47 user growth strategies used by Facebook and YouTube

Nowadays, if a startup wants to grow, the challenges it faces are undoubtedly becoming more comprehensive and diverse. Growth is very important for startups, but today when the traffic dividend is no longer obvious, it is very important for every entrepreneur to find an executable and effective way to grow.

This is the growth hacking strategy we’re going to share today. What exactly is growth hacking? Today we chose to share 47 cases - before we start reading these growth hacking strategies, let’s make an assumption:

Suppose you are eating at a restaurant and now want to pay the bill. As you pull a card from your wallet and decide how much to tip, the waiter brings you the bill and retreats back to the counter; meanwhile, at another table, the same ritual begins. But this time the waiter not only brought the bill but also a mint chocolate.

According to a study in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, statistically speaking, the second waiter is likely to receive a 23% higher tip than the first waiter. Here’s a small example of “growth hacking”: Growth hacking, is a strategy designed to increase revenue or gain new customers.

The strategy used by this restaurant also works well in other business areas. Let's see how the "Attach" strategy works. Before you check out on the online shopping platform, you can choose the delivery method, including free (three or four days delivery) and paying an additional fee (delivery at a specified time on the next day). You select "Free," but a few hours later you get an email saying your order has been upgraded to "Next Day" delivery.

If this strategy works, this merchant will be your first choice next time you want to buy something similar.

If we find a startup that has very good and rapid expansion, it is likely because the company has deployed its own growth hacking strategy to gain user attention and win more market share. These strategies may be simple or complex, and may be online or offline.

What all of these strategies have in common is that they capture the attention of their target audience in innovative ways — primarily, in the service of growth.

There are many ways to choose from when it comes to growth hacking strategies. Today, the cases we share have all achieved a certain degree of success through growth hacking (Note: not all cases shared today are "recognized" as growth hacking, some of them are traditional marketing strategies, and some are accidental events). Classification is not important, and it is not important whether these strategies are the coolest and flashiest. What is important is that through the sorting out of these strategies, they can bring you some form of growth or some inspiration for reference. Below, Enjoy:

No.1

Shazam: “Word of mouth”

Music tech company Shazam came up with a clever marketing move that not only expanded interest in its song identification app, but also turned a problem into an advantage (a strategy that has become common among music apps in China).

The Shazam app allows its users to identify songs they hear in a variety of contexts by recording a piece of music and the app matching it against an online database for identification. When there is too much background noise, the software may have difficulty identifying the song. Therefore, Shazam recommends that users keep their phones as close to the speaker as possible.

This is a clever move. When others saw someone waving their phone around to find the speaker, they naturally asked, "What's going on?" Word about the Shazam app quickly spread through word of mouth. As a result, the app was downloaded 500 million times.

No.2

Netflix: “Precision Marketing”

The early development of industry leader Netflix relied on capturing the interests of its target users . This company, which started out as a DVD rental business, made full use of online forums where DVD enthusiasts gathered for promotion and marketing in order to make more people remember "Netflix".

Netflix adopted a "trial operation " promotion strategy , during which it provided seed users with harder-to-find film sources. Netflix originally thought that this method would not attract too many users, but the fact is that without adopting any traditional marketing methods, Netflix received 1,000 orders every day within a month.

No.3

Buffer : “The power of third-party blogs”

In the United States, blogs play an increasingly important role in helping companies gain inbound traffic (Note: in China, blogs can be replaced by a series of social networking channels such as WeChat and Weibo). However, publishing articles on your company’s own website isn’t the only way to get traffic.

A good example is Buffer, an app that helps people manage and schedule their social media posts. The company grew its user base from 0 to 100,000, fueled by founder Leo Widrich writing blog posts on third-party sites.

Buffer’s primary purpose on third-party blogs is to attract reader comments and then respond to them. Some of the responses will include a hyperlink directing readers to Buffer’s own website. For example, if you are writing an article about social media, write about possible solutions. For example, “10 Ways to Get the Most from Twitter” — this kind of “ dry content” can attract users to read and increase the likelihood that target readers will return to Buffer’s website. Today, Buffer has approximately 1.5 million users worldwide.

