13 Dec, 2021

Artur Prokopchik – business development manager

13 Dec, 2021

Artur Prokopchik – business development manager

The Essence of Growth Hacking

The research accompanies the short aggregated results published on Forbes Business Development council.

Last updated: June 13, 2022

This is a continuation of the research about growth hacking strategies, where business experts shared 50 growth hacking strategies.

When we asked business professionals to share their growth hacks and growth hacking techniques, we also asked their opinion on the current state, as well as the future of growth hacking, what is their attitude to growth hacking as an area of professional activity and area of knowledge.

The question was:

What is your opinion on the current state of growth hacking? Do you agree that all possible growth hacking methods have already been invented and growth hacking today is all about automation as much as possible and data-driven ideas testing?

Many business experts provided us with responses, we are glad to share them, as well as generate some conclusions and insights.

So, here we discuss growth hacking as:

Area of knowledge
Science
Professional activity
Art

In the research based on experts’ responses we try to define:

Internal side of the growth hacking, its sense and nature
Current state of growth hacking
The future and development prospects of growth hacking

Well, let’s have a look at what professionals say about the nature of growth hacking!

What is Growth Hacking

Will remind just in case, that growth hacking is a branch of marketing that focuses on cheap actions to attract multiple clients and achieve significant business growth.

Growth Hacking: Business Professionals’ Opinion

Keep testing growth hacks

I don’t agree that all methods of growth hacking have been discovered. Automation is still definitely key and this will always be the goal of any growth hack, but with new technologies coming out all the time, who knows what the next new growth hack will be in terms of the feature itself. Companies should definitely keep testing different growth hacks to see what works as it can be the make or break of a lot of companies, especially in tech.

Mr. Joshua Wood, Founder and CEO of Bloc – a social events platform helping venues prosper in the hospitality industry.

Growth hacking will remain a staple

Growth hacking will remain a staple as there are 31.7 million small businesses in the U.S. alone and they have one thing in common… they all want to grow… and grow faster than ever.

There will always be a new avenue, feature or platform in marketing to test so I don’t know that we’re done creating new growth hacking opportunities yet. Remember the most successful campaign strategies that appeal to the target audience is the one they see constantly helping them in some way.

Kirby Wilkerson – PR Strategist and Founder at The Impact Kind – PR and Digital Marketing Firm from the USA.

Growth Hacking is hard. The key is to be clever and creative.

An extremely interesting opinion saying that major players-ecosystems counteract when using growth hacks:

In my opinion, growth hacking is very hard nowadays. All platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Google) want you to spend money on advertising. Accordingly, they will do everything to prevent you from overtaking the traditional methods with any hack. We can see how Google has been penalizing Black Hat SEO Techniques ever since they became popular, or how Facebook is constantly reducing your organic reach, so you spend more money on advertising.

Therefore, the key to growth hacking is to be clever and creative to find a method, and fast enough to implement this method before a platform starts taking actions against people using this method.

Mr. Eloy Caudet from wfDesign – marketing agency from Germany

Growth Hacking will always exist

It may not always be called “Growth Hacking” but it will always exist – companies will always continue to test, test and test some more to improve their brand awareness and in turn their results. Any form of disruptive marketing is a sign of pushing forward and the desire to grow.

Although data driven ideas and automation are efficient, possibly more predictable and intelligent, for some brands the more fluid and personal touch may be required. Their target audience may need to form a relationship with the brand before engaging and tactics like podcasts will continue to tick that box.

Mr. James Khoury, representing an online retailer and CEO of Zendbox – intelligent eCommerce fulfillment solution driven by AI.

Technology and growth hacking development

Growth hacking isn’t going away anytime soon. Sure, the word isn’t as ubiquitous as it once was, but businesses will always be looking for novel and cost-effective ways to acquire new clients in order to boost growth. It’s simply smart business sense. If you’re a good marketer, you’ll be doing this all the time. As new technology and media channels arise, the ways in which firms apply growth hacking strategies will vary, and there will be additional ways to implement GH.

Ms. Cindy Corpis, CEO of SearchPeopleFree – a people lookup site. SearchPeopleFree is also engaged in software development based in the US.

