What is a growth marketer? Some marketers are suspicious of the phrase “growth marketing.” What exactly does the position involve? And why become a growth marketer? We have answers and insights into why this trending job is important and why your brand may require one.
But before we discuss what it means, let’s discuss what both growth market and growth marketing mean.
What are growth markets?
Growth markets are those that rapidly expand in size as a result of a growing population or the engagement of additional customers.
As more established businesses partners with start-up companies in a new industry, products become more diverse, and marketplaces enter and reach the growth stage. Growth markets arise when the market's size continues to rise at an increasing rate. A growing market's expansion is not linked with the slow, organic growth resulting from a rise in population or existing customers. Still, it is also predominantly driven by new customer acquisition.
Mobile apps, solar power, and telehealth services are examples of markets in the growth stage. For at least the previous three years, each of these markets has seen total sales climb by at least 20% per year, and they are all experiencing the benefits of being a growth market.
What is growth marketing?
Growth marketing definition refers to the strategies, methods, and procedures used to increase the size of a company, product, or service. Unlike traditional marketing operations, the emphasis and actions are geared toward speeding growth.
Growth marketing and growth hacking have gained traction in the media. New businesses are often associated with these terms. Startups have limited time and resources to gain market traction. A marketing strategy for startups is necessary.
In particular, platform businesses must expand immediately to capitalize on network effects. In other words, growth marketing ideas gather a sufficient number of users, making them valuable and appealing. It's pointless to have a site like LinkedIn if only 200 or 2000 people use it! Millions are required.
Growth marketing has become an essential component of the marketing scene. Is it puzzling or valuable? Let’s explore what growth definition is and offer you some growth marketing examples and suggestions for how you may implement some of the critical components.
If you want to grow, you need to follow a systematic approach. Many organizations reactively handle marketing, trying a few things here and there without precise growth marketing tactics to gauge progress or even change course if necessary.
Growth marketing is more proactive than reactive, and it does not focus on fast remedies. It takes a more deliberate approach to growth campaigns and marketing development.
So, what is a growth marketer? And how do you become a growth marketer?
The growth marketing job description needs to be the whole package, with the capacity to evaluate and act on analytics from every channel at any funnel stage. The mix of analytical skills and strategic thinking that growth marketers possess distinguishes them – and makes them in high demand.
But becoming a growth marketer is no easy feat. You need to have the necessary skills that involve growth in the business. What skills do you need for growth marketing?
Top Skills a Successful Growth Marketer Needs
Growth marketers need skills and experience in marketing, analytics, psychology, lead generation, AB testing, and web technologies.
Here Are the Characteristics That Distinguish the Finest Development Marketers:
1. They Have Deep Opinions About Creativity
Growth marketers aren't always the wittiest copywriters or the most artistic designers, but they identify robust creative characteristics when they encounter them. They can also determine when and why a piece of creativity isn't working and provide concrete advice on improving it.
A creative opinion may combine growth marketers and graphic designers to improve the performance and efficacy of both functions.
2. They’re Data-driven
Growth marketers have a strong understanding of growth performance marketing and performance data and know the right metrics to examine in each circumstance.
Even better, they may leverage A/B testing to assist businesses in making data-driven decisions about growth marketing strategy and channel execution.
A/B testing brings marketing out of print marketing days and into the present. You could pay millions of money to get your products and services included in a magazine spread, but you will never know the results improve. With the help of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the critical indicators of progress toward an intended result.
3. They’re Open to Any Channel
As channel experts may do, the most effective growth marketers consider the funnel as a whole rather than concentrating on specific tiers.
Instead, seek someone who has worked across several channels and at various phases of the customer experience, such as paid acquisition and lifecycle marketing. A strong growth marketing expert can see the broad picture and consider how each growth marketing channel fits into a broader context, operating on numerous tracks simultaneously.
4. They’re Engineers at Heart
Growth marketers need a marketing mentality similar to that of an engineer. The endeavors of a growth marketing team eventually affect every part of a company, not solely marketing. These results drive growth marketers by the desire to transform a company model and the whole customer funnel into a highly productive, predictable machine.
5. They’re a Little Impatient
Impatience is beneficial in a growth marketing career. Growth marketers could and should focus on increasing conversions and engagement in the short term. They specialize in optimizing based on immediate performance metrics because that's where they are at their best.
They frequently lack knowledge in less transactional marketing areas such as public relations or branding. They also have little familiarity with slow-burn marketing disciplines such as SEO marketing.
6. They’re Innovative
Growth marketers recognize that the 2.5% of innovators who are the first to implement the appropriate technology receive the most considerable benefits. They keep ahead of marketing trends – and gain from the first-mover advantage.
Because of this foresight, your growth marketing personnel will likely urge you to try out new channels like TikTok or underrated media like Pinterest. They frequently bring new measuring strategies for these new channels to the table.