No.4

Hubspot’s Strategy: “Free Tools ”

Blogging is often part of a wider inbound marketing strategy that focuses on using content as a means to attract customers to your website.

Hubspot not only provides marketers with a set of tools to manage their inbound marketing campaigns , but also proves the effectiveness of its services through an active content marketing strategy.

Like many companies, the company publishes blogs regularly (in China, in addition to the official website, you can create your own official Weibo, WeChat, and other channels that are suitable for you), and also provides value-added content in the form of e-books.

But in fact, Hubspot’s most successful strategy is to provide a free “website evaluation tool”. Simply put, this tool allows users to see which parts of their website are performing well and which parts are performing poorly. It’s a great free service and, crucially, it’s effective in driving traffic to Hubspot’s portfolio of services.

No.5

Groupon: Bargain hunting

The number of shares, reposts and likes on social media is increasingly becoming a barometer of a company’s reputation. Online discount provider Groupon has turned user support into an art form. After purchasing anything on Groupon, customers have the option to tweet, like or share it. This isn’t a new technique, but it fits into the broader growth hacking techniques. These include:

● Refer a friend program (rebate through Groupon buys )

● Diversify purchasing options – such as buying tickets for friends

● Daily emails to inform you of the latest discount information

This hacking strategy helped Groupon grow 228% in one year.

No.6

Paddy Power: "Creating a hype"

Irish online bookmaker Paddy Power has also used social media to increase the company's visibility and, indirectly, sales.

The best approach is to create some high-profile stunts. For example, ahead of the World Cup in Brazil, the company posted fake images on the internet showing it was carving the words "C'mon England" into the Amazon rainforest.

The company does not measure results in terms of return on investment , but these activities keep Paddy Power's platform in the sights of target customers and increase its visibility.

No.7

Ice Bucket Challenge: "Mobilizing offline participants"

Even if you didn't participate in the Ice Bucket Challenge, you're definitely aware of its existence.

The Ice Bucket Challenge was launched in August 2014, asking participants to bravely pour ice water all over their bodies to support research on ALS. Through simple means, the campaign raised nearly $100 million.

This is a truly contagious event, and the large number of offline participants has greatly increased the spread and influence of the event. The "Ice Bucket Challenge" is not simply sharing a video online, but directly participating and taking on the challenge.

The event attracted people committed to preventing and treating ALS, people eager for attention, opinion leaders and ordinary challengers. Once you are called out by someone, it is difficult to avoid accepting the challenge. Because, invitees either accept the challenge within 24 hours or choose to donate $100 to fight amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

It’s a reminder that social media often functions in sync with the real world.

No.8

BodyCoach: “Leveraging the influence of social media”

Fitness trainer Joe Wicks has built a career by expanding his influence on social media.

The experiment began on Instagram, where Vickers began posting before-and-after photos of his clients and sharing healthy recipes in an effort to grow a small personal training business. In addition, Weeks frequently uses Snapchat to update fans on his activities. Weeks' fame on social media has attracted advertisers; at the same time, his high popularity has brought him a book contract and the opportunity to appear on a TV show. He now earns £1 million a month.

No.9

Gmail: “Using scarcity to attract attention”

When Google launched Gmail in 2004, its position in the industry was far from what it is today - the leading data search giant. In fact, no one knew at the time whether Google's products could compete successfully with Hotmail and Yahoo 's products.

But Google cleverly turned its problem into a marketing strategy: With limited server space available, Google used scarcity to its advantage. They released Gmail on April Fools' Day. Registration was by invitation only, and initially only about 1,000 opinion leaders were able to invite their friends to use Gmail.

People felt that in signing up for Gmail, they were becoming part of an exclusive club. This naturally aroused everyone's interest and demand.

No.10

Hotmail: “Small link, big market”

In contrast, Hotmail used a deceptively simple technique to expand its market. In the 1990s, when users used Hotmail accounts to send emails, they would see a slogan added to their signatures, which read "I love you, come to Hotmail and apply for your free email account." This was actually a link to Hotmail's own website.

Although it was just a simple slogan, some recipients still clicked on the link and became Hotmail users, helping Hotmail open up its own market.

No.11

Facebook: “Mandatory use”

Messenger is an important product released by Facebook. This is a communication application independent of Facebook, which can be used by third parties to communicate through chatbots .