Automation is going to be at the forefront

Growth hacking in the content game is forever changing with regular Google updates, and now the development of AI to write content is taking over the industry. I believe the future of growth hacking is going to be the simplest, quickest and most affordable way to get in front of your audience and that’s why automation is going to be at the forefront. We will still rely heavily on data to prove what growth hacks work, provide customer insight and to tell us if we’re reaching our growth objectives. Data analysis is fast becoming more automated, and even more accurate than in the past.

I don’t believe that all growth hacking methods have been invented today. I believe just like how technology is ever-evolving, so are these methods.

Mr. Mark Whitman, a founder of Contentellect – a content marketing agency that specializes in writing SEO blog content for online businesses.

New or refined growth hacking strategies will appear

I think the nature of growing a business will continue to change as our technology evolves and impacts the way we communicate, which will inevitably create new or refined GH methods. The beauty of PR is that it’s designed to adapt with this evolution, continuing to amplify business growth and impact regardless of the media landscape. We’ve seen this first-hand during the pandemic where the businesses who got word out fast about how their services or products would be impacted retained and even grew their customer base thanks to creative and conscious PR campaigns.

Ms. Maria Eilersen, Founder at Be Conscious PR– company that helps conscious businesses and brands get their voices heard in the media, promoting products and services that make the world a better place.

There is a room for innovative growth hacking techniques

I would say that there is still room for innovative and out-of-the-box growth hacking techniques. Growth hacking is not about automation or expansive datasets – it’s about clearing a new path to success or at least doing it in a unique and unprecedented manner. Automation hardly fits the bill.

Mr. Giovanni Braghieri, CEO and co-founder of MyConsultingCoach. Giovanny helps aspiring consultants get into McKinsey, BCG, and Bain.

Growth hacking is a popular buzzword, but it’s not necessarily effective

In my opinion, growth hacks ensure outcomes by applying strategies that can help you develop your business and extend your audience in previously unimaginable ways. As technology progresses and human minds expand, I anticipate the availability of new growth hacking approaches in the future. However, growth hacks may appear to be too good to be true.. Particularly for small enterprises that are just getting started. It’s become a popular buzzword, but it’s not necessarily effective.

Ms. Isabella Gordan, the Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sleepy’s Express. By cutting through the mattress marketing jargon, Sleepy’s Express helps Australians get a better night’s sleep.

Growth hacking will evolve

There are so many approaches, techniques, and tools available now to improve your growth hacking, making it one of the best times to work within it. Within the last 5 years, it has become a more automated and data-driven process. I personally like this as it improves efficiency by saving time and reducing errors as decisions are based on facts. Some would argue that growth hacking has hit its peak, that everything that can be done, has been done. I disagree. As the world of business and technology continues to evolve, so will growth hacking techniques. While automation is increasingly prevalent within growth hacking, there’s always room for innovation.

Mr. Taylor Ryan is a growth hacker and 6x startup founder from Washington, D.C, who currently serves as the CEO of Copenhagen-based marketing and growth hacking agency Klint.

Growth hacking is just a concept

There are numerous ways of growth hacking. Just be creative and have end user intent in mind. The growth hacking mindset is very alive and well. I think growth hacking is just a concept. The methods to implement it are infinite. And it’s not limited to automation or data-driven ideas.

Mr. Vincent Song leads a Neon Sign Studio in the UK.

Growth hacking: what’s next?

The growing industry has reached a point of maturity. There will be fewer hacks, more teams, and a greater emphasis on speed. Everyone in the field is learning the best practises rapidly and putting them into practise even faster. So, what’s next? To be able to transcend above best practises and adopt truly relevant and advanced techniques for our company, we need more knowledge, more qualitative feedback, and a more methodical approach. People are starting to get rid of their shoestring instruments as the field matures.

Many growth hackers still display growth hacking as a perfect approach, where we can always make the right decisions thanks to our data-driven approach. But this isn’t the case: the hard data you see in your analytics tools can really only tell you what’s decelerating your growth, not why it’s slowing down. While the reason is the foundation upon which we build our experiments, many growth hackers simply fill in the blanks with their own assumptions in order to maintain their velocity, but this is not sustainable in the long run.

