Meet the Growth Hackers

In a fatigued market, disengaged users are inevitable. Overloaded with information and bombarded with marketing to “buy this, look here, subscribe and join now,” people are unsure of what they can trust on the Internet. Any sort of person-to-person exchange is gone — except for the occasional robotic chat window pop-up — and consumers are frustrated. As a result, products are having to reinvent the way they present and position themselves to sell and grow.

Allow the introduction of the growth hacker…

Coined in 2010 in Silicon Valley, growth hacking is a term that describes the operative of pushing a product out into a market through a testable methodology. It redefines the idea that “going viral” is random, and instead states that growth can be built into a product. Growth hackers, through the use of metrics and data, are positive that growth can be premeditated and controlled. With a growth strategy that allows for engaged users, products can be mass-distributed throughout a market in viral loops.

The power of pulling

Different than traditional marketing, growth hacking engages users by creating a platform from which they can operate as (what could be called) a “free-marketing” team. Growth hacking moves away from traditional marketing in that it doesn’t try to “push” information or “attract” users. Instead, it uses what is called “pull” factor, wherein users are introduced or attracted to a product on their own terms.

Trust-building is all-important

Growth hacking enhances and grows a product by using both creative and quantitative methodology. While traditional marketing exists externally to the product or brand, growth hacking is internal, or “baked in.” It is this integrated structure that makes growth hacking more than a marketing scheme – it makes it a mindset.

Science meets art

Both sides of the brain are at work in a properly executed growth hacking scheme. There is art and there is science; combining the two together results in a growth culture that is woven into your business or product. As offline marketing schemes are now inapplicable and irrelevant in our online world, engaged social users are createing a self-perpetuating marketing tool that incorporates a creative exchange of ideas simultaneous to the science of engineered distribution.

Re-engaging the user

Suddenly, users are re-engaged with products, and can take it upon themselves to grow your network. If a refer-a-friend program is part of their growth hacking strategy, they need to let their users upload their address books to avoid the copy/paste problem – or worse, the type-them-one-at-a-time conundrum. And this, my friends, is where CloudSponge fits into the growth hacking phenomenon.