But Facebook faces a challenge. Some people may ask: I already have the Facebook app installed on my phone, why do I need to download Messenger?

To address the problem, Facebook has gradually shut down the messaging tools on its own apps and informed users that communication services have been moved to Messenger. As a result, Messenger has seen exponential growth in users.

No.12

OK Cupid: "Testing the Game "

Dating site OK Cupid already has a pretty compelling unique selling point (USP): it’s free to use. But in 2007, it tried to integrate with the Facebook platform to increase its traffic.

The method is very simple, which is to attract users through test questions. Quizzes of all kinds are a popular part of the Facebook platform. For those who need to kill time on their commute or in the office, Facebook quizzes launched by third parties are often the first choice.

Through integration with Facebook, OK Cupid enables users to take quizzes in a variety of categories, including music topics. And this interaction is linked to their personality type and profile. Facebook's huge influence provides a very effective way for dating sites to promote themselves.

No.13

YouTube : “Using rewards and revenue sharing”

YouTube's core service allows anyone to post videos online. But to truly succeed, YouTube needs to expand its arsenal of high-quality content to attract viewers and advertisers.

Competitions are a stimulating way to grow a community of content creators. Initially, YouTube offered the prizes itself, such as an iPod Nano for the winning video maker. YouTube later expanded this strategy to include additional partners. For example, a partner might offer a reward for the best video on a certain topic.

In fact, YouTube's most fundamental move is to expand its partner program, which allows content creators to share advertising revenue and increase content clicks .

No.14

Paypal: “Cash Rewards”

Competitions are not the only way to motivate users.

PayPal was founded in 1998 with a simple strategy: You could use your email address as your account and transfer money to facilitate cash flow. Although this idea seemed visionary in hindsight, it was difficult to find users at the time. In addition, advertising is expensive, and established banks' cautious attitude toward startups also makes the implementation of the plan more difficult.

Paypal's solution is to motivate users by using cash rewards. Users can receive a $10 reward when they open an account, and a $10 reward for each user they recommend. The company spent about $60 million on rewarding users for referrals, but its daily growth rate reached 7% to 10%. Since then, the company has become eBay's preferred payment service provider.

No.15

Shopify: “Free Trial”

Free trials are an old-school tactic, but they helped Shopify gain 150,000 users.

The company provides small businesses with the opportunity to open online stores. For a small business that has yet to venture into the world of e-commerce , working with a web designer upfront on an online store can be risky. Therefore, Shopify allowed users to use it for free for 14 days to verify the value and feasibility of the proposal.

The trial program was very popular and laid the foundation for paying users to join.

No.16

WPEngine: “Rewards for Recommendations”

WPEngine provides hosting and optimization services for WordPress blogs. Although there are many competitors in the market, WPEngine has been able to gain popularity by providing quality services and leveraging existing users to attract more users.

The strategy it uses is a very generous referral program. Users who recommend others to register will receive a $200 reward, and there is no limit to this reward.

Premium WordPress hosting services have a limited audience, but referral plans are cost-effective in finding paying customers.

No.17

Invision: “Giving Back to the Audience”

The B2B market is different from the B2C market , and the growth hacking strategies used are also slightly different.

Providing useful business intelligence to your target audience is a time-honored strategy. Invistion is a software company that focuses on basic web design and functional emulation. Developers can design a page, run it through Invision, and see how it works.

To build trust with the community, Invision gives back to clients — for example, by providing them with reports on design industry practices, strategies, and even salary earnings.

No.18

Dollar Shave Club: "Viral Video"

YouTube has become a catalyst for growth for countless brands , with a single viral video being able to effectively drive sales and subscriptions.

Dollar Shave Club is a great example of how viral videos can be used to hack growth. In just three years, the company grew into a $600 million enterprise.

The company's subscription model involves sending monthly recommendations on razors and other men's grooming products.

The subscription model is great for repeat business, but it requires a large number of users to sign up first. The company released a relatively crude but entertaining video that garnered 19 million views, and it followed up with other videos. They got it right, viral videos are a great way to engage users.