Soft data, in addition to hard facts, is required: the why. And that comes from talking to customers, conducting hypothesis-driven experiments (rather than results-driven experiments), and perhaps looking at your feedback through customer surveys and interviews.

Mr. Haseeb Awan, CEO of America’s Most Secure Mobile Service, EFANI. Previously he built one of the largest Bitcoin ATM networks. Additionally, he is also a Y-Combinator Alumni. Furthermore, he is a Co-founder at Bitaccess (a Canadian Blockchain company)

Growth hacks are great, but do not always work

Resource-light and cost-effective digital marketing methods to help expand and retain an active user base, sell products, and get exposure is known as growth hacking or growth marketing. Growth hacks, in my opinion, are great because they promise to deliver results by employing techniques that help you grow your enterprise and your audience in ways you’ve never seen before. On the other hand, growth hacks can be a little too good to be true, especially for small businesses startups. People love to use it as a buzzword, but it doesn’t always work.

Mr. David Fernandez – CEO & Founder of Capital Solutions marketing agency. Mr. Fernandez has been in marketing for over 20 years.

Future growth hacking development thanks to AI

I don’t believe all growth hacking methods have already been invented; there will always be innovation. With new technology and software comes new approaches for rapidly attaining growth.

I believe that artificial intelligence specifically has many future applications for growth hacking which haven’t been realized yet for the most part, due to the early stage of the tech.

Mr. Calloway Cook, President of Illuminate Labs – a supplement company in the US with third-party test results of every product listed.

Effectiveness of old GH methods is failing

I do not believe that all growth hacking methods have been invented yet, but I do believe that the effectiveness of old methods is falling because it is easier for people to start businesses and growth hacking is not really a ‘hack’ anymore, because all it takes is a quick google search to find dozens of methods.

What I am looking forward to in the future is access to Whatsapp’s API. Facebook is slowly opening up access to the Whatsapp platform and the sky high open rates and response rates on Whatsapp will be a game changer, especially for businesses in EMEA.

Mr. Kourosh Ghaffari, founder of Waves – an app that automates community management

Growth hacking – loaded concept

My opinion about growth hacking is that it became kind of a loaded concept, with many ideas being crammed into it. At one point, it was hard to differentiate growth hacking with traditional marketing… and in many cases, it’s simply because they were exactly the same thing. I think people recognized this, and are now relying more on the term growth engineering, which, arguably is very close but with a twist: where hacking implies a quick, short-term objective, engineering implies a long-term strategy. I think the growth hackers who succeeded are the ones who understood this shift and focused on the quality of their code and automation to make them more scalable.

I’m not sure I agree that all possible GH methods have been invented. Technology, and how we use the internet are still constantly evolving. This opens up new opportunities and ideas all the time. However I agree with the second part: GH today is completely about generating ideas, testing them, measuring them and then implementing the ones that worked best. This constant feedback loop is what all growth teams should aspire to build.

Mr. Thibaut Davoult, Head of Growth at Livestorm – an end-to-end video engagement platform that enables you to connect, engage, and capture actionable insights in one place.

Altering the game for marketers

Growth hacking, in my opinion, is altering the game for marketers, and businesses will continue to adapt its concepts. Today’s GH is all about automation and data-driven idea testing, and anyone directing a digital strategy will need exceptional ability to adapt swiftly to new technology breakthroughs.

Mr. Hutch Ashoo is the founder and CEO of Pillar Wealth Management. He has personally been serving the complex needs of high net worth and ultra-high net worth investors for more than 30 years.

Aspects of automation

While I agree that people will focus more on automation in the future, I don’t necessarily agree that it’s all about data-driven ideas testing. This is because when you’re automating, what matters is the result. This means that when you’re marketing with automation, you can’t necessarily test for things like conversions or ROI (unless you’re doing A/B tests). You could test to see if your campaign drove traffic or subscribers, but not necessarily if it helped increase your revenue.

Ms. Katherine Brown is the Founder & Marketing Director at Spyic – a US company that specializes in parental control and remote monitoring.

Growth hacking and AI advancements

I believe we will see more automation in growth hacking going forward with AI. We are already seeing it with ESP’s and email subject lines. This is actually something we will be testing next year. I would expect more AI to be used in the future as the cost comes down and it is more readily available to all businesses.

