You\u2019ve probably heard that many businesses are shifting their marketing focus due to the pandemic. Instead of pushing sales, they\u2019re leveraging the power of inbound marketing to build a resilient community around their brand. If you\u2019re a startup or new business, you might be wondering how you can grow your community quickly, especially when people are cooped up inside. One key technique to do this is growth hacking. Let\u2019s take a look at some different themes of these unconventional strategies and how to put them into action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Classic influencer marketing involves a tradeoff: The influencer shares your product in exchange for a post on your page. This typi- cally only works if both of you already have established communities. If you don\u2019t, it\u2019s time for a growth hack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, just a few years ago, Unsplash was a relatively unknown stock-image provider. They started asking micro-influencers to curate a collection of photos. Then, they both promote that collection. What makes this different from traditional influencer mar- keting is that it involves the influencer creating something with the service rather than just giving a shoutout. Now, Unsplash is widely regarded as a premium provider of free stock images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ahrefs is a well-known SEO tool. While you\u2019d think that they used their own strategies for their success, they actually used a growth hack to splash onto the market. They debuted a custom coffee cup design at the Brighton SEO Conference that parodied a Nutri- tion Facts panel with a list of SEO facts e.g \u201ckeyword difficulty\u201d and \u201creturn rate.\u201d A link to their website appeared at the bottom. This clever approach garnered them name recognition among the coffee-chugging conference attendees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Similarly, HubSpot released a free tool to check your website\u2019s SEO tool, then ensured that people could easily share the tool to their social networks. This helped HubSpot gain valuable exposure in established circles \u2014 without spending a dime on advertising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FOMO, or the fear of missing out, is well known among marketers for its ability to get people overly excited about a brand. People not only like to feel \u201cin the know,\u201d but they also like to feel like they\u2019re influencing others. That\u2019s why referral techniques work so way. Think about Gmail, which used to be invite-only. Google was able to quickly grow Gmail because it made having a Gmail account an exclusive club. Dropbox used a similar technique by rewarding users with more storage if they were able to get friends to sign up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Similarly, the microinvesting app Stash grew its following with referral links that invested $5 for both the friend and the referrer. This technique worked better than traditional referrals, in which only the referrer gains the benefits, and Stash is now a robust financial platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Phrases such as \u201cThank you for your order\u201d and \u201cWe appreciate your business\u201d are so overused that people simply don\u2019t read them when they appear on websites and emails. To grow your startup quickly, inject a little personality into your copy. For example, you can take inspiration from CD Baby, which allows independent music artists to distribute their work. Their copy is famously quirky, such as \u201cOur packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.\u201d CD Baby is now the largest indie music distributor in the work. Another startup, Mint Mobile, offered mo- bile plans and phones at a steep discount. Using a whimsical fox-based brand and conversational, witty copy. For example, their FAQ section is titled, \u201cYou\u2019re adorable when you\u2019re confused.\u201d Mint Mobile caught the attention of famously quirky actor Ryan Reynolds, who bought an ownership stake in the company. That\u2019s the power of whimsical words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We mentioned Mint Mobile above. Its unique selling proposition was that they would \u201cfix everything wrong with mobile.\u201d Similarly, the Dollar Shave Club aimed to fix everything wrong with razors. In their provocative ads, they take a brash approach to reaching their customers. It comes off as though they\u2019re chiding the people spending $20 on a name-brand razor, but it works because those customers don\u2019t want <\/em>to be doing that. This tactic allowed Dollar Shave Club to splash onto the market as one of the more popular subscription services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Need inspiration? Here\u2019s how some major companies got started with growth hacking:<\/p>\n\n\n\n AirBnB <\/strong>allowed people renting out rooms to cross-post the listing to Craigslist with one click. They essentially approximated the Craigslist platform for their own purposes. Very clever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Groupon <\/strong>takes referral marketing to the extreme by offering deals only if enough people register for the coupon. If you can\u2019t get enough friends to buy in, you lose the deal. Now that\u2019s how you put FOMO into action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shazam <\/strong>grew via word-of-mouth by encouraging people to hold up their phones to speakers. Eventually, \u201cShazamming\u201d became a thing, and Shazam became an essential app on people\u2019s phones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Uber <\/strong>offered free rides to their early adopters, which helped build a loyal customer base that would provide Uber with word-of- mouth advertising. By providing cheap, convenient rides, Uber quickly began to supplant the taxi companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re launching a new enterprise during COVID-19, you probably want to grow your following quickly and start bringing in income. Try one or more of these strategies to help you stand out from the crowd and get people excited about your brand. Growth hacking is just that: hacking. Find established spaces and promote your product or service with unconventional techniques. If done well, you might just become a superstar in your industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You\u2019ve probably heard that many businesses are shifting their marketing focus due to the pandemic. Instead of pushing sales, they\u2019re leveraging the power of inbound marketing to build a resilient community around their brand. If you\u2019re a startup or new business, you might be wondering how you can grow your community quickly, especially when people … Continue reading Growth Hack Examples to Inspire Your Next Campaign During COVID-19<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_eb_attr":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-logo-design"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=967"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":971,"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967\/revisions\/971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Growth Hacking Samples<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Wrapping Up<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n