{"id":130,"date":"2023-02-24T16:51:12","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T16:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/?p=130"},"modified":"2023-02-24T16:51:12","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T16:51:12","slug":"you-dont-need-a-growth-hacker-just-a-data-driven-marketer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/you-dont-need-a-growth-hacker-just-a-data-driven-marketer\/","title":{"rendered":"You Don\u2019t Need A \u201cGrowth Hacker,\u201d Just A Data-Driven Marketer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is\u00a0my latest monthly Analytics column, originally published\u00a0on ClickZ. You can read all my\u00a0previous columns\u00a0on\u00a0ClickZ\u00a0here.<\/em>
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

Silicon Valley loves fancy job titles. It\u2019s just something we do, and software and technology lend themselves to it. But it\u2019s not always helpful. In many cases, these new titles are simply a reinventing or coopting of a practice that is already well-served by existing practitioners.<\/p>\n

This brings us to today\u2019s topic: growth hackers. I know many are well-intentioned and not all are consciously trying to shroud what they do in nebulous terms. But, unfortunately, there are many who attempt to sell services surrounding growth hacking with messages such as: \u201cother marketers are behind the times \/ not data-driven \/ not digitally-savvy etc, so you should hire us.\u201d<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s take a step back. What exactly is Growth Hacking? As defined\u00a0by Wikipedia\u00a0(emphasis mine)<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026a process of rapid experimentation across marketing channels and product development to identify the most effective, efficient ways to grow a business. \u2026. It can also involve online community management and social media outreach or highly personalized outreach to news outlets\u00a0<\/i>to improve\u00a0<\/i><\/b>performance metrics<\/i><\/b>\u00a0such as driving customer acquisition and selling products.<\/i><\/b>\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019d invite you to read the entire Wikipedia page, because you\u2019ll quickly see growth hackers are simply marketers by another word \u2013 as the intended goals are in alignment with traditional marketing. For example, in the quote I bolded, using digital channels to improve performance metrics is the domain of marketers of all types. Even the ones with boring titles.<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s not already obvious by now, I\u2019m not a huge fan of the phrase growth hacking or the job title of growth hacker. The simple reason is, it\u2019s not needed. It\u2019s redundant and unnecessarily distracting. It isn\u2019t that actual growth hacking tactics might not work or don\u2019t belong within the tactical mix of your marketing. It\u2019s that they likely already are there.<\/p>\n

Consummate marketers use data to A\/B test effectively, conjure creative ways to acquire users organically, optimize the reach of their content, etc \u2013 things growth hackers pride themselves on. So, it\u2019s not that what growth hackers are doing is \u201cwrong\u201d, it\u2019s just that things like data fluency are table stakes for all marketers\u00a0as I wrote\u00a0in a previous column.<\/p>\n

The problem with many Growth Hackers from a measurement standpoint<\/b><\/p>\n

Many growth hackers obsess over KPIs like increasing social media followings (and frequently use automation to do so) or short term traffic to a brand\u2019s website for the sake of increasing numbers. But this is simply not sustainable. As I shared in a\u00a0previous story\u00a0on increasing organic marketing metrics, you want to chase increasing, sustainable returns, not spikes which are low quality and unpredictable.<\/p>\n

Organic KPIs improved directionally rather than chasing spikes is the hallmark of quality online marketing<\/i><\/p>\n

Growth at any cost without considering loyalty is wasted effort<\/b><\/p>\n

Many growth hackers I\u2019ve talked to over the years, while talking a good game about web analytics, show a misunderstanding of other critical business metrics. I once heard a proud self-proclaimed growth hacker at a tech conference triumphantly talk about how they rapidly grew app installs to exceed their aggressive goals in a short period of time. Which by itself sounds great, except a year or so later I saw a story in a tech trade in which that company was undergoing layoffs because the app just wasn\u2019t working out. Maybe if they had a better\u00a0understanding of the CLV\u00a0(Customer Lifetime Value) of users generated through their \u201crapid growth\u201d tactics they would be in a better situation. Or even simply look deeper into their app analytics to see\u00a0loyalty metrics\u00a0and didn\u2019t just focus on installs without understanding if they would stick around.<\/p>\n

Growth hacking, empathy and user experience<\/b><\/p>\n

Great marketers understand the importance of empathy and respecting users. On more than one occasion, I have seen growth hackers cause users and potential customers to loathe them, all in the name of trying to chase KPIs. Which shows the danger (and, to be blunt, the stupidity) of a \u201cgrowth at any cost\u201d strategy. Two quick examples.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A chat app recently caused users to inadvertently text spam their friends in an attempt to gain users.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Tweet\u00a0<\/i>source<\/i><\/p>\n

    Recently, a new app called \u201cChitchat\u201d disguised \u201cinvite\u201d as \u201cadd\u201d where the UI made it unclear that you\u2019re \u201cinviting\u201d friends via texts (nearly everyone considers this spam) as opposed to simply adding existing users. The entire thread linked above is worth reading if you\u2019re curious the type of user outrage and negative PR growth hacking tactics can provoke. To add icing on the cake, TechCrunch soon after\u00a0called this company\u00a0\u201cSilicon Valley\u2019s spammiest new app.\u201d<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Running Facebook ads targeted at users who are fans of the ACLU in an attempt to stem negative PR<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Tweet\u00a0<\/i>source<\/i><\/p>\n

      For the sake of brevity, I\u2019m not going to go into the entire story of what happened (feel free to click the Tweet source link if you want to dive in). But what occurred here is Uber\u2019s growth team made the decision to specifically target supporters of the American Civil Liberties Union to try and stop the damage of not so flattering news about the company. But in a world of transparency, users are going to determine how and why you are targeting them \u2013 especially in cases that involve reputation management issues. In this case, an experienced marketer with a broad understanding of messaging and ad targeting would understand it\u2019s inappropriate to use the ACLU as a vehicle to market their messages.<\/p>\n

      Quick conclusion<\/b><\/p>\n

      What I would be excited to see in the coming years is that marketers by all names and titles embrace a more holistic and broad view of digital marketing\/measurement and how we help improve our company\u2019s results. In an increasingly social and review-filled world, where spam tactics are always called out, ensuring we don\u2019t just grow, but delight, our users will separate the winners from the losers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The following is\u00a0my latest monthly Analytics column, originally published\u00a0on ClickZ. You can read all my\u00a0previous columns\u00a0on\u00a0ClickZ\u00a0here. Silicon Valley loves fancy … <\/p>\n

      Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz","resize-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":512,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions\/512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}