Growth Hacker

Have you heard of the term "growth hacker"?
It might be unfamiliar to those in the advertising industry.
You might think it's just another one of those buzzwords that pops up and disappears quickly,
just another one of those countless buzzwords, right?

However, it's worth knowing that people with this new title, "growth hacker," are fundamentally changing existing marketing methods.

Growth hacker comes from the English "Growth + Hacker," literally meaning "a hacker who drives growth." While some might associate "hacker" with scary people who break security, the original meaning refers to individuals with deeper technical knowledge than the average person, primarily in computers and electrical circuits, who use that knowledge to solve technical challenges (Wikipedia). It's not used in a negative sense. (Incidentally, the term "life hack" also became popular, and it's used to mean methods for skillfully incorporating technology into daily life or work to improve quality of life). A growth hacker could be described as a "technically skilled, brand growth contractor."

This book describes those in this growth hacker role as "the new generation of marketing executives." It even states that existing marketing teams will be "eliminated." This is a very strong statement that we "existing" marketers cannot ignore. In fact, the author, Ryan Holiday (Chief Marketing Officer at American Apparel), himself states that he was shocked by the existence of growth hackers.

 

"The new role of 'growth hacker' is fused with Silicon Valley culture. Their existence signals that coding skills and technical knowledge are becoming crucial for top marketers. Growth hackers are a hybrid of marketers and engineers. They tackle the age-old question of 'how do we acquire customers for our product?' by leveraging A/B testing, landing pages, viral coefficients, email deliverability, Open Graph, and more. (...) Traditional marketing teams will be phased out. Growth hackers, replacing teams of non-technical marketers led by marketing executives, are teams of engineers led by engineers."

 

Growth hackers pay little attention to metrics like "mindshare" or "share of voice," long used in the advertising industry. Their defining characteristic is rigorously testing approaches to increase customers by repeatedly refining messages and services based on vast user data visualized through big data, relentlessly pursuing the optimal method.

Therefore, they don't approach communication with advertising as a given.

 

"When launching a product, you don't need the kind of flashy campaigns built from scratch that marketers have traditionally been expected to create."

 

Growth hackers deeply commit to the service itself, devising approaches that naturally foster its spread. Their method involves considering product development and marketing as part of the same process, allowing them to interact and influence each other.

Consider how services like Evernote, Dropbox, and Instagram gained millions of users with minimal advertising—their astonishing virality becomes clear.

"The goal of a growth hacker is to turn the product itself into a self-sustaining marketing machine that reaches millions of customers."

In other words, growth hackers are people who can break down the barriers between service design and marketing design, creating mechanisms where the "brand experience" provided by the service itself simultaneously becomes "communication (marketing)" to other customers. Their job is to maximize efficiency while devising mechanisms that naturally generate word-of-mouth and encourage users to bring in other users.

While I encourage you to read this book for specific growth hacking techniques and case studies, I believe one of its most crucial points is the assertion that "Can you become a growth hacker? It all comes down to your mindset—whether you can change your way of thinking." Being technologically challenged doesn't disqualify you from becoming a growth hacker. Fundamentally, it's crucial to abandon the mindset that separates service from promotion, or the tendency to default to "advertising first." Instead, we must return to essential thinking: What improvements are needed for the service itself to attract people? Where are the customers, and what do they want? (Of course, mastering technology is also important, so the effort to learn it is necessary.)

As marketers, this book really drives home how crucial it is for us to shift our mindset (or re-remember what we tend to forget) to start thinking from the core essence of the brand or service.

【Dentsu Inc. Modern Communication Lab】