Mr. Jeff Moriarty, Marketing Manager at Moriarty’s Gem Art – Tanzanite and tanzanite jewelry store in Indiana, USA.

Money is replaced by growth hacking

Companies are still using growth hacking ideas, but they aren’t referring to it as such. They are now using phrases like disruptive marketing to describe business-building techniques. I think considering growth hacking is good if you want your company to grow. Experts must work hard to gain visibility, and a growth-oriented mentality can assist you in this endeavor. Consider your financial situation. You probably don’t have the kind of big pockets that large organizations have when reaching out to and acquiring new clients. As a result, to scale your firm, you must rely on innovation and creativity as your important tools. Money is replaced by growth hacking.

Ms. Emma Williams is an avid positive psychology practitioner with more than 25 years of international experience in both consulting and leadership roles. She is Chief Research Officer at HIGH5, which goal is to help people become more self-aware by making transformational tools available to the public.

Automation is a basis of the growth hacking

Growth hacking has altered the playing field for modern marketers. It is committed to continuously improving the customer journey, as well as the quality of its products and services, as well as to expanding its existing client base. I concur that numerous GH strategies already exist, but they rely heavily on automation these days.

Mr. Robert Bolder, Founder of VPS Server – VPS hosting provider.

A growth hacker must identify unique ways

Only a few organizations realize the importance of a growth hacking strategy. It is the process of focusing only on the growth metrics leaving behind the other distracting factors. You do not have to think complex to implement the growth hacking procedures. The success rate depends on the business field. A simple change can bring a massive impact on your organization’s growth. All sorts of automation or data-driven ideas may apply to specific business platforms, but they cannot be recognized as a default program. Every growth hacker must identify unique ways to establish their tactics optimally. Through experimenting, you can discover the perfect technique for growth hacking.

Mr. Harriet Chan, Co-Founder of CocoFinder – a public record search service company. Their aim is to provide complete transparency of information so every person can search through publicly available information with ease.

We are at the beginning of the development of new growth hacking methods

The world is changing at an ever-increasing rate, particularly in relation to the technological tools and digital automation at our disposal. Whilst this can create uncertainty trying to keep up, it also means that the forward-thinking and creative business owner is being presented with new ways in which they can hack their way to exponential success. Hence in my view, we are only at the beginning of the development of new growth hacking methods. New and innovative growth hacking techniques will continue to emerge, allowing creative marketers and entrepreneurs to exponentially accelerate their future business growth in ways that we have not yet even conceived.

Dr. Mark Farrell has employed many growth hacking techniques as a founder of ProActuary, – a startup for actuaries worldwide to optimize their career potential.

New Growth hacks to come

I do think a lot of growth hacking methods have already been invented, but we can always make modifications and add our own twist to it, to truly make it our own.

Mr. Sid Berry – a creative director at 71Three, he is leading a team of designers and software developers

New Growth Hacking methods will appear

I think it’s naive to believe every method of GH has been discovered. Automation is focused on efficiency, but that’s not always what’s needed for growth hacking. As business and work changes, I think new methods will reveal themselves.

Mr. Jeremy Yamaguchi, CEO of Lawn Love – a company that’s bringing high-tech solutions to the lawn care industry

GH is new but effective

Growth hacking is very new, but has already been demonstrated to be extremely effective, so far. And with its nature, I don’t believe that all possible GH methods have already been invented. There will always be new ways to catch the audiences’ attention.

Mr. Matthew Paxton – founder of Hypernia and a personal finance expert.

Growth Hacking avenues are oversaturated

The problem with the current state of growth hacking is that everyone knows about it now which means all of those avenues are oversaturated. Paid ads, oversaturated. SEO, oversaturated. Social Media, oversaturated. So basically, everyday it becomes harder and harder to hack your way to anything. Which brings me back to the non-automated, high quality brute force method. One of the only ways left to win is to out-work your competitors and never give up. You have to stay in the game along enough to create your own luck.

Mr. James Philip – serial entrepreneur, accredited investor. James is the Founder & Managing Director of Heavy Hitter Holdings which owns over a dozen companies and brands spanning the consulting, consumer goods and hospitality industries, including Employment BOOST – the leading boutique professional career services and outplacement company in the US.

