Growth Hacking JCB-GROWTH.

3V-19
Canvas: https://canvas.hu.nl/courses/34788

Welcome page Growth hacking

Growth Hacking
Watch this short video to get a very first idea of what Growth Hacking is.

Welcome & instructions for MS-Teams and Canvas

Meet Jochem Herber, one of your lecturers in this course. Before we start, get yourself acquainted with the course
set-up and some general rules of engagement. When working with MS Teams - please do note that you should
work from your laptop or PC. The phone version does not give you the same engagement opportunities!

Track one: work for a real client

Important, students who are registered for this course will work for a real client and are expected to
spend approximately 8 hours per week on supporting the client in their Growth Hacking activities. The client holds
the right to cancel the cooperation in case of poor performance by the student, resulting in a fail for this course.
The Creative Business team will assign a client to every student, however if you have your own client (own
company, work-placement company) you can work for them as well. You need to inform us a week prior to the
start of the course by sending an e-mail to cora.vanbaardwijk@hu.nl

Note that in case a student needs to do a resit or when a student does not join the kick-off session, not client can
be allocated. This means that in those cases the student will have to bring in her/his own client.

Track two: online course

In this course, most of the traditional classes and exercises are replaced with on-line Growth Hacking videos &
assignments taught by some of the best Growth Hackers. The course is offered by EAZL . More details about how

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to get access to this course can be found in this manual. Next to the online course there will be various sessions
with your lecturer in which additional content is conveyed and your findings and progress are discussed.
Official Growth Hacker Certificate: Students are required to individually obtain the EAZL Growth Hacker
certificate. This is done by handing in all assignments in time following the online instructions via the EAZL portal.
EAZL will host, customise and issue this certificate, which is obtained when the quality of your work is sufficient.
Obtaining this certificate is a prerequisite to pass this course.

Student Questions
Due to the nature of self-paced, technical online course-ware like Growth Hacking, we can't offer students tech
support. However you will have access t the EAZL Marketing Mastermind Facebook group where you will find a
very supportive community of Growth Hackers that will be able to help you out (see link below). Next to that you
can always ask questions in your Learning team channel in MS-Teams!

Pleas see this link to the Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/eazlgrowthhacking/

If you have questions about your certificates, you can check the status on http://verify.eazl.co , you'll be able to
verify whether or not your Eazl certificate is in good standing and valid.

In case you have any other questions regarding EAZL activation codes, or practical matters. Please contact Cora
van Baardwijk.

Track three: coaching sessions and deeper dives

We will have three "deep dives" with your lecturer, these are done in learning teams and require preparation. The
first is a general introduction and client allocation, the mid-term deep dive is all about the Growth Hacking process
and in the last week we will explore the impact of your results on business models, ethics and insights. The
coaching sessions are planned in week 2 & 3 and will be conduced in learning teams.

What can I do after this course?

Students can start their career as a junior Growth Hacker and will have the basic skills needed to be successful in a
growth team or digital marketing team. Other courses you could follow in the future can be around optimizing
specific channels (Twitter, Facebook etc.).

MS-Teams
All communication will be done via MS-Teams. Please download MS-teams (more info here ) and login with your
HU-student e-mail account. Now join the CB-Growth Hackers community by using the following code: 4il251k

Resit procedure
Please find the resit procedure here and note that resit students will not be assigned to a client. Those students
will have to find a client by themselves.

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General information

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Course content, weekly schedule and literature

Course content
This course builds upon knowledge and skills gained in courses such as Marketing Principles, Consumer Behaviour,
Human-centered Design, Advanced Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Influencing the Audiences, Persuasive Content
Marketing and Fundamentals of Brand.

Since technical growth hacking techniques will be obtained via EAZL, a very high level of independence is required
from all students who follow this course. Students are expected to attain the Growth Hacking Certificate
individually, which is an entry requirement grading for the final HU-assignment. Please be aware that you are
strongly advised to hand-in your assignments for the online course with EAZL by the end of week 4 or the start of
week 5! That gives you sufficient time to work on actual tasks for your client.

To help you get started there is a weekly schedule, you are expected to stick closely to this schedule to make sure
you reach your deadlines. You are free to work ahead of schedule, but make sure you do not lag behind as that will
likely lead to a delay/missing final deadlines.

