Kellogg PM week15: growth hacking
well it’s not hacking, it’s more about experimentation, testing new ideas to better serve customers
In the previous week, we focused on concepts of share of wallet, share of market, and size of market. It’s an intuitive idea to start from the smallest point, set an attainable goal, and work toward it. We didn’t quite focus on the growth part, professor Sawhney explained partnership and experimentation to drive growth for the company.
This week we focus on the growth topic. In this era of data and the boom of the internet, unlike the good old days where we shopped the product only from local stores near our house, nowadays we move back and forth between apps, websites, and local stores. In the old days, if one business wanted to grow they could reach us only via television, brochure, radio, or a cool lookbook. Testing the campaign and iterating the marketing strategies would be slower than what we can do today.
With high tech infrastructure today, one business not only can test their website homepage. They can run multiple tests at the same time ranging from technical side like website, app, new user interface, new checkout page, new basket etc. Also they can run multiple coupon promotion tests to see which type of promotion has the highest conversion or is the most profitable. It’s faster because you can test multiple areas at the same time, and your company’s learning rate will be higher than a traditional company. It’s cheaper and scalable since you can build on infrastructure you have invested in. It’s more of real impact aka data-driven decision making rather than intuition. I know these hacking still does not work for every case including planning for a new plant, selecting a great supplier and others. But at least it outlines the pathway for growth in B2B and B2C business in some cases if not all cases.
Apart from the technical thing, I think growth is the old controversial topic in business either to reduce expenses or increase sales, that leads to the business strategy for growth, marketing strategy for growth, cost reduction program, optimization within the plant. There are a lot more strategies we can choose to pursue but to use the word of Michael Porter, strategy is not an operational excellence. Doing something great does not determine superior long term performance of the company but to be par with the competition. In order to serve better, we choose every day what we do as much as what we don’t do. Linking all the activities together is the value we provide to the customers, if that has a great interlocking that is hard to crack then I think we kind of have a strategy there.
Additional Readings
- Definitive Guide to Growth Hacking
- How Facebook, Twitter, and other Startups Got Big
- Ryan Holiday’s Resources for Growth Hacking
- Growth Hacking Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide
- 11 Growth Hacking Strategies that Require Zero Technical Skills
- Iconic Growth Hacking Examples