Growth Hacking is essentially hacking

I believe that growth hacking is essentially hacking. If everyone does something, if your competition does it, it’s not hacking anymore and it will be hard to reap the benefits. You have to think about creative opportunities to gain growth wins. So methods always change, but opportunities always arise, because of technology and trends shifts. Automation only helps, but it’s not the main issue in my opinion. You should have a solid marketing strategy in place and think of growth hacking as a constant cultural attitude – always think of ideas, try new things, some will wildly succeed and some will fail.

Mr. Adar Hay – Co-founder at Jiga – a marketplace of mechanical engineering parts and equipment. Let’s remind that Mr. Hay’s growth hack was to create a free Chrome extension for their target audience.

Business and technological world advance, so will growth hacking

It’s hard to judge the current state of growth hacking since different measures work better for different companies. But, it is evident that a large majority of companies are focusing on growth hacking through social media to some extent, and that seems to be working well. I think that right now pretty much all growth hacking methods have been “invented” based on the resources and channels that there are, but I think more will be invented in the future as new resources/channels are created. As the business and technological world advance, so will growth hacking.

Mr. Brian Donovan, CEO, Timeshatter – a company that helps clients to get out of their timeshare contracts.

Growth Hacking mentality

The growth hacking mentality is still very much alive. It’s just that somebody in charge of a digital strategy in 2021 should have the ability to take down a whole industry by now. What the early days of growth hacking have in common with the current growth hacking is that making a significant influence on business is still extremely difficult. After several years in the game, we’ve noticed that the most significant benefits are generally achieved through creative, context-specific solutions, similar to how we first became interested in growth hacking.

Paul Stein is the founder and CEO of Trusted House Painter – a new online community membership dedicated to helping Home and Property owners connect to Professional Painting Contractors to beautify homes and paint the world a better place.

Growth Hacking is a waste of time

My opinion of growth hacking (or any hacking)? A waste of time and effort. Focus on hacking and you will end up as nothing more than a hack. Instead, focus on effectively managing the instinctual biases of the decision-makers you are selling to and you will set yourself on a path to sustained growth.

Mr. Ryan Voeltz, Author, Speaker & Behavioral Science Influencer.

Growth Hacking is exhausted

I do think growth hacking in a lot of ways has been exhausted of all its hacks although I certainly think some remain. All growth hacking is data driven and always has been, just in a completely unorganized way.

Mr. Andrew Duplessie, Entrepreneur.

Growth marketing

The word growth hacking makes most marketers and product managers cringe. The tales of massive growth from Hotmail’s postscript hack or YouTube’s early referral traffic from their embeddable videos are Silicon Valley lore. The reality is for every successful technique labelled as a growth hack, 9 more just like it failed. So what is real growth hacking?

Growth is a more apt name for the work of marketers and product teams due to scale businesses. The start of any growth technique usually starts with a product that people love and that solves a massive problem. The marketing component of that is easy. Build scalable and repeatable systems that generate net benefit for the business.

Growth marketing means understanding the full consumer journey. How they reach your brand, how they interact with it and how you ultimately sell to them. Any step within the funnel can be the focus of a growth marketer, but traditionally the direct response (or paid acquisition) focus is the highest leverage. That’s why brands spend up to hundreds of millions on yearly advertising to scale their businesses through Facebook, Google and other ad platforms.

The current state of this direct response aspect of growth is on fire. There is a lot of liquidity in the market. Valuations for startups and pre-IPO companies are high. The market is doing well. Finding talented growth marketers that can push the limits is getting harder and more competitive. The playbook changes often (HINT: look at Facebook / iOS recent challenges), but the foundational aspect of how to grow and scale a business does not. Growth is here to stay. Growth is good.

Mr. Matthew Lally is the Founder of TheGiftYak. Advises Venture-Backed Startups and Creates Free Marketing Content on YouTube

New growth hacking ideas will emerge

Growth hacking techniques now are tested and proven but at some point, outdated. But since human minds are capable of constant thinking, I believe that there will be new ideas that will emerge in regards to growth hacking.

As of now, with the existence of technological advancement, I doubt that these techniques will still be able to give us their full effectiveness. Therefore, I will better put my bet on automation and data-driven ideas as a more efficient way to grow your business.