When applying growth hacking techniques for a client, students are also free to go beyond of what they learned
from the online course. For example; students can test the use-case of a Chatbot, test different landing pages, use
different tracking software or focus on growth-hack using different social media channels or content. In addition to
this, students are challenged to connect with a global target group, one that is new to the client but can potentially
become profitable.

The role of your lecturers

There will be three meetings with your lecturer and these meetings are used to convey and discuss additional
content to the online course. During these sessions you will also discuss progress and exchange findings.
Note that by participating in this course, and using the online portals you automatically become part of a larger
Growth Hacking community (via EAZL) and you will get access to a rich range of Growth Hacking resources. You will
be able to use this throughout your career.

A week prior to the start of the course, the Creative Business team (Danielle Herman) will send you your unique
activation code for the Growth Hacking course. You can register here with your HU e-mail address or your private
e-mail address.

About Growth Hacking

Following the rapid growth of companies such as Booking, Facebook, Twitter and Uber, many people wanted to
learn “how they did it”. Some of the most successful startups managed to find unique ways to grow rapidly. A
Growth-Team focusses on acquiring new customers, retaining them, engaging with customers and making
customers return repeatedly. Just try to book something on Booking and you will see notifications such as: “This
hotel was just booked by someone from country X” or “X number of people are looking at this hotel right now”.

These smart notifications are tested, optimized, tested again (etc.) by dedicated Growth teams who have the sole
purpose to push customers through the next phase of the customer journey (see Influencing the Audience).
Using the right data, a good understanding of consumer behavior, good design and the right marketing techniques,
growth teams manage to optimize and maximize revenue in every phase of the customer journey and of every
touch-point. This is the sole goal of these growth teams, however are there limits? Is it ethical to use knowledge
about how people behave against them? What are the ethical limitations of the use of specific data sets? What are
the effects on the brand strategy and is it still in line with the overall branding strategy? Do the new insights
potentially influence the company’s business model? Is the company actually equipped to grow this fast? What are
the other side effects of Growth hacking? To avoid the Facebook drama’s we all know about, today's Growth
Hackers should be able to answer these important questions. Because unethical growth could eventually lead to
disaster.

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Weekly schedule

Week / Class
Theme of the learning unit Activities and Assignments
session
EAZL course:
Do: Sections 1&2
• Let's Put You On the 🚀Rocketship! Welcome to Growth Hacking 7 -- New for
Theme: exploring Growth 2020!
1: (Class) Hacking • How to Get Insights from Google Analytics and Apply them to Marketing Funnels
Meeting with Topics: Study: Exploring Growth Hacking
lecturer via • Kick off session with DO: Write down your questions in the appropriate MS teams channel
Microsoft lecturer Prepare: Growth Hacking material for junior Growth Hackers
Teams • Get to know your client Join: Kick-off session
• Get started with EAZL DO: Make an appointment with your client
• Make an appointment with your client (possibly with student partner)
• Prepare KPI's that you would like to work on for the client
• Prepare G.R.O.W.S (this will be your beta version to get the meeting started)
EAZL course:
Do: Sections 3&4
• Accelerate Growth by Developing Personas and Focusing on Specific User
Theme: Growth Hacking Segments
and your new client • Use Data to Learn Strategies and Run Your Growth Team
Topics: DO: Client meeting
• Meet your client • Discuss your preferred KPIs and their preferred KPIs
2: Coaching
• Agree on KPIs • Agree on final KPIs
sessions with
• Agree on how you will • Make a planning
your learning
team and
work together • Draft your first personae based on existing knowledge/data and desk research
coach • Continue working on • Agree on planning with the client
your G.R.O.W.S JOIN: Coaching walk-in session
• Get started with the Prepare for your coaching session
first version of your • Your proposed KPIs, which ones will you be focussing on
personae • Your proposal for the phases Generating ideas & Rank these ideas
• General Q&A
Final assignment
• Apply learnings and keep logbook

EAZL course:
Do: Sections 5,6&7
• Find Language/Market Fit: From Copywriting to Dynamic Creative
Theme: your client
• User Experience: How to Increase Conversions by Leveraging Tech and
G.R.O.W.S
Psychology
Topics:
• The Fundamentals of Driving, Directing, and Tagging Traffic
3: Coaching • Meet your client DO: Client work
sessions with (absolute deadline)
• Follow the planning that you agreed on
your learning • Continue working on
team and your G.R.O.W.S
• Start or continue the Growth Hacking activities! Happy Growth Hacking!
JOIN: Coaching walk-in session
coach • Finalise v1 of the Prepare for your coaching session
personae
• Your proposed KPIs, which ones will you be focussing on
• Focus on G.R.O of the
G.R.O.W.S
• Your proposal for the phases Generating ideas & Rank these ideas
• General Q&A
Final assignment
• Apply learnings and keep logbook

