Top growth hacking tricks by Nate Barnwell: Growth hacking is an interesting trend that gives us glimpses into the future of internet based companies. There has often been a barrier between the product team, and those responsible for acquiring users for the product. The coders build. The marketers push. It seemed to work for a while that way. Now, those in charge of growth are having to learn what an API is, and those in charge of programming are having to think about the customer experience within the product. Worlds are colliding.

When Tinder, a sort of dating game, first launched, the first problem it faced was the lack of people playing the game. For this purpose, Tinder has started a campaign in the dormitories in universities and getting one-on-one member registration. This way, the number of members increased from 5,000 to 10,000. These new members also started to make their friends members. Those who saw that their close friends are members of the app could overcome their concerns about being included in the system more easily. As the number of female members increased, more men began to use the application. Today, Tinder has become a worldwide dating app with millions of users.

Nate Barnwell growth hacking strategies: Sometimes the best growth strategy a company can employ is standing out — offering a unique experience that sets it apart from other businesses in its space. When monotony defines an industry, the company that breaks it often finds an edge. Say your company developed an app for transitioning playlists between music streaming apps. Assume you have a few competitors who all generate revenue through ads and paid subscriptions — both of which frustrate users. In that case, you might be best off trying to shed some of the baggage that customers run into trouble with when using your competitors’ programs. If your service is paid, you could consider offering a free trial of an ad-free experience — right off the bat. The point here is that there’s often a lot of value and opportunity in differentiating yourself. If you can “zig when they zag”, you can capture consumers’ attention and capitalize on their shifting interests.

The term “growth marketing” has marketers rolling their eyes — and hiring managers hungry for their next great growth hire. Here is what it means, why it matters, and why you might need a growth marketer (or be one!). Imagine you had a marketer on your team who could look at every element of your strategy — from media buying to creative execution — and implement quick, data-driven tweaks, like reducing ad frequency and increasing creative variation, to win you new customers and maintain those you already have. That’s what growth marketers can do — and if it sounds good to you, you’re not alone. Interest in growth marketers has been growing since 2011, according to Google Trends.

It is important to instrument for growth so that you can truly understand what is happening. Another important part of instrumenting for growth is testing tools such as Google Optimize, that allow you to implement a/b tests across your website and product. Finally, you’ll need a system to bring all of this information together so that your team can learn how to improve growth. Now you’re finally ready to start accelerating growth, which is level three of the pyramid. In this stage you should focus on building a growth team that can effectively execute a growth process. The purpose of this growth process is to uncover better ways to accelerate growth in the business. Your goal here is just to build a rhythm and habit of testing. Every test you run will lead to additional learning — even if it doesn’t directly drive immediate improvement in growth. It’s important during this stage to catalogue this learning so that the team keeps getting smarter about how to accelerate growth. See more info on Nathan Barnwell.

It’s possible that your growth plan will encompass more than one of the initiatives outlined above, which makes sense — the best growth doesn’t happen in a vacuum. For example, growing your unit sales will result in growth in revenue — and possibly additional locations and headcount to support the increased sales. After you’ve chosen what you want to grow, you’ll need to justify why you want to grow in this area (and if growth is even possible). Conducting research on the state of your industry is the best way to determine if your desired growth is both necessary and feasible. Examples could include running surveys and focus groups with existing and potential customers or digging into existing industry research. The knowledge and facts you uncover in this step will shape the expectations and growth goals for this project to better determine a timeline, budget, and ultimate goal.