No.19

PooPourri: "Content Creation and Toilet Humor"

PooPourri is a company that provides "scent solutions" to help customers deal with bathroom odors. The company showed customers why people need their product through a series of hilarious videos. You can view these videos as entertainment, but you will never forget the name of this product.

No.20

Shopstyle: “Focus on content”

Shopstyle has driven rapid business growth through high-quality editorial work.

The site is owned by Popsugar and is intended to drive traffic to its retail partners. Users can find and match clothing online using variables such as color. In 2015, the company saw a 55% increase in traffic over the previous year, with much of that increase attributed to inbound traffic generated by editorial design. The company fully realized the power of publicity, so it established partnerships with fashion bloggers and cultivated users through "inspiration centers."

No.21

Dropbox: Email Campaign

In just five years, Dropbox grew from 0 to over 100 million users while minimizing advertising costs.

The key is a combination of social media and email. Early on, the company used Google AdWords to acquire leads, but found that the acquisition costs were too high for clients to bear.

Instead, Dropbox encourages users to help spread the word through social media and email. There is a natural symmetry between products and marketing channels. If users want to share files through Dropbox, they naturally need to tell the recipient about this channel. Conversely, if you want to access files, you must register with the service.

This is all backed up by a video. This video acts as an "explainer," providing a guide to using Dropbox.

No.22

Buzz feed : viral topics

Few can compete with Buzzfeed in terms of generating traffic through viral sharing.

Today, Buzzfeed is not just a purveyor of small entertainment programs, distributed through its own website and social media; it is also a serious news platform, working with the BBC to conduct investigations and report news.

At the core of Buzzfeed's development is a deep understanding of the types of content that are effective in the digital age and how that content is distributed.

A typical example is a questionnaire. For example, if you want to know "What kind of parent are you?", to find out the answer, you need to fill out a questionnaire and can share the results of the questionnaire on Facebook. Your sharing will arouse your friends' curiosity, and then they will also complete the questionnaire. This naturally creates a viral topic and can gain traffic through people sharing and promoting it.

No.23

Trip Advisor: “ SEO Tips”

Few people know that Tripadvisor, a hotel recommendation and review website, was originally a company that provided tag search engine functions. This background gave the company a deep understanding of the importance of SEO (search engine optimization).

First, because of the company’s dedication to SEO, Tripadvisor consistently ranks high for travel-related searches, but that’s only half the battle. The business model also supports SEO efforts by continually adding new reviews to the searchable content.

The company also has a few tricks up its sleeve for growth, some of which are pretty simple but effective. For example, Tripadvisor encourages hotels to promote good customer reviews through the review section, which is a good thing for controversial hotels. The review column also drives traffic back to Tripadvisor and helps hotel reviews rank higher in Google search results.

No.24

TripAdvisor + Amex: "Partnership to boost transactions"

TripAdvisor is an example of how growth hacking awareness shouldn’t end with a company’s growth. A great example is its partnership with American Express . Under the agreement, Amex users in the UK, US and Australia can seamlessly book hotels through Tripadvisor and leave reviews at the same time. This information is displayed in the joint Amex/TripAdvisor banner promotion. The move boosted business while also promoting both brands.

No.25

Skyscanner: Widgets

The cost of acquiring customers is high, so the last thing a budget airline search engine like Skyscanner wants to do is spend money to reach out to users again and again. The better approach is to hold on to the customer.

This is where widgets come into play. Basically, widgets allow companies to occupy a piece of "premium real estate" on the desktop or website of a third party, whether a partner or an existing user.

Travel site Skyscanner uses widgets to great effect. In 2008, the company partnered with Netvibe to create widgets that users could place on their personal pages or on their Windows/Mac desktops so they didn't have to spend time searching or typing in travel site URLs to find deals.

Not only that, but the embeddable website widget they offer allows other travel sites to add helpful flight search functionality for their visitors. Not only did these widgets put Skyscanner in front of millions of users every day, but they also created a massive network of backlinks to the Skyscanner website, fueling its explosive growth through high Google rankings.

No.26

Spotify: “Share Widget”

Spotify is also very fond of gadgets. It provides tools that allow artists and fans to promote songs or share playlists through their own websites, Facebook or Twitter.

There are many scenarios for using Spotify. In addition to previews, clicking on the widget to listen to the full track requires registering a new Spotify account or logging into an existing account on the device. This approach brought in more users.

