business-to-business marketing world, it’s all about engagement and education. You want to keep people interested in your service long after they made the purchase. This continuous education cycle makes you a valuable partner.
Use post-purchase drip campaigns to keep the conversation going. It could be a simple weekly newsletter about industry developments or an in-depth course for getting the most out of their purchase from you.
6. Automate content marketing with a user-generated system
If you’re invested in long-term user acquisition, invest in content marketing. And once you build up a large enough audience, consider hacking the process by experimenting with an automated user generated content system (UGC).
One of my favourite B2B examples comes from Moz with its YouMoz blog. See example 4 below.
7. Restart the nurturing process with inactive leads
You won’t close every lead that makes it through the sales process. At any given time, a lead may become inactive due to lack of engagement or lost interest. Teach sales people to move inactive leads into a re-engagement campaign. These initiatives work to revitalise interest in your company’s offerings through a new lead nurturing campaign. Sometimes it’s the best — and only — way to get the sales process back on track.
8. Segment promotions based on purchase behaviour
Once you learn something about a lead, don’t let that information gather dust. You want to use it to further customise your marketing message.
Some general segment ideas include:
- Previous activity history
- Personal information
- Company information.
Using this information, customise your promotions for each marketing segment. Then use dynamic marketing to grab attention on the website and through re-marketing.
Related: Marketing Automation and ROI
9. Send a tweet for each Twitter card lead
You can use a nimble tool such as Zapier to implement a number of marketing automation hacks. I love the idea of sending a tweet each time someone signs up on a Twitter Card.
The idea is simple — each time someone fills out a lead card, send them a personalised tweet. It doesn’t get any easier than that. See example 5 below.
10. Know exactly when to call with real-time notifications
This feeds into the alerts hack, but goes a bit deeper into the concept.
Let’s say that a lead has landed on your site and visited the pricing page. A sales rep can receive a real-time alert that shares that information. Assuming that the lead has a few moments to talk, the sales rep can call at the exact time that a lead is looking at your pricing. It’s automated serendipity at its finest.
Related: Put Strategic Marketing in its Rightful Place
Ready, set, go
At the end of the day, it’s all about growing revenue. Both marketing automation and growth hacking, including all of the tips above. Make this happen.
