Growth Hacking

최근에 접하는 용어중에 정말 그 의미가 뭔지 이해하기 어려운 것들이 참 많습니다. 

그중에 Growth Hacking 등이 도대체 뭘까 해서 위키피디아에서 가져와 보았습니다. (참고용)

Growth hacking is a marketing technique which aims to attract users at a relatively low cost and primarily by means of technological integration.[1] The term is a buzzword and is typically applied to marketing strategies used by newly-formed companies, which don’t have the resources to employ standard corporate marketing strategies. Growth hackers are marketers that are trained to specifically focus on building up the user base of new startups.[2] Growth hackers focus on low-cost alternatives to traditional marketing, e.g. using social media and viral marketing instead of buying advertising through more traditional media such as radio, newspaper, and television.[3]

The marketers who claim to specialize in growth hacking use various types of classic marketing — persuasive copy, email marketing, SEO and viral strategies, among others, with a purpose to increase the conversion rate and achieve rapid growth of the user base. It also involves on-line community management and social media outreach, building the brand’s image on social media outlets and performance metrics to sell products and gain exposure.[4][5] It can be seen as part of the online marketing ecosystem, as in many cases growth hackers are using techniques such as search engine optimization, website analytics, content marketing and A/B testing.

Growth hacking is particularly important for startups, as it allows for at the early-stage launch face, when they focus on lowering cost per customer acquisition, whereas aiming to facilitate word-of-mouth advertising and increase customer life-time value [6][7]

History[edit]

Sean Ellis coined the term "growth hacker" in 2010.[8][9] In the blog post, he defined a growth hacker as "a person whose true north is growth. Everything they do is scrutinized by its potential impact onscalable growth."[8] Andrew Chen introduced the term to a wider audience in a blog post titled, "Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing" in which he defined the term and used the short term vacation rental platform Airbnb's integration of Craigslist as an example.[5][10] He wrote that growth hackers "are a hybrid of marketer and coder, one who looks at the traditional question of 'How do I get customers for my product?' and answers with A/B tests, landing pages, viral factor, email deliverability, and Open Graph."[4][10] In 2012, Aaron Ginn defined a growth hacker on TechCrunch as a "mindset of data, creativity, and curiosity."[5][11]

In 2013, the second annual "Growth Hackers Conference" was held in San Francisco set up by Gagan Biyani.[12] It featured growth hackers from LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube among others.[12]

source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_hacking

Breaking down the term “growth hacker”

“Growth” is the easier half to understand: as Sean Ellis says, a “growth hacker’s true compass is north.”

Basically, all they are trying to do is to make their primary metrics go up and to the right. What makes this type of growth unique (say, from its corporate counterpart) is the scale at which it must occur: successful startups grow from 0 to millions (or hundreds of millions) of users in a few years.

“Hacker” is more of a double entendre. By one definition, it means programmer – someone who builds features that encourage a company’s product to experience viral growth. However, I believe it also means “hacker” in the more figurative sense (similar to the term “life hacker”).  

A “hacker” is someone who thinks outside the box, disregards the rules, and discovers new ways to solve problems. In this way, a growth hacker needs to be as creative as she is analytical.

What tools does a growth hacker use?

Here is a laundry list of the primary tactics most growth hackers use:

Viral Acquisition: Leveraging built-in product features to encourage existing users to share your product with new users.

Paid Acquisition: There are many types. To name a few, search engine marketing, aka Google AdWords; Facebook ads; 

display ads; mobile ads; radio, TV, OOH (out-of-home), and many others all can be part of one’s arsenal – but they don’t provide accurate enough source attribution for most growth hackers; and finally, affiliate marketing, or providing incentives to third-party marketers who then promote your product for you and take a cut of the revenue.

Call Centers / Sales Teams: Surely building a sales teams does not count as “growth hacking,” but recently a new trend is emerging: leveraging outsourced low-cost labor to help support a startup’s efforts (usually in the Philippines, sometimes college interns). These workers can do anything from massively e-mail your prospective customers to create hundreds of SEO-friendly pages. In these cases, I would consider it a form of “growth hacking.” (To learn more, read: How did Udemy get 5,000 courses online so quickly?)

Content Marketing: Leveraging blog posts, infographics, and viral videos to increase brand awareness and site traffic. Turn those visitors into users.

E-mail Marketing: If you believe a growth hacker’s job is not just to increase new users/customers but also to engage them or encourage them to spend more money, then e-mail marketing is a significant part of their arsenal.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Don’t be fooled: what most mainstream SEO books and articles talk about is very different from what startups do for SEO. Startups that use SEO effectively build scalable infrastructure that applies to tens of thousands or millions of pages. Most of the SEO theory on the web is focused on ranking for just 5-10 keywords.

A/B testing and Analytics: Though this is not an acquisition method, there is no doubt that heavy data analytics and A/B testing helps a growth hacker improve their acquisition and conversion funnels.

source : http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/05/05/the-actual-difference-between-growth-hacking-and-marketing-explained/