Mr. Dan Belcher, Founder and CEO at Mortgage Relief from the US.

Everything is possible in GH thanks to technology

In today’s condition of growth hacking, everything is possible thanks to technology, in my opinion. Everything can be accomplished quickly if you use technology and growth hacking in your business. Any firm will undoubtedly grow if these growth hacking techniques are implemented properly.

Mr. Tyler Garns, Founder, and CEO at Box Out Marketing – a company that offers strategic coaching and campaign implementation services.

More new growth hacking strategies will come

There have definitely been a lot of innovations, which is very exciting. But as for having all possible methods been invented, I don’t think so. Maybe we’re currently mostly about automation, but I think more new strategies will come about in the coming years as technology and audience engagement continues to evolve.

Jack Miller is the founder of How I Get Rid Of. He is a home improvement and pest control expert with more than 15 years of experience.

Growth Hacking means disruptive marketing

Growth hacking techniques are still valuable, and companies still love to embrace the crucial principles of GH, and nowadays, it is termed disruptive marketing for developing businesses. Today’s growth hacking techniques are data-oriented and automation-based because marketing automation helps growth hackers focus on ingenious and meaningful tasks.

Mr. Stephen Curry, Chief Executive Officerat CocoSign – e-signature tool.

Growth hacking is a new disruptor for business

Growth hacking will keep progressing with time as it is bigger than the digital marketing of a company. It is a new disruptor of businesses. With the continuous advancement of technology, I believe more growth hacking methods will be invented. The processes available that are yet to be automated would likely be automated with time.

Ms. Daniela Sawyer, Founder and Business Development Strategist of FindPeopleFast, a web-based people searching website

Growth hacking has always been

Regarding the current state of growth hacking, it is as it’s always been – growth hackers are in high demand. The reason for this is that growth hackers need to have experience with the many different marketing channels (SEO, CRO, Email, SM, etc.), experience with growth tactics within those channels aimed at the different stages of the marketing funnel (TOFU, MOFU, BOFU), and they need to have a strategic and creative mind. The particular skill set needed is pretty rare.

Regarding growth hacking methods, in my experience growth hacking is incredibly company-specific. It’s about finding the points of greatest opportunity in a company’s marketing funnel – the areas that can bring the greatest ROI – and applying the most suitable tactic to extract that desired result.

Mr. Cristian Ungureanu, – Digital Marketer with 7 years of experience, currently working as a Senior Growth Marketer for Switzerland-based b2b SaaS company QuickMail.

New innovative growth hacking techniques will continue to emerge

The world is changing at an ever-increasing rate, particularly in relation to the technological tools and digital automation at our disposal. Whilst this can create uncertainty trying to keep up, it also means that the forward-thinking and creative business owner is being presented with new ways in which they can hack their way to exponential success. Hence in my view, we are only at the beginning of the development of new growth hacking methods. New and innovative growth hacking techniques will continue to emerge, allowing creative marketers and entrepreneurs to exponentially accelerate their future business growth in ways that we have not yet even conceived.

Dr. Mark Farrell has employed many growth hacking techniques as a founder of ProActuary, – a startup for actuaries worldwide to optimize their career potential.

New methods will emerge

I think that new methods of growth hacking will emerge as the business world evolves. Nothing ever stays the same or equally effective over time, and growth hacking is no expectation.

Mr. Andre Kazimierski, CEO, Improovy – an aggregator of painting services providers.

Growth hacking is like an art or a discipline of science

A growth hacker is a seasoned professional of marketing, sales and analytics; they are a developer of products, customers, and channels; and a manager of operations at the same time. You can learn about the principles and cases, but only practice can bring you the skill and mind of the growth hacker. In that way, it is like an art or a discipline of science. Most of the artists use the same colors, but some succeed more based on their combination, time and luck. You can dig product, market, channels, model or company operations for months without finding some diamond that can leverage the growth of a key metric. Though there are no guarantees in growth hacker success, all the major companies right now have them among their staff.