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4: Theme: Hacking your
EAZL course:
(Class) Meeting clients' Growth
Do: Sections 8,9
with lecturer Topics:
• Strategies for Optimizing for Personas and Users that Generate the Most
via Microsoft • Team learning: reflect
Revenue
Teams on the Growth
The growth Hacking wit other • Turn Sparks into Flames: How to Use Data to Double Down on What Works
junior Growth Hackers DO: Client work
hacking
PREPARE & JOIN: CB Growth Hackers Meeting
process & • Progress meeting
Final assignment
progress • Continue your growth
meeting • Apply learnings and keep logbook
hacking activities
Finish EAZL course:
Theme: Happy Growth Do: Sections 10-end
Hacking • Growth Hacking Retention: Acquisition is Expensive. Retention is Not.
5 • Finish the EAZL course • Get Your Growth Hacker Certificate | Content Upgrade Journal
• Continue your growth DO: Client work
hacking activities Final assignment
• Apply learnings and keep logbook
EAZL course: FINISHED
Theme: Happy Growth DO: Client work work work work work
Hacking continued • Follow the planning that you agreed on
6 • Continue your growth • Continue the Growth Hacking activities! Happy Growth Hacking!
hacking activities Final assignment
Get your EAZL certificate • Apply learnings and keep logbook
and upload it on Canvas • Start writing your reflection (Use the medium article to structure your reflection)
7: (class) DO: Create innovative ideas
Meeting Theme: Side effects of
Growth Hacking
• Bring a one pager with your innovative ideas for your client based on your
Coaching
insights so far.
session & • Continue your growth READ & PREPARE: Growth Hacking Ethics, act first apologise later (?)
session about hacking activities
JOIN: Meeting about ethics and business innovation
Side effects • Side-effects of growth Final assignment
and Ethics of hacking
Growth
• Apply learnings and keep logbook
Hacking • Start writing your reflection (Use the medium article to structure your reflection)

DO: Execute growth hacks & finalise your report. Answer some key questions!
If you can answer the questions as in the theme for this week, you should be on the
8&9 Theme: Happy Growth
right track. Good luck!
Hacking almost there
Final assignment
• Finalise Reflection + Logbook (can be both in one document)
Deadline hand-in assignment Sunday 23:59 (Canvas)
9 Theme: Delivery time!
Deadline uploading certificate Sunday 23:59 (Canvas)
10 Holiday week for students Grading week lecturers

Supporting Literature
Read this blogpost: This will greatly help you structuring your work and your final reflection! You will use this for
activities in week 2-4.
USE this Growth Hacking Bible , you can take one or more Growth Hacks from here and do them for your client!

Mandatory readings: Please make sure you read all documents offered By EAZL, these are continuously updated
with new tips and tricks and you will be able to connect with a large community of Growth Hackers.

Recommended reading: Hacking Growth: How Today's Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success by
Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown. ISBN: 9780451497215
Other articles can be found on Canvas

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Learning objectives & competences
Learning objectives
Upon completion of this course students will reach the following learning goals
1. Student is able to develop a User-Centric approach to Digital Marketing (competency 7)
2. Student can apply Growth Hacking methods to attract and retain customers (competency 7)
3. Student can analyze results using digital marketing tools (competency 4)
4. Student can critically assess side effects of Growth Hacking (competency 4)

Competences
The 8 competences of the Creative Business programme are listed below.
The bold competences are addressed in this course.

Competence Brief description

1 Lifelong learning being up-to-date, innovate, learning in the field
2 Human-centered approach user-centered, empathic, understanding
3 Intercultural excellence intercultural communication, global/local markets
4 Strategic vision leadership, strategy, flexibility, connectivity, forward-thinking
being empathic, solving (wicked) problems, discovering opportunities,
5 Creative thinking
finding smart solutions
analysing, taking charge and advising in an evidence-based way, awareness
6 Critical thinking
of own assumptions / biases
international, smart planning, entrepreneur, professional and personal
7 Commercial excellence
branding, communication excellence
mixed methods, deep and big data analysis, ethics of data, combination of
8 Applied research
qualitative / quantitative skills, advise and implement results

Level
The competences are developed in three levels throughout the four years of the Creative Business program.
This course refers to level 3

Level Brief description

1 Supervised through a step-by-step process
2 Independently in a well-specified singular context
3 Independently in a complex context

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Assessment

Assessment matrix
The assessment matrix below* shows which learning goals are tested and on which level (Bloom)

Logbook +
Online course reflection
Certificate report + Level
Learning goals
(Pass/Fail) feedback (Bloom)
Individual (Grade 1-10)
Individual
Student is able to develop a User-Centric approach to Digital
x x apply
Marketing
Student can apply Growth Hacking methods to attract and retain
x
customers apply

Student can analyze results using digital marketing tools x x

analyse
Student can critically assess side effects of Growth Hacking
x evaluate

Assignments

The assessment consists of the following elements:

Individual assignment 1: The Growth Hackers Certificate
1. Deadline for sending your assignments from the online course to EAZL (as instructed via the EAZL
platform) is Friday week 5. Please keep in mind that they need sufficient time to customise your
certificate in case you round this off successfully.
2. Deadline for uploading the online certificate is: Sunday week 9 23.59h

Individual assignment 2: reflection + logbook + feedback from client

Deadline for submitting the assignment is Sunday week 9 23.59hrs.

Overview submission dates:

Block A Block B Block C Block D

Friday week 5 7 October 2022 tbd tbd
Sunday week 9 6 November 2022 tbd tbd
Resit block D: Sunday week 9
tbd
upload all assignments

Submission in Gradework
• You need to submit your work before the deadline in Gradework, via this
link: https://gradework4.xebic.com Log in with your HU e-mail and password.
• You need to be registered for the test in Osiris, in order to be able to submit your work.
• Only work that has been fully processed in the system before the deadline is accepted. Processing
can take a few minutes. So never submit your work at the very last moment, as you run the risk that
it is not processed in time.

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Assignment 1: Growth Hacking Certificate
Become a Junior Growth Hacker
Formation: Individual
Format: Professional Growth Hackers certificate
Deliver on: Sunday week 5
Hand-in here: http://hu-gradework.xebic.com (Links to an external site.)

Hand-in instructions: Please make sure to select your lecturer/assessor correctly, otherwise it won't show up at
your assessors dashboard and your work can then not be assessed.

Every student is expected to become a certified growth hacker and join EAZL’s large network of growth hackers.
Students will be certified if they successfully finish the EAZL Growth hacking course. The certificate obtained must
be uploaded to canvas and it is a mandatory requirement.

It is strongly advised to finish the online course and submit your online-assignments to EAZL by the end of week 5
or early week 6. This gives EAZL enough time to assess your work and customize the certificate and gives you all
the tools you need to continue growth-hacking for your client in the last few weeks.
Pressure is on, but we promise it will be a great experience.

Assignment
Successfully finish the EAZL course and upload your assignment.
1. Watch the instructional video's and do the corresponding assignments
2. Once you finished the last video & assignment you can request the certificate
3. Upload the certificate here

The certificate contributes to below learning goals

LO2: Student can apply Growth Hacking methods to attract and retain customers
LO3: Student can analyze results using digital marketing tools.

Deadlines:
• Friday week 5: send online assignments to EAZL (via online course). Upon succesful completion you
will receive a certificate.
• Sunday week 9 : upload the certificate in Gradework (see link at top of this page).

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Assigment 2: Individual reflection report + logbook + feedback from client
Formation: Individual report
Format: Reflection report with logbook and feedback in the appendix.
Deliver on: Sunday week 9
Hand-in here: http://hu-gradework.xebic.com (Links to an external site.)

Hand-in instructions: Please make sure to select your lecturer/assessor correctly, otherwise it won't show up at
your assessors dashboard and your work can then not be assessed.

The assignment consist of three parts, the professional reflection, the logbook and the feedback from your client.
They can all be added to the same file. It is very much appreciated if you present your reflection in a visual way
(slide deck is good), the logbook contains the key data and does not need to be visually appealing. As long as all
the data you refer to is in there.

All students are expected to keep a weekly logbook of your Growth Hacking activities. As a junior Growth Hacker
you will become part of your clients' Growth Team if there is any. Your clients are mostly startups that benefit
hugely from your activities, so take your role seriously! Note that a fail for this assignment means that you will
have to find your own client for the resit, if you do your weekly activities (about 8hrs per week) for your client and
you hand-in your report in time you should be able to pass the course.

