Link: https://github.

com/squareboat/growth-hacking-guide#growth-hacking-guide-for-
startups

# Growth Hacking Guide for Startups

**This is a community driven document. If you have a great tip on growth hacking,
send a pull request.**

Are you surprised that your "killer" product did not get any users besides your
friends and family? Then this guide is for you. Read on.

## Preface

Many talented founders get demoralized too soon when they don’t see enough interest
in their product a few weeks after they announce it. The good old myth that "if you
build it, they will come" still exists.

It's surprising how people are still surprised that their "killer" product did not
get any traffic besides their friends and family. Well, one thing I always tell
them is "Don't be. It’s OK and completely normal. That’s how it is supposed to be."

Many successful companies you see today became “overnight successes” after years of
work in building and tuning their product to what you see and use today.

After recovering from the above, most founders then make the next fundamental
mistake: They either decide to shut down or “add more features”. Their belief is
that if they keep adding more and more features, one of it will suddenly work and
magic will happen. Again, it never works.

Growth is a feature. Startups and founders have to work towards it. My advice is to
spend 80% time in optimizing existing features and only 20% time on building new
ones, once the MVP is built.

Fortunately, with so many startups coming in everyday, this has become more science
than art and many off-the-shelf techniques and strategies are now well written
about and well documented.

The trick is to pick a high level growth rate and try to achieve it. Growth needs
to be treated like development. If you are working in a team, delegate one metric
for everyone to watch and own.

## Introduction to Growth Hacking

Your users go through a virtual funnel which can be summarized in a simple acronym:
AARRR (Acquisition > Activation > Retention > Referral > Revenue)

The entire "game" of growth hacking is about careful measurement and funnel
optimization as your users progress in their journey.

### But before we begin:

The secret mantra of any successful Internet business is to keep your customer
acquisition cost (CAC) lower than the lifetime value (LTV) of the customer. If you
are able to measure and successfully maintain this, you literally have a money
generating machine on your fingertips.

Focus on both areas: Lowering your CAC and increasing your LTV by thinking of
strategies on both sides. The wider the gap, the better off you are.
Use tools to be able to visualize funnels and identify bottlenecks.

## Stage 1: User Acquisition

This section is about the users at the top of the conversion funnel - Those who
have just discovered you for the first time.

What can you do to widen your reach? How can you spread the word about your brand
or product as wide as possible?

Understanding where your users are looking when they and ensuring that you get
found during their research is a key strategy which can be implemented using a
variety of techniques.

### Contact bloggers for coverage

* This sounds like a one-sided ask but it's a win-win for both. Bloggers are also
looking for interesting "new" things to write about
* Could be "popular" blogs like Techcrunch and Yourstory or personal blogs
* Gets visibility amongst people
* Gets you backlinks (great for SEO) and credibility
* Gets you VC attention
* Pay blogs and companies with good domain authority to write a post for you and
get a backlink to your website or landing page.

### Hire a PR company

PR companies will keep your brand presence alive and get you into some channels
which are otherwise difficult to crack on a regular basis (ex. Newspapers)

### Target early adopters

* Early adopters usually lurk around on Reddit, Hacker News, Product Hunt etc.
looking for interesting new ideas and startups to try
* Early adopters are important for initial feedback but they are not your
customers. Never take them too seriously. Most of them will ditch your product
after a few days of use.

### Social media

* Twitter - Search and favorite people who are talking about stuff relevant to you
* Facebook - Use the power of Graph search
* Facebook allows you to run ad campaigns targetted exclusively to people who
"like" your competitors page
* Answer people on Quora, Stackoverflow etc. Flirt with the thin line between being
spammy and useful.
* Blogs - Find blogposts on the entire web and comment on them (Avoid posting a
hyperlink back to your product/service because of spam filters)
* Find relevant subreddits and post your own links
* Join groups on social media (Facebook, LinkedIn etc.) which contain people
relevant to your business and talk about your brand. Do not start posting links
from Day 1. Engage a little and subtly post a link after a few days.