But Spotify’s biggest growth hacking strategy is the freemium model. Unlike Apple Music and Deezer, which charge a fee, Spotify is free for those who don't mind listening to ads. This ensures Spotify's market leadership in terms of traffic, while also providing it with advertising revenue.

No.27

HotelTonight: “Focus on the user experience ”

Hotel booking apps are not new, unique, or give you instant bargains. So, what is causing HotelTonight’s growing popularity?

Sometimes providing the right user experience can be the best growth strategy.

HotelTonight is all about the mobile experience. If you've just arrived in a city and are looking for a hotel, you'll likely pull out your phone and search online. HotelTonight focused on the mobile experience, conducting rigorous A/B testing to ensure users could easily use the service.

No.28

Moonpig: "Like a divine song that never stops"

How many greeting card companies can you name? If you were asked to name just one (and if you were in the UK), it would probably be Moonpig.

Moonpig has established a unique value proposition by delivering personalised cards through an online platform. But that's only half the battle. The real challenge is attracting customers. The company used clever TV advertising to drive growth. Its slogan is extremely annoying and memorable. In psychologist terms, it’s an earworm—a divine song that won’t go out of your head. This not only increased its brand awareness but also drove sales soaring.

No.29

Compare the Market: "Fictional Animal Stories"

The comparison site model has already proven its value in the public sector, banking and insurance.

Like Moonpig, Comparethemarket.com used television advertising to build brand awareness. While Moonpig was focused on creating its “hearing” tagline, Compare chose Meerkat s, using a really bad pun to associate with the company. It may not seem like a big deal, but this company has raised brand awareness through a series of fictional animal stories - demonstrating the benefits of standing out from the crowd.

No.30

Secret Escapes: “Attracting users before product launch”

Founded in 2010, Secret Escapes offers bookings of upscale, luxurious hotel rooms at deep discounts.

These deep discounts are because the rooms are from the hotel's "unsold rooms" - which is attractive to hotel operators because "identified, unoccupied rooms" do not generate any revenue for them.

Only large-scale revenue will give hotels the motivation to cooperate, so Secret Escapes needs a large user base. But this raises another question: if there is no product, how can we attract users? Secret Escapes opted for a TV ad. Secret Escapes risked £250,000 on its first TV advert. The company believes that placing ads during prime-time programs will not be very effective because viewers will be focused on the program rather than paying attention to the ads. Instead, in order to find viewers who were willing to watch ads, they chose the afternoon TV show Poirot and inserted ads into the show, which achieved good results.

No.31

Slack: “Word of mouth”

In February 2014, Slack had 15,000 users. A year later, the number of users reached 500,000. The company attributes its success to "bottom-up word of mouth."

Slack’s challenge is convincing companies that don’t use internal communications tools that they actually need them — and that’s tricky. After all, people are used to communicating via email. If email doesn't work, people will choose Skype.

But Slack offers a more efficient way to manage communication within a team. The company’s approach was to find big companies that could be persuaded to use the system: Rdio participated in the trial and then rolled out Slack throughout the company; once users were hooked, they recommended Slack to others.

Through trials and word-of-mouth recommendations, Slack's business has grown exponentially.

No.32

LinkedIn: "Public Resume"

If you want to find someone on Facebook, it's easy to find. But only after you contact him can you see his complete profile and history.

Most ordinary people don’t have personal blogs or websites, nor do they want to be peeped at. But some social media users want to make their profiles public for specific reasons, and this is certainly true for LinkedIn's business/professional users.

The primary purpose of most LinkedIn users is to make connections and advance their careers. LinkedIn recognized this and launched the public resume service.

Once a CEO or MD is tracked down on Google, people searching for them have to sign up for LinkedIn to connect with them, and that’s the key growth driver. LinkedIn has a very granular approach to user growth , and this is just one of them.

No.33

PokemonGo: Taking advantage of the situation

PokemonGo achieved success through careful marketing, and massive user growth laid the foundation for increased revenue.

Pokemon Go has no ads and no explanation of how the game works. Nintendo initially just announced the game's public beta on Twitter—an approach that spawned a very large user base: in August 2016, the app was downloaded 100 million times. The craze has been fueled by the public's familiarity with Nintendo games and interest in augmented reality technology.

