What is growth marketing and why does it matter?
I break it all down for you right here in this short article.
First, let’s start with the very basics…
Defining growth marketing
Growth marketing is a fast-paced, data-informed approach to marketing that helps you sustainably achieve measurable business objectives.
Nicholas Scalice
The best growth marketers leverage multiple skills, such as analytics, testing, psychology, design, usability, technology, copywriting, and more to get results.
Gone are the days of wasted ad spending and campaign that merely try to “make you aware” of a product or service.
Instead, growth marketers, want to measure everything, and they want to compel you to take action.
Hopefully, this gives you a clear understanding of what growth marketing actually is.
Now, let’s go into a bit more detail and answer a few related questions.
How is growth marketing different from growth hacking?
Depending on who you ask, they might be talking about the same thing. Many marketers use these terms interchangeably.
Personally, I prefer the term “growth marketing, since the word “hacking,” still doesn’t sit well with many business professionals. But this is a minor point, and no matter what you call it, the foundational principles are extremely similar between growth marketing and growth hacking.
I recommend you just pick a term and stick with it.
Is growth marketing replacing inbound marketing?
While it’s true that inbound marketing has become less popular in recent years, while growth marketing has become more popular, the two marketing philosophies can certainly coexist.
Inbound marketing tends to focus primarily on “free” growth strategies such as search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, and others.
Growth marketers use these strategies too, but there’s also a heavier reliance on paid advertising. After all, most growth marketers want to test every possible channel available to them so they can let the data help them decide where to scale their time, effort, and resources.
And if you look at the grandfather of inbound marketing—HubSpot—even they have been talking more about “growth” lately. They even renamed their popular online community from inbound.org to growth.org. Yeesh.
What does a growth marketer do?
Well, for starters, they usually have a very broad background pulling from various marketing specialties. They are what some like to call “T-shaped marketers,” in that they know enough about a wide range of marketing topics, yet they can go very deep in one or two of them.
A growth marketer may work at an agency, or in-house for one company or they could be an independent consultant or freelancer.
Growth marketers usually begin new projects by gathering data, analyzing all of the information available to them, and formulating a growth strategy.
Then, they’ll get tactical and begin launching campaigns as soon as possible. After all, the best growth marketers don’t want to sit on the sidelines; they want to get in and work on real campaigns so they can learn from the data and continually optimize for better results.
Maybe they’ll start with a paid advertising campaign to drive traffic to the top of the funnel, or maybe they’ll start by focusing on the produce or service that’s being offered in order to either improve it or get more of the existing users or customers talking.
The possibilities for what a growth marketer can do are limitless. As long as they have the right mindset, they can accomplish some very impressive things in a short amount of time.
How to become a growth marketer
If you’re interested in sharpening your growth marketing skills, there are plenty of resources online. Here are a few of my personal favorites. And yes, these are totally biased, but hey, I really believe in everything we’re offering here at GrowthMarketer, so check them out, will ya?
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Next, I recommend checking out my Growth Marketing Toolbox podcast.
That’s where I share short marketing tips every other week, so you can learn what’s working in the world of growth marketing.
Thanks again for checking out my article! If any questions remain unanswered, hit me up on Twitter and let me know.