### Be present on multiple channels

* App review sites - Can get you some traffic and a backlink.
* Publish an app on the Chrome web store
* Write an app for a bigger platform (like Wordpress, Shopify, Twilio etc.) and get
listed on their app directory.
* Mobile app stores (iOS, Android etc.). Mobile is more relevant to you than you
think.
* Get a mobile app, if you already don't have one.
* Publish to both iOS and Android.
### SEO
* Get your on-page techniques right: Page titles, page speed, SSL, meta
descriptions, H1's, Breadcrumbs, fat footers, microdata, sitemap, rich snippets
etc.
* Make plenty of landing pages targetted to specific keywords which your users.
It's not uncommon to have millions of landing pages focussed towards all kinds of
queries your users may be searching for.
* Send paid ad clicks to landing pages, not to the homepage
* Write blog with relevant content and links to primary product
* Get links from sites with high domain authority
* Encourage people to write about you and pay them for it, directly or indirectly.
Example: You can pay in cash or invite them to your "feature launch" and pay for
their venue and lunch. Most of them will blog/tweet about it.

### Paid marketing

* Google is most effective because the need is explicit- You will be better off
hiring a professional ad manager rather than trying to manage the campaign
yourself.
* Facebook ads are sometimes known for spam and mass-likes without any long term
engagement from those users.
* LinkedIn ads are expensive and not very well understood
* A/B test your ad text, images and positioning to get highest CTR and lowest CPC.
A higher CTC leads to a lower CPC.
* Running an ad on a focussed platform (example: on a subreddit relevant to your
product) gives higher ROI and higher CTR's

### Offline marketing / Direct sales

* Print ads (newspapers for example) are expensive but get you massive reach. It's
great for brand awareness (both users and investors) but not as much for getting
real leads
* A TV slot at primetime still generates unimaginable traffic. Prepare your
technology backend to handle the avalanche in advance.
* Cold call potential customers
* Going to networking conferences is sometime effective but ROI is quite low. Wear
and distribute branded t-shirt, business cards, Pamphlets and handouts and follow
up with everyone you meet
* Put up a stall/standie at key locations in the venue.

### Video marketing

* Most people do not understand or underestimate the potential of this channel
* Post videos about relevant topics posted to YouTube, Slideshare etc. Set all the
right keywords, tags and descriptions. Make sure you link back to your website or
landing page from this channel.
* YouTube and Slideshare rank better on Google compared to your site
* Create a viral video or get a plug inside an existing viral video

### Content Marketing

* Don't write about your product/service directly. Project yourself as a thought
leader in your space and subtly include your brand's message
* Whitepapers, PDF guides etc. are good sources of generating leads
* Write high quality blog posts which are relevant to what people are searching on
Google (Use Google Trends, Ad planner etc. to find high quality keywords)
When you write a blog post, include quotes by people with lots of followers and
then let them know that you quoted them.
* Write guest posts on other blogs. Write first and then offer to post that on
someone's blog. Got too many rejections? Put it on your own blog. Write regularly.
* Headlines like "7 way to do something" work better than lengthy unstructured
articles.
* Clear CTA or related articles at the end of the article. There should never be
any “dead ends” on your website.

### E-Mail marketing

* Don't spam. Never "buy" mailing lists
* Track your open rates
* Do A/B testing on subject lines
* Play smartly with the "email preview" which is shown besides the subject line on
GMail etc.
* Pay for a service like SES, Sendgrid etc. to get high deliverability instead of
setting up your own emailing server.
* Use Google Email Tracking
(https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/v1/email)
* Measure CTR's
* A/B test a catchy female sender name vs using a male name

### Using the student community effectively

* Students are willing to try anything for the smalles of incentives - Like a
prepaid mobile recharge or a free meal coupon
* Goto schools and colleges and create student ambassadors for your brand