Developers have made games free to download and developed advanced features and wearable devices.

No.34

Daily Mail: “Content Portfolio”

The Daily Mail is the second most popular newspaper website in the world, after The New York Times . This is a surprising ranking for a mid-sized British tabloid.

More importantly, The Daily Mail achieved online growth without affecting newspaper sales.

A successful strategy is to expand your content portfolio. The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday Newspapers have a lot of celebrity coverage, but there is more content on the online channels, which generates a lot of traffic. This helps generate more users for the site with relatively little marketing spend.

No.35

Zappos: “Unconditional Returns”

In the early days of e-commerce, people realized that non-tangible goods such as books were easier to sell, while clothing was more difficult to sell. This has since been proven wrong and the clothing sells better. But one area of ​​the apparel market has been slow to take off online: footwear. The reason is simple. Whether shoes fit and are comfortable to wear is more personalized and more differentiated than whether clothes fit.

People like to try on shoes before buying them. Shoe retailer Zappos is trying to solve this problem. The company offers an unconditional return policy, removing the risk from your purchase.

Interestingly, they found that the best users were often the ones who returned the most products.

No.36

Airbnb: “Leverage the power of a professional website”

In an online world where new marketplace models emerge all the time, you hardly hear about Craigslist. But once upon a time, it was also seen as a pioneer. Especially in the United States, its pre-eminence has helped Airbnb gain momentum and achieve breakthroughs.

Airbnb's strategy is relatively simple. It allows landlords to cross-post their listings on the Airbnb website and Craigslist. This measure greatly expands the scope of publicity for the listings.

No.37

Firebox: “Expanding Franchise”

Firebox was founded in 2000. The gifts and gadgets e-commerce site has seen significant growth in its first decade of trading. The company's revenues in 2003 were £3,700, rising to £1.7 million in 2009. During this period, Firebox used social media to build relationships with franchisees, who generated more than £7 million in revenue.

Franchising is great for companies in growth mode because growth is self-sustaining, with or without advertising spend. To grow, you don’t need to reach out to new companies, you just need to reach out to new franchisees.

In order to expand the strategy, the company does not work with a single franchisee, but works with 3 franchisees at the same time to build a database of potential partners. Today, Firebox is still inviting website owners to sign up, promising an 8% commission on sales.

No.38

Tastecard: Email Marketing

Taspercard was launched in 2010 and offers half-price discounts or buy-one-get-one-free deals at restaurants across the UK. When Taspercard was launched, cash discount vouchers were very popular. Taspercard offers a discount to members by charging a monthly membership fee of £7.99.

Tastecard has an agreement with the bank, which is crucial to Tastecard's growth. Banks want their users to use credit cards more often, so they provide corresponding subsidies. Taspercard has almost no cost to provide services to users, so they can actively launch discounts or even free events to expand their user base. As the number of users grows, more and more restaurants join in; in turn, more and more restaurants attract more users by offering discounts.

No.39

eBay: “Building Trust”

eBay has encouraged thousands of small companies to set up accounts and conduct business online.

That's just one of the drivers of eBay's rapid growth. Both stores and individuals can sell things on the platform, and eBay has created a large-scale trading platform and attracted users. In short, whatever you want, you can find it on eBay.

The key is to gain the trust of users. To this end, eBay provides assurance through its buyer rating system and escrow protection. Easy payment via Paypal is also one of the key factors that attract users.

No.40

Urbanspoon: “Leveraging technology”

Urbanspoon's app provides thousands of restaurant reviews. One important growth method is to use the iPhone's accelerometer to use the app. To view random comments, users simply rotate the phone to trigger the accelerometer and the comments will automatically appear. This is a simple marketing trick to encourage users to "play" with the app. This “playful” approach also creates curiosity in viewers and can help attract new users.

No.41

Kickstarter: “Leveraging the Creative Community”

Although Kickstarter started a year later than Indigogo, it has become the world's number one crowdfunding platform.

Kickstarter is headquartered in Brooklyn and has deep roots in New York's creative community. Kickstarter is dedicated to supporting and encouraging innovative, creative and innovative activities. By raising small amounts of funds from the public through online platforms, creative people can get the funds they need to make their dreams come true.