Mr. John Popel of Benchhacks. John has been in the marketing for 20 years already, he used to utilize various growth hacking techniques since the term appeared in 2010x. For 6 years John has been doing growth hacking as a service for hire via his personal website devoted to the startups and growth hacking

Everyone should be a growth hacker

Nowadays, everyone calls himself a growth hacker even if they buy fake followers on Instagram, but this job is not about vanity metrics but analysis, creativity, and execution. Growth Hacking techniques lead to sales; sales lead to profit, so be suspicious about growth hackers out of the “3 commas club”, this is the first clue to spot fake growth hackers from the real and successful ones. The truth is that right now, everyone should be a growth hacker and apply techniques to their personal branding and startups to be competitive in this red ocean. They have to hack their growth in terms of vanity metrics, revenue, and profit otherwise, it will be almost impossible to step up and make a difference in the market.

No, I disagree that all possible GH methods have already been invented since every time a new social media has been invented, every time a new market pops up and every time a new business comes, we have to create new techniques and tricks and magics. Automation in GH is different from social to social and from business to business. Instagram has wiped any automation, then TikTok popped up, and thousands of developers have created fantastic automation, helping creators. It’s a perpetual fight between Big Tech and GH.

Mr. Giacomo Arcaro, a Growth Hacker, Crypto Entrepreneur

There is a lot more to discover

We have surely come a long way with so many diverse marketing tactics and successful traffic generation methods. While they may seem like the peak, I believe we have a lot more to discover. With the trends changing constantly, we are sure to find many more ways of succeeding. We have shifted to data-driven ideas as this gives us an accurate measure of things which is quite helpful and shall continue to be so.

Mr. Christian Velitchkov – Co-Founder at Twiz LLC – a full-service digital marketing agency.

Growth hacking skills are becoming a requirement for traditional marketing and product roles

Where 5-10 years ago growth hacking was a unique and valuable enough skill set to stand alone as its own function, growth hacking skills are becoming a requirement for traditional marketing and product roles. The best performance marketers scale their programs by automating everything from bidding to creative testing to targeting. While marketers may not need to be able to write code and implement growth hacking tactics themselves, the best ones need to understand growth hacking tactics and be able to lead technical partners to implement them.

I believe that growth hacking is more about optimizing existing growth tactics (automation and data-driven idea testing) than it is about discovering new methods. That said, I do not believe that all methods have been invented. Growth hacking is still a relatively new approach to marketing and product growth and, as more people develop this competency, I expect to see new applications for growth hacking emerge.

Ms. Rebecca Reap from Kickstand Communications – company that helps today’s most innovative brands — from promising startups to Fortune 500 staples — scale and navigate the communications challenges that come with growth in the 21st century.

Great product leaders get creative on this front.

Do you think all growth hacking ideas have already been invented, or are there new opportunities out there to be discovered?

Much of the early era of growth hacking was about tricking users into sharing their address books and inadvertently inviting their friends to a product. This playbook has fortunately been replaced by modern growth tactics focused on helping customers use and spread products faster and with less friction. New technologies like AI/ML will help suggest what you want to share and when. New tactics for gamifying digital products and enticing us to share emerge all the time. Like all disciplines, growth is accelerated by creativity and there is always a new tactic to be discovered via trial and error.

What is the future of growth hacking? How should a product leader be thinking about what’s ahead?

Hacking growth is akin to unnatural growth accomplished by introducing new nuances and mechanics into a product that increase virality and reach.

For example, some modern products are finding new ways to leverage people’s desire for transparency and real-time collaboration to ensure their friends or colleagues see what they are doing and can easily react or participate.

Whether it is products like Polywork, a new competitor to LinkedIn, adding tags and metadata to posts that make content more discoverable on Google and third-party sites, or a product like Adobe Fresco that lets users livestream their creations to social networks like Facebook, modern products bake in mechanics for growth.

Another modern tactic is introducing gamification and leaderboard options that encourage users to engage as well as share with their friends as a form of flex. I am surprised more productivity tools don’t have a gaming element, like showcasing your speed to inbox zero or how many tasks you have completed. Great product leaders get creative on this front.