### Virality built inside the product

Term: Coefficient of virality

* Structure your product so that it becomes more useful when used with other people
* Allow users to invite friends using contacts list on some social network
website / import phone contacts
* Allow users to "remind" their friends that they have invited them
* Allow easy sharing on FB, Twitter etc.
* Limit the number of invites per user to create an "exclusive" feel around it.
* Each user should bring in more users without going out of their way - The act of
inviting other people should be naturally directed towards making the experience
more relevant for you (ex. Facebook) or incentivize you in a certain way (Ex.
Amazon's referral program)
** There will be churn. Old users will stop using your product/service everyday.
Your growth should comfortably exceed your churn.
* A VIP area of your service only available to exclusive users who either pay the
most or get the most referrals.

### Referral system

Concept: One person brings another and gets credited with some points.

* Make it easy for people to share your URL on Whatsapp, Facebook etc., especially
on mobile phones where opening the URL and posting a link is not as convenient as
on laptops.
* Only ask them to refer after they have a happy user experience of their own.

### Localization and Internationalization

* This is a largely ignored tactic - Most people underestimate the number of non
english speaking people who could be potential visitors or customers of our
product/service. Internationalize as much as possible.

### Misc.
* Find a list of dead competitor products and then find links to blogs and websites
which are linking back to that dead competitor. Offer a relevant link (i.e. yours)
to replace that link.
* Become known as an "alternative to" your closest competitor. People are usually
Googling for "alternatives to <Brand X>"
* Send your branded freebies (t-shirts, mugs, hand written notes etc.) to
influential people. They would usually post about the gesture on Facebook etc. *
You can even discretely pay some influencers to let them post or tweet about your
product.
* See an image going viral on the web? Add your brand's logo to it and share it
with your friends. Ride someone else's horse.

## Stage 2: Activation

Users in the middle of the funnel: Need nurturing because they are still not sure
about their choice.

Secret mantra: Increase Desire, reduce friction. When activation happens right, the
thin boundary between trying a product and using it blurs out.

### Show value clearly

* Simple clear value proposition right in the face converts well.
* If it's free, say it's free.
* Do not confuse the user with too many options. If you really need to place a link
on the website, place it in the footer.

### A/B test

* A/B test multiple home page layouts, messages and designs. A/B test multiple
landing pages using tools like VWO etc.
* Results are not permanent. Be ready to A/B test again after a few months.

### Social proof

* Show how many FB likes and Twitter followers you have

* "As seen on" popular blogs and newspapers makes users believe that the brand is
credible
* Testimonials from people reinforce my trust that the service is reliable and
other people are using it
* Case studies perform even better than testimonials (Real example of a real user
solving a real problem)
* Show how many users signed up for your service last week or in total
* Show your current reach - How many users yu have, how many products are on sale,
how many countries you have presence in etc.
* Use services like HARO to find reporters looking for credible people to quote in
their articles. It's a win-win for both.

### Direct the user's path instead of leaving it to him to "figure it out"
* Clear signup CTA
* Have arrows pointing to the CTA to make it even clearer
* If there are multiple steps you would like the user to do, keep the CTA at the
same place.
* Never use "Submit" as your CTA because that keeps the user guessing on what will
happen next.

### Offer a free trial without credit card

* Alleviates concerns about being charged even if you weren’t really sure about the
service (Some users may not have a credit card in the first place!)

### Live chat

* Offer reassurance that the company cares enough about you to invest in humans to
answer your queries.
### Explain how product solves the user's problem. Don't explain "features"
* 90 second explainer video
* Product tour with features and screenshots
* Show them a "fully loaded" app page without making them signup or login

### Onboarding
* Step by step hand-holding during signup
* Auto follow influential people to avoid cold-start problem
* Gamify the onboarding process (Your profile is 51% complete etc.)
* Useronboard.com shows great examples on how other sites do this.

### Use remarketing effectively

* Advertise to users who have already visited your website.

### Split the ask

* Nobody will "signup" on the first instance they see your website. Encourage a
less demanding form of relationship first (ex. download a whitepaper) and then
slowly convert those users to signups.