Their early breakthrough was to engage closely with the people who were using the platform to raise funds. On one side, the users of the platform are people who have creative ideas and need funding for their creations, and on the other side, are people who are willing to fund them and then witness the emergence of new inventions, new creations, and new products.

Obviously, once Kickstarter can be used to successfully raise funds, usage of the platform will snowball.

No.42

Ministry of Supply: “Using crowdfunding to test the market”

Kickstarter and other platforms not only provide a means to raise funds, but also give startups the opportunity to test the market and acquire users.

Ministry of Supply is a business apparel website. The company launched a Kickstarter campaign and raised its $30,000 goal in five days. By the end of the crowdfunding campaign, the funds raised exceeded the goal of $400,000. This achieves the goal of verifying the effectiveness of the crowdfunding platform.

Crowdfunding platforms are a great place to sell products and build a market. If successful, this is a growth hack that can even be used to attract angel investment.

No.43

Oatmeal: “Harnessing the power of fans”

The Oatmeal website is the brainchild of cartoonist and author Matthew Inman. To mark the launch of his new book, Inman tapped into his existing readership to help promote the title.

Inman's approach was to ask fans of the site to provide feedback in sales displays at Barnes and Noble bookstores. Some sections were labeled “Noteworthy New Books,” while others featured Inman’s comics.

Inman asked fans to say which approach was more effective, the tag or the comic, and then to stand next to the display for photos.

As a result, two photos were submitted every minute of the day - making it a timely, accessible and free publicity.

No.44

Booking.com: "Do a good keyword search "

Speaking of high-income growth companies, Booking.com can be said to be a good research case, although the key to its success is not very innovative. They spent a lot of money on Google AdWords, and in 2013 Booking's boss Priceline spent $1.8 billion on digital advertising , the largest part of which was probably spent on Google AdWords.

In fact, doing a good job of keyword search is to gain users. There is no doubt that you should focus on the most profitable keywords.

Brand loyalty is very important in travel because the price homogeneity of hotel booking websites is becoming more and more serious, so it doesn’t matter how high a new customer quotes such as “Hotels in New York” are, because it can gain a new user in this way. The next time a user bookes a hotel, Booking.com can contact the user through cheaper and more direct channels.

No.45

Moz: "Get users with high-quality content"

Moz is an example of using content and community to drive growth. Originally a SEO blog and consulting company, Moz has grown into a 200-person software company with annual revenue of over $38 million.

What is even more impressive is that the company has little "paid marketing" or advertising investment. The company simply continues to publish valuable content on a large scale, bringing free traffic to their websites, and then converting that traffic into customers.

According to Moz, 150 users will have free trials every weekday, and 52% of them will be converted to members. 40% of people unsubscribe, but the rest tend to continue to subscribe for more than a year.

No.46

GoPro: "Let users spread"

GoPro has launched an affordable wearable camera that is perfect for shooting extreme sports. GoPro does not highlight technology in marketing, but emphasizes changing users' lifestyles. A key strategy for the company is to display videos from users on its website. This stimulates the interest and needs of users.

No.47

Twitter: "Identity Authentication"

Of all the growth strategies Twitter has used, an important part is authenticating your account. By verifying accounts, Twitter mines out its biggest supporters, namely celebrities and the media.

Their use has made Twitter continue to succeed: Verifying an account is a small matter, but its effect is to aggregate the community around highly-known users. Twitter cultivates these influential users and maintains a good reputation - these users will actively maintain close ties with Twitter when facing increasingly fierce competition from other social networks and messaging services, which is a significant competitive advantage.

In the past few years, the demographic dividend and traffic dividend have been retreating, and users’ choices have become more diverse.

For entrepreneurs, this means it is more difficult to acquire customers and the cost becomes higher.

In today's competitive environment, users and products are at the heart of everything. The value of a company often depends on two factors: how many people use the company's products (traffic and number of users) and how many people love the company's products ( retaining and active users).

Keep an open mind and keep trying, and hope you find the best way to grow.

Author: JOHN MCELBOROUGH, authorized by Qinggua Media to publish.

Source: JOHN MCELBOROUG