Reflection
The reflection is a visual representation of your learnings and can be done in the form of a slide-deck, word/pdf
file or interactive-blog (guideline 1-2 pages per week incl. visuals). For the exact data you can refer to the logbook.
The reflection report must contain the following topics/learnings. It is strongly advised that you use the G.R.O.W.S
exercise that you worked on from week 2-4! This will help you to structure your work and your activities.

1. Persona; describe your/your clients initial thoughts on what the persona is and reflect on the insights you got
during the growth hacking process. (How) did the persona change? What are the learnings there? How can
the behavior of your persona be influenced, based on your findings?

2. Reflect on the KPI’s set in week 1 or early week 2. What actions did you take to reach these KPI’s? What
worked and what did not? What are the most valuable results/learnings? Given what you know now (for your
client), what would you advice your client to test in the future? What were your biggest Growth-Hacking
fails? Why? What are the learnings?

3. Briefly analyze the side effects of Growth hacking for your clients. Address (at least) the following three
elements:
o What are the important ethical considerations for your client?
o Based on the data you received, what can you say about the business model and product market fit?
Are there new products or services or even target audiences that might be relevant to your client?
o Based on this, design one Growth Hacking experiment for your client that you think they should
consider in the future. This may NOT be a content-based growth hack, you can use the growth bible
for inspiration.

Logbook
The logbook will be the Proof-of-Work of your individual reflection report. You are not expected to make this a
highly visual report, however the data on which you base your reflection report must be clearly presented and
structured per week and per applied growth hacks. Think of the following type of questions to answer, with hard
data/real results.

1. Show the KPI and the current situation. (Ex. Is the KPI to increase traffic by 150%? Then show what the
current traffic is, you need to show weekly/daily progress. You need to show the effect of your growth hacks)

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 2. Show the results of your growth hacks. (ex. Did you run a small ad-campaign to increase traffic? Did you test a
different platform to share your content? Show the results in your logbook). And continue the process until
you reach the KPI. Show the results of your growth-hacks.

3. What do you know of the persona at the start of the project? Show that with as much data as possible.
Additional insights such as a summary of what your client things the persona is, is welcomed as well.

4. After a few weeks, what do you know about the persona now, what has changed and what have you learned?
Show with data.

Feedback from client

You should ask your client to fill in the Evaluation Form and give feedback on your performance. The signed file
should be uploaded together with your reflection report and logbook.

Resit
Certificate
In case a student fails to upload the online certificate (in time) he/she will have to register for the resit so the
certificate can be uploaded at a later moment. Deadline for uploading the resit of online certificate is: Sunday
week 9, next block 23.59hrs.

Logbook and reflection

It is very important for all students to know that resit students will not be assigned to a client. In case a student
needs to do a resit she/he will have to find her/his own client to practice Growth Hacking skills. In the following
two circumstances the student will have to do a resit.
1. Insufficient score for the logbook & Reflection
2. Client ends the cooperation due to one of the following reasons:
1. Clear lack of motivation from the student.
2. Student clearly does not spend the required amount of time on the assignment.
3. Student misses client meetings
4. Student does not follow the agreements with the client
5. Unethical or unprofessional behaviour by the student (in regards with dealing with data, client contact
etc.)
3. Client can not end the agreement in case a student makes mistakes in the Growth Hacking process. Students
are allowed to fail the experiments as that is part of any learning process. The following are not reasons to
cancel the agreement.
1. Student proposes hacks that are denied
2. Hacks are unsuccessful
3. Proposed hacks are not in line with the brand strategy
4. Any other situation that is assessed by the assessor and not by the client (pass/fail on the assignment)
4. In the rare case that a client ends the cooperation due to personal reasons, that are beyond the student's
influence the Creative Business team will try to find an alternative client and/or assignment. This is only
possible in extreme cases and the exam board may be consulted.

What happens when a client ends the cooperation

The client informs the lecturer or course coordinator and the student is informed by the client or lecturer. The
student is still allowed to hand-in an assessment based on the data/information gathered to that point. The
assessor will grade that work. In case the work is assessed 'insufficient' the student will have to do a resit.
The Creative Business team will not offer a new client to resit students.

Deadline for submitting the assignment is Sunday week 9, 23.59hrs the next block.

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