Mr. Scott Belsky, Chief Product Officer at Adobe

Not all growth hacking methods have been invented yet

There’s always more to do. It’s easy to fall back on the tried and true, but in marketing that isn’t forward-thinking. There are new channels, publications, mediums, tools, and approaches that pop up every day that can be leveraged. There are new communities that form tight relationships to share information and learn about specific topics. There are innovative partnerships that can develop in any industry that as a result create powerful and innovative joint solutions where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Companies committed to growth hacking need to find new and larger ways to engage their people and the communities in which they participate. The landscape of every industry is always shifting and so must those growth strategies. Often, the outcomes and behavioral adjustments of your audience that result from those shifts can provide hints at what’s to come for successful growth hacking.

Not all growth hacking methods have been invented yet. Automation, data-driven ideas, and testing, while very important, at this point are table stakes. There’s more to leverage that can involve those factors but only focusing on them will only get you part of the way there.

Ms. Shanna Watkins, PR & Experience Curator, Well-Being Expert, Co-Founder of Borne Collection online clothing store.

Growth hacking has made its way into mainstream marketing

Growth hacking’s best days are still ahead. Admittedly, I hear the words growth hacking less often these days – but that’s because it has made its way into mainstream marketing. Everybody seems to be de-risking their marketing projects early and cheaply now. That’s exactly where the line between growth hacking and marketing runs. Growth hacking is coming up with channels that other people are ignoring, testing them as data-driven as possible without spending a lot of time and money. And once you’ve found a channel, automation kicks in and it becomes a marketing project in the traditional sense.

Mr. Ben Freundorfer, Founder of FactBranch. He is responsible for growth. FactBranch connects to a company’s data sources and helps the company display their data wherever they need it.

Market smarter, not harder

Growth hacking is still a work in progress. There are new growth hacking methods being developed constantly, and unless you follow the trends, there’s no way to keep up in today’s competitive market. Automation is definitely a huge growth hacking tool, but I also think leveraging online marketing strategies and “market smarter, not harder” are approaches that we will see develop and become the norm as time goes on.

Mr. Kyle MacDonald Director of Operations at Force by Mojio. Force by Mojio provides the best in class GPS fleet tracking for small businesses.

There will never be an end to all possible growth hacking methods

Growth Hacking is an always innovating science (or art, depending on how you see it) – and will always produce new and interesting scenarios. The change in end user habits, advent of new technologies and products, access patterns, and hence there is always something new to implement and test out – which may work or not.

There will never be an end to all possible GH methods. It will always keep innovating and bringing in new models and ways which would lead to growth. Automation and data driven ideas have definitely helped but then there are a lot of activities and initiatives happening here also, which proves that growth hacking has not been exhausted.

Mr. Sandeepan Jindal – a founder of a SaaS-based product company, called BidFortune – an aggregator of government contracts.

Growth Hacking, Conclusion

Summing up everything said by business professionals regarding the nature, current state and future of the growth hacking, it is possible to say:

Growth hacking itself is a popular enough concept. It is used by many business professionals all over the world.
There are business pros who do growth hacking but do not know that it is grow hacking.
In fact, many business pros are positive regarding the future of growth hacking. They believe this sphere will develop and more and more growth hacks will appear thanks to the invention of new marketing technology, AI advancements and automation tools.
There is a cycle of GH strategies: once some cheap action to attract customers appears – it becomes a growth hack. More and more companies use the same strategy and as time goes by, the given action becomes a default marketing strategy.
The continuation of the previous point: the effectiveness of old growth hacking strategies is decreasing.
Experts are of the opinion that growth hacking is becoming more challenging. To do it, one should be more and more clever and creative.
Sometimes, it is becoming harder and harder to differentiate growth hacking with traditional marketing.
Experts opinion on GH’s dissemination varies: while some say that everyone knows about growth hacking, some still say that growth hacking is a new concept.
Few experts mentioned growth hacking as a constant cultural attitude of a company. This means having a marketing strategy combined with constant generation and elaboration of ideas, trying new things, acting unconventionally, understanding that they might succeed and, surely fail. In fact, this conclusion was inspired by the response provided by Mr. Adar Hay.
Growth Hacking is not something for big corporations. Owners and representatives of SMEs also do their best to learn and apply growth hacking strategies.

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The current research about the nature of growth hacking is not over and is still open for submissions. Do you have an opinion? Please contact us and we will review and add your response to the research.

The research accompanies the short aggregated results published on Forbes Business Development council.

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