### Social sign-in

* Reduces friction of filling up lengthy signup forms. However, keep the social
permissions to a bare minimum.
* On mobile devices some companies have removed passwords entirely and moved to OTP
approach over SMS.

### Progress indicators

* When a user is going through a series of steps for you (signup onboarding,
checkout flow etc.), keep him informed about his "position" in the flow. This
lowers the dropout rate.

### Free freebies

* "Free 1 TB of cloud storage" sounds like an attractive offer but in reality most
users will not end up using that much storage space, so your average cost per user
comes down significantly.

### Misc.
* If possible, allow users to start using the product first and then signup to
"save" their work. E-commerce websites are a great example for this.
* If you are offering a monthly subscription, always allow users to "freeze" the
subscription if they don't need your stuff for sometime.
* Price intelligently: One packet - $5. Ten packets - $15. By inflating the price
of the cheaper item, you made more users buy the expensive option.
* If you are a UGC or marketplace site, seed enough content to become relevant to
new users.
* Exit intent popups are somewhat irritating but sometimes work.

## Stage 3: User Retention

Users will slip away if they don't use your product constantly. By staying useful
and relevant to them and/or staying engaged with them, you can reduce your churn
and effectively reduce your average CAC.

### Allow users to leave feedback

* Collect feedback from users and act on it. Once you act, inform the user that we
listened to you and made a change.
* Incentivize feedback if needed (Amazon $10 codes etc.)

### Help and FAQ

* E-mail support which is replied to by a human being (not a canned response) in a
timely manner.
* Help pages with FAQ's
* Contact us form

### Drip email campaign

* Immediate - Mail from the founder with an option to "reply" back to him, not a
noreply address. This can be a truly "personal" as well, atleast to first 1000
users.
* One day later - Tell them the benefits of the product
* Five days later - Remind them of a feature they might not have used (In ideal
scenario, the system should check and personalize this)
Trigger emails when they are likely to read it (Say, on a weekday at 10am when
their other emails would have been read by then). Send emails as per the user's
timezone.
* Later - Top posts digest, A year in review etc., Newsletter with product updates
etc.
* Use tools like Intercom to poke users for abandoned carts
* Reactivate dormant users by sending them an exclusive deal/promo code only for
their account.

### Notifications
* Keep prompting users with email/sms updates and notifications for anything that's
relevant to them. Example: New comment, new friend request etc.
* Mobile apps notifications are best for this purpose

### Create Survey's

* Create survey’s and share links with users

### Create a contest

* Announce a prize slightly higher than the work they need to do to make the effort
worthwhile.
* Announce the winner on your blog and allow the winner to share the post on his
FB, Twitter etc.

### Loyalty system

* Buy again and get points

### Conduct free webinars

* Spread relevant information - It's a great way to keep in touch with users and
even users who do not attend the webinar will start associating your brand with
thought leadership in that domain.

## Stage 4: Revenue

### Make sure it works

* The worst thing to do is to have a user willing to pay for your product but
unable to. Make it easy to pay via credit card, debit card, wallets etc.
Because real money is involved, real payment gateways are often ignored for regular
testing.
* If a payment gateway fails, allow user to try another payment gateway
* If everything fails, present the option to pay via a bank transfer

### Trial periods

* A longer trial period boosts confidence and allows me to actually use the product
without the fear of getting blocked out too soon.
* Makes your product a "habit"
* Example: Dashlane gives their users a one year free trial
### Offer an affiliate program
* Incentivize people to bring other users on your platform.

### Add live chat

* Live chat support during checkout flow could make the difference between a sale
and an abandoned cart.

### Cross-selling
* People who have successfully purchased service X can be sold service Y with a
lower resistance barrier and possibly at a discount. They already trust your brand
and you already have their contact information and usage stats.

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#### SquareBoat builds awesome mobile and web applications for startups. We are
based out of Gurgaon, India.
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