A New Kind of Growth
The point of Growth Marketing is not just to gather as many customers as possible — it’s to engage customers who don’t just show up once but actually stick around and continue to support the company. It’s a combination of customer growth and customer retention. But to retain customers, you have to know how to reach them. Many companies today use data and other customer insights in order to make decisions that inform their marketing and their products to keep as many of their customers as possible.
How Is Growth Marketing Used? Retaining Old Customers and Gaining New Audiences
Growth Marketing can be used in a number of ways, whether to reward old customers for their loyalty and incentivize them to stay or to engage long-lasting new customers to join you. If you’ve ever received an email offering you a free coffee as a special for your birthday or you’ve ever been given a punch card, you’ve been on the receiving end of Growth Marketing strategies (we’ll get into the different kinds of strategies shortly.)
Growth Marketing was first popularized to help small, new businesses get a head start off the ground so that they could have the momentum to stay afloat. It’s also used by older businesses that may have recently been presented with new competition or may be going out of style. Coffee shops often use Growth Marketing because there are so many coffee shops to choose from. Brick and mortar bookstores may use Growth Marketing to stave off extinction due to the rise of the e-book.
Tech companies and software developers also use Growth Marketing, especially given how fleeting the attention from digital customers can be. It’s crucial to find a way to engage with your customers through Growth Marketing, and the best way to engage with them is to understand and anticipate their needs.
Types of Growth Marketing Strategies to Use in Business
Customers are varied, so Growth Marketing strategies themselves have to be varied in order to reach the right customers. You can find the right Growth Marketing strategy for your business by using customer insights from data to get a sense of what most interests your customers. That said, here are the standard methods:
- Loyalty: Loyalty is a way to hold on to your current customers by rewarding them for sticking with you and incentivizing them to continue to do so. At a restaurant or a coffee shop, a punch card is a popular method of loyalty marketing. A customer gets a certain amount of punches on their punch card every time they shop. When the final punch is complete, they get something for free or at a discounted rate. In the digital world, this might be a membership program or a premium plan that offers certain benefits for continued patronage. In some ways, loyalty marketing is exemplified in the recent website Patreon, in which creators offer monthly rewards to their supporters in exchange for a subscription fee that the user chooses. Different tiers of subscriptions offer different benefits.
- Referral: You’ve probably had multiple experiences of downloading an app and receiving an email offering you a certain amount of in-app credit if you refer your friends and family to the app. There’s a reason for that. In the 2015 Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising Report, it was found that 83% of consumers still trust recommendations from friends and family over that of advertisements. And it makes sense. Your friends and family know you and care about you. They’re not likely to recommend a terrible service to you. On top of that, people love to recommend services that they enjoy. Referral marketing rewards users for that by offering them credit in exchange for referrals — which will likely make their referral an even more ringing endorsement.
- Onboarding: No matter how appealing your web application might be, if the process to register is a pain or the app is difficult to navigate, you’ll likely lose those new customers as soon as you gain them. A better way to get customers and retain them is to make the onboarding process as user friendly as possible. An easy setup and a friendly tutorial to give users a sense of how to use the app will help to keep those customers and maybe even bring in new customers through recommendations.
- Content Marketing: Another method of Growth Marketing is to focus on creating engaging, quality content rather than pushing aggressively for a sale. A focus on the quality of your content ensures that your customers will find something useful and might keep coming back for more, rather than simply being pressured into a sale.
- Initial Discounts: You might be able to bring customers in by offering an initial discount. This could mean that the first week or month of a product or service is free. Contractors often offer free estimates. Subscription plans offer free trials which roll over into paid services unless cancelled. Sometimes consumers will be so impressed with the content that they continue to subscribe even after the free trial has ended.