Growth Marketing vs. Marketing
How does marketing differ from growth marketing? Most marketers concentrate far too much emphasis on marketing strategies at the top of the funnel. Currently, 88% of marketers use content marketing to target a specific demographic and funnel them down into a conversion.
According to 85% of marketers, lead generation is a fundamental goal of their marketing strategies. For some, the funnel is incomplete, and they overlook parts of it. Businesses are not capitalizing on the entire lifecycle of a client beyond acquisition.
Growth marketing focuses on the customer's entire lifetime value. The ultimate objective is to design growth from initial market fit through purchase to customer retention and referrals.
The Growth Marketing Steps
Step 1: Awareness
Awareness is the brand-building initiative that educates prospects about your brand and offering. Being aware is where social media, SEO, paid-ads content marketing/distribution, and influencer marketing come into play. Experimenting with paid advertisements and landing pages is the most accurate strategy to drive visitors and evaluate your value proposition(s).
Step 2: Acquisition
Acquisition creates a procedure for generating leads and acquiring net prospective customers. There are several marketing strategies for this. Keep in mind that growth marketers improve and target their marketing spending and select the appropriate channels to focus on.
Step 3: Activation
Activation persuades people to use the product or service they buy as often or as soon as possible. An onboarding strategy and growth marketing plan are required to succeed.
Step 4: Revenue
A thorough understanding of how financial levers influence expenses and revenue is essential for maximizing revenue. Ultimately, the aim is to reduce expenditures, such as acquisition fees, while increasing revenues, such as client retention.
Retention is the process of keeping consumers happy.
Increasing client retention rates by only 5% may boost profitability by up to 95%. If you want to see massive growth, you must shift your thinking away from acquisition and toward more than simply acquisition.
To increase client retention, growth marketers provide exceptional customer service and educational information that helps individuals get value from the product or service.
At this level, personalization is critical, such as allowing people to discover new ways to utilize your product or service.
Step 5: Retention
Every company has a churn rate. However, some are far lower than others. Notably, some company models have much lower churn rates. They aim most marketing actions and expenditures at the top of the funnel. If you lose as many consumers as you invest in the business, you effectively standstill.
Customers are the actual test and source of input on what you need to improve. They have utilized your product or service and may tell you about their entire experience. In other words, how expensive was it to purchase and use? What help do they need, and how does your brand provide it?
Retaining more consumers makes it much easier to grow. Moreover, an expanding client base implies more customers can provide and generate referrals.
Step 6: Referral
A happy customer is a repeat customer that generates another customer.
Satisfied customers mean customers that are pleased with your products or services will refer you to others.
Referrals are essential for any B2B landscape or B2B sales pipeline. According to LinkedIn, 84% of B2B decision-makers begin the purchasing process with a referral.
Referred leads are also 30% more likely to convert than leads generated through other marketing channels and have a 16% higher customer lifetime value. One example of referral programs that work is today’s search-engine giant, Google.
Yes, even Google has its referral marketing program, rewarding business customers for each new user that signs up for Google Apps for Work. It gives customers who join the referral program a customized link to share with their network. The promoter then earns $15 instantly paid into their bank account for each new Google Apps for Work account activated using that link.
Examples of successful growth strategies
Let's look at real-world examples to see how different growth strategies perform.
1. Facebook
Facebook is now widespread, but it was one of several social media networks when it first began in 2004. At the time, MySpace was the central social networking platform. So, how did Facebook seize control?
The company used a market penetration growth strategy.
It began by focusing on a few customers, then progressively expanded. Here's how Facebook did it.
Start small: Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in his Harvard dorm room. As a result, the first consumer base consisted of Harvard undergraduates.
Gradually expand: After gaining momentum at Harvard, Facebook slowly moved to other colleges. This enabled the company to develop using the same success paradigm as Harvard.
Increase marketing growth when you’re ready: After Facebook expanded to universities, it opened out to non-students. Its gradual expansion allowed Facebook to concentrate on tailoring the product to the demands of each new client niche. As a result, it avoided the growth issues that contributed to MySpace's downfall.
2. Amazon
Amazon's retail domination dates back to 1995. Consumers were not used to purchasing online at the time. Despite this, Amazon has grown to have yearly sales in the billions of dollars. What factors helped Amazon's growth?
The answer is a diversification growth strategy.
Amazon was one of the first online merchants, allowing customers to buy online (a radical notion at the time) in the modern market: the internet. Here is Amazon's growth strategy approach.
Offer an improved customer experience: It began by offering clients a broader range of books than was accessible in traditional bookshops. Amazon did not have to worry about rack space since it was online. Customers may also check the site to see if a book was in stock immediately. Because of this ease, Amazon was able to outperform larger brick-and-mortar bookstores.
