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Growth Hacking Learned from Years at a SAAS Startup

Growth Hacking Learned from Years at a SAAS Startup

2016-06-07 , ,

A member of Wishpond posted the following growth hacking tips (sic).

Growth Hacking Tip #1: Hide retargeting cookies for 45 seconds

Stop retargeting people who bounced immediately from your site. Use a little bit of javascript to hide retargeting cookies for 45 seconds to ensure you’re only retargeting users who are interested in your content.

Growth Hacking Tip #2: Send out old articles as newsletters on the weