Driving business growth with traditional marketing strategies alone takes time and can be expensive. This is why many renowned companies have opted for growth hacking strategies.  

Remember that growth hacking is a marketing approach focused on the rapid growth of businesses, particularly in their early stages . Indeed, growth hackers use creative and often unconventional strategies to quickly attract users or customers. This approach is characterized by rapid experimentation, intensive use of technology, deep data analysis, customer centricity, and a focus on growth. The goal is to achieve rapid results and maximize growth in an innovative and profitable way.

This approach has worked for several start-ups, such as Slack, which reached an impressive 500,000 daily active users in just one year . In this regard, here are 6 examples of growth hacking methods used by successful companies which should inspire you.

1 – Dropbox offered more storage space

Dropbox made its onboarding process more fun by offering existing customers more free storage space when they linked their Dropbox accounts to Twitter and Facebook. This method of acquiring new users and growing the business was completely free.

Also, the company offered incentives such as additional storage space for actions completed on Dropbox, such as file sharing, thereby encouraging consumers to use the service.

Note that Dropbox remains one of the best-known examples of sponsorship marketing. The main benefit of the program was that it worked for both the business and the customers .

2 – Airbnb, a perfect example of innovation in growth hacking

The company's founders realized that people looking for alternative accommodations frequently used Craigslist. To take advantage of this opportunity, they've made it easy to copy their Airbnb listings to Craigslist with just one click , including verification, and publishing. In this way, they were able to ensure exposure to a wider audience and build a large customer base.

Some growth hacks are so simple that you can't believe how effective they can be. 

This also shows that there is no fixed rule. Different hacks can give you different results, you just need to have a high level of creativity.

3 – Hotmail and its little message

Hotmail used a simple trick of adding a signature line in every email the user sent , inviting recipients to sign up for a free email account. That's all it took for the company to go from zero to 12 million customers in just 18 months .

By the way, the message said: “PS: I love you. Get your free email on Hotmail. »

In fact, this is one of the best examples of turning your consumers into free sellers . The post had a personal tone combined with the fact that it came from a friend rather than the company itself, leading more people to click.

4 – From growth hacking to LinkedIn

LinkedIn started in a known field and used the concept of professional networking. The idea was a success, so they started expanding into other areas, and you know the result! They launched paid services for what they did best , which is one of the reasons they boomed.

Note that LinkedIn has understood the benefits of using their platform beyond its core value proposition. They started paying attention to how people were using it and monetized it. This was the basis of his growth hacking strategy.

By the way, in this video, Yann Leonardi explains to you simply how to implement a growth hacking strategy:

5 – Dollar Shave Club added a little humor to its process

This company created a hilarious interactive video and used it to sell their service of sending new razor blades to their customers every month for $1. The video went viral, garnering 19 million views in just a few days and establishing the brand as a household name.

In fact, taking care of your existing customers will bring you new ones. But nothing beats adding a little humor . This can turn even the most boring topic into something with strong memorable value.

6 – Instagram has it all figured out

The platform came at the right time and delivered exactly what users wanted. It offered a fantastic user experience, and ease of use is its biggest value proposition to date. You all know that Instagram got 10,000 users in the first hours of its launch and has been growing steadily.

Having product-market fit is crucial to your growth. To create a product that people will want to share, you must first understand your customers' needs and expectations . You can get this information by doing a thorough research on the market.

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7 – PayPal on classic

PayPal leveraged the recommendations to grow its business by 7% to 10% every day , but it came at a cost. The cost of incentivizing customers to refer others was approximately $60 million.

This is how PayPal grew through word of mouth on instant messaging, blogs and emails. Additionally, the company has partnered with eBay , paving the way for its growth.

The lesson to be learned from this? Growth hacking is not just about being original. Even adopting traditional methods can sometimes work wonders.

In summary, growth hacking has several key benefits for startups, including a cost-effective approach, rapid implementation, focus on growth, data-driven analysis, user-centricity, continuous innovation, flexibility , virality, conversion rate optimization and scalability. These creative and result-oriented methods help start-ups achieve rapid and efficient growth by maximizing the use of their limited resources.

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