Rinse and repeat: Amazon utilized its successful book-selling strategy to enter new areas, such as DVD and electronics sales. Its products expanded over time, and it is currently available in supermarkets and even healthcare.
3. Google
Google is well-known for its search engine, but it is the company's massive income that has propelled it to the status of Alphabet. How did Google accomplish this feat?
It used a product development growth strategy.
Google began as a business-to-consumer (B2C) company that provided a search engine. However, it required a source of money. It created a new product called AdWords to generate that money, aimed at companies that had to pay to advertise.
Tailor the product for the customer: The transition from a business-to-consumer (B2C) product to a business-to-business (B2B) offering requires the expansion of existing capabilities geared to the B2B audience.
The new product should complement existing products: Google ensured that its new AdWords offering integrated perfectly with its B2C product. Because it needed to protect the performance of its search engine, it supplied text advertising that loaded rapidly and looked like the other search engine results. This ensured that the advertising did not harm the customer experience and that users would continue to use the search engine.
So, what does it mean to be a growth marketer?
Best growth marketers are obsessed with testing and focus on discovering what drives growth. Growth marketing responsibilities seek to make the product stickier and foster client loyalty. It all begins with understanding the client and finding the perfect match between the product and the customer early on.
Marketing is all about creating products people want, rather than just buying them. More than 79% of leads never become sales because of poor performance, nurturing, and engagement. Promoting is where a generated lead determines if their need is urgent enough to warrant action. People will opt out or grow stale within a growth marketing platform or funnel when things do not match up. Growth marketing campaigns require a 360-degree understanding of the customer and value delivery. How? This is where growth marketing specialists come in.
10 Steps Growth Marketers Do
1. Create Products People Actually Want
This is how you gain insights into product ideas.
Make decisions on data, not hunches.
Focus on the right metrics, not all of them. Strategize your metrics based on how you create and plan your business marketing growth.
3. Benchmark and Find Your Weaknesses
Due to poor performance, nurturing, and engagement, 79% of leads do not convert into sales. 65% of marketers do not have a formal lead nurturing procedure in place. You will never get them to cross the finish line if your funnel and nurture aren't on target. Your brand's and value proposition's influence on your wow moment are critical.
4. Stay Current With Techniques
Growth marketing vs. performance marketing? Which is which? Marketing is fluid. Customers respond and adjust to marketing methods.
Furthermore, marketing technology evolves and introduces new growth strategies in marketing for reaching, converting, and growing your consumer base. Examples are Artificial Intelligence/AI and Chatbots, which help your marketing and customer support efficiency.
To enjoy the benefits of these advancements, growth marketers must stay on top of them and modify their growth marketing strategies and approaches.
5. Build the Relationship – Stay Relevant
Using tags and funnels, you can effortlessly segment groups of users and target them based on their interests, actions, and more. If you collect email addresses, you can build an audience of eager and loyal followers who can't wait until you launch a product.
6. Stories, Content, and Media
Integrate your content strategy with the consumer journey - be timely and relevant.
You can only succeed online if you have awesome content. Be customer-focused and create something exceptional for people to share and enjoy.
7. Expand Your Market
Growth marketing is about focus! Products either captivate the first 15% growth of the market, or they go to die there. Your product must first pass through the hands of innovators and early adopters to reach more prospects.
8. Be Creative
Creativity is something that we can all learn and improve with practice.
Growing a business entails dealing with several issues and coming up with creative solutions.
Growth marketing anchors with discovering creative ways to provide value to customers.
9. Develop your Customer Experience Management (CXM)
Customer experience design is a critical component of customer retention. Yet, few businesses consider the entire path, and even fewer consider the post-acquisition phase. It's almost as if they say, "phew, we caught you," and then forget about segmenting, personalizing, and developing the connection.
Growth marketing requires a full comprehensive grasp of the customer and value delivery.
Customer Experience Management entails planning ahead of time and developing relevant communications, content, and relationships with your customers.
10. Agile Marketing
Prioritize and deploy depending on what will have the most significant effect with the least effort. Growth is all about high-velocity, high-tempo testing.
Final Note
Growth marketing combines marketing, sales, customer growth success, support, and any other division or activity inside your company. It's an integrated method for developing your business and refining your digital growth campaign across marketing channels through routine testing. Growth marketers aim to uncover new possibilities to help your organization's audience expand and engage.
Understanding how to be creative and have an eye for possibilities will set you apart from your competitors. What works now may not work tomorrow. We at AI-bees hope that this information inspires you to pursue long-term success by knowing what it means to be a growth marketing specialist.
Always question the status quo. Be open to new possibilities.
This article discusses recommended practices for creating the most successful and seamless growth marketing framework.
If you want to get started with growth marketing, contact us; our team of specialists is more than eager to assist.