Growth Marketing vs. Growth Hacking
Both Growth Marketing and Growth Hacking have a goal of rapid growth. However, Growth Hacking is not entirely a marketing strategy but rather one that includes marketing in addition to other technical skills. Some of the main differences between Growth Hacking and Growth Marketing include:
Growth Hacking
- Combines marketing with technical product skills
- Uses data to gain insights into the customer
- Performs rigorous testing of the product to ensure that its the best
- Has little to do with branding
- Experiments with new methods and testing the success rapidly
Growth Marketing
- Prioritizes growing an audience over making a sale
- Looks for sustainable audiences that will then refer their friends and family
- Is very brand focused
- Focuses on growing customer base and holding on to old customers
- Rewards long time customers for loyalty
Jobs in Growth Marketing — Inbound Sales, Facing Customers and More
Marketing is always an in-demand niche, and Growth Marketing is booming lately. Because of this, it’s not hard to find jobs within the industry — and jobs with secure pay at that. There are Growth Marketing strategists and sales representatives to take part in campaigns, sometimes through inbound phone call interactions with the customers.
Growth Marketing managers plan the strategies for Growth Marketing and see those strategies enacted, changing them based on the customer response. This position can reach into the six figures with the right experience and qualifications.
Growth Hackers themselves are part of a greater plan to use Growth Marketing and can count as a job within Growth Marketing. Data Product Owners and Software Product Owners each collaborate with marketing to an extent.
Besides these positions, there are entry level positions within Growth Marketing where you can get your start and grow throughout your career as you advance to higher paying positions.
Industries That Use Growth Marketing
Just about any industry can utilize Growth Marketing. As exemplified above, restaurants and bookstores often have loyalty rewards programs to keep their customers coming back. Tech startups have also popularized Growth Marketing. Software and web applications have to compete against countless swaths of applications launching each day, so Growth Marketing is a great way to help them stand out from the pack. Web applications of all kinds have been promoted with Growth Marketing, and even some clothes stores utilize Growth Marketing.
The truth is there’s no real industry barrier. If your product or service can be marketed, it can likely be marketed through Growth Marketing.
Education Required for Growth Marketing
There are multiple educational approaches you can take to become a Growth Marketer. The education you need to pursue a career in Growth Marketing will actually depend on the job you take. Some might not require more than a high school diploma while others will require a bachelor’s of science or even a master’s degree (in Business, Digital Marketing, Marketing Research…).
An intensive bootcamp in Web Development is also a great way to learn all the required skills to make you competitive in the job market. It will equip you with the tools you need and help you develop your network in a short period of time.
Skills Needed to Execute Your Marketing Strategy
Marketing is of course a must when it comes to Growth Marketing, but it is not the only skill. Here are some of the skills needed for a great Growth Marketing plan:
- Quantitative Modeling, based on past data
- Careful experimental processes, but not shying away from risk
- Web Development skills
- Familiarity with engineering
- UI/UX best practices
- Strong communications skills
- Critical thinking
- Time management and prioritization skills
- Acquisition, monetization, and product skills
- Creative thinking
How To Find a Career in Marketing
Passionate about Growth Marketing and hoping to find your dream job in your chosen field? In a society in which coding is so intrinsically linked to a company’s growth, you may want to hone your web development skills and add something to your resume that will really make you stand out. Luckily, that’s what Le Wagon’s Web Development bootcamp is made for!
During our 9-week full-time course (or 24-week part time course), Le Wagon will help equip you with the skills you need to thrive in your Growth Marketer career. You’ll also have the opportunity to work on projects and prove your skills as well as give yourself the satisfaction of completing them. You can learn from experts in the field who teach classes or give panels, and you may even be able to discuss industry related topics or ask the questions you’ve always wanted to ask. Best of all, you can network with your peers (other emerging web development professionals) and work together on projects, or simply discuss your career plans with them and keep in touch.
When you go into the job market, you may find that having a community is just as important as having all the skills. At Le Wagon, you can find both and get the boost you need to get into Growth Marketing through our Web Development course.
Ready to Get Started?
Download our syllabus below to discover our Web Development coding bootcamp and learn more about our alumni and community! And for answers to frequently asked questions, head here.
