The Startup’s Guide: What is Growth Marketing?

Walk into any startup these days, and you’ll likely hear the term “growth marketing” thrown around. Job postings have exploded 75,000% on LinkedIn, and Google searches have more than doubled in five years.

But in this world of hyper-growth and unicorn chasers, what exactly is growth marketing? And how can you tap into its power?

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll cover:

• Defining growth marketing and its key skills
• Where this buzzword originated from
• Actionable growth strategies and best practices
• When to hire dedicated growth experts

Let’s dive in!

Defining Growth Marketing

Growth marketing differs from traditional marketing in a few key ways:

• It goes beyond top-of-funnel activities. Growth marketers track the entire customer journey from acquisition to conversion, retention, and lifetime value.
• It leverages constant small tests to drive big wins. Growth marketers run rapid experiments to find the most viable tactics.
• It requires cross-functional skills – creativity plus technical expertise in data, coding, platforms. Speed and rigor are mandatory.
• It is fueled by data and optimization. Every decision stems from customer insights, funnel metrics, and product analytics.

In essence, growth marketing systematically scales all aspects of the customer funnel through science and creativity. The goal is efficiently generating business growth through constantly improving tactics.

Where Did This Buzzword Come From?

While the terminology is new, growth marketing concepts emerged from several forces converging:

• Books like The Lean Startup spotlighted rapid testing and customer learning to minimize waste. Growth marketing is born from this mentality.
• Venture capital accelerated the focus on speed. With compressed timeframes to hit returns, startups had to ruthlessly prioritize growth.
• Attribution modeling and analytics provided the data foundation. Granular cohort insights enabled precise optimization.
• Viral successes like Airbnb and Dropbox highlighted the impact of creativity. Their growth hacking illuminated new possibilities.
• Increased competition mandated efficient customer acquisition. Using data and creativity for an edge became mandatory to survive.

In essence, growth marketing arose as the methodology to systematically gain advantages through better understanding and engaging users.

Growth Marketing Best Practices

If you’re new to growth, here are five foundational best practices:

1. Obsess over data. Analyze every metric, run constant tests, let insights guide you.
2. Experiment rapidly. Use minimum viable tests to quickly validate new channels and tactics.
3. Capture emails and opt-ins. Owned channels are hugely valuable for cost-effective reach.
4. Create remarkable content. Obsess over delivering genuine value to earn trust and lock in an audience.
5. Start niche. Become an expert focused on a tight audience segment before expanding reach.

Creativity matters, but balancing it with an optimization mindset is key. Look for unconventional opportunities while mastering the fundamentals.

When Should You Hire Growth Marketers?

Adding dedicated growth capacity makes sense once you:

• Have initial product-market fit. Growth hires multiply but can’t create fit alone.
• Have budget to spend. To experiment and scale new channels, funding is crucial.
• Need more funnel focus. Specialists can isolate and fix leaks across the customer journey.
• Feel constrained by bandwidth. Growth leaders add capacity so founders can stay focused.
• See competitors pull ahead. With new channels and tactics, growth experts can catch up.

Essentially, growth marketers amplify and optimize funnels that already show promise. They provide rocket fuel on top of strong product-market foundations.

The Key Takeaways on Growth Marketing

Here are the critical points:

• Growth marketing focuses on the full customer funnel, not just acquisition. It scales every stage through data.
• Balancing creativity with rigor and optimization is mandatory for sustainable traction.
• Master fundamental best practices like opt-in capture and niche content creation.
• Add dedicated growth capacity once product-market fit is proven to accelerate momentum.
• Growth marketers enable overcapacity founders to focus on their superpowers like product and vision.

Adopting a strategic growth marketing approach is mandatory to compete in today’s hypergrowth startup environment. With the right mindset, skills, and priorities, you can find and aggressively scale the acquisition and retention channels that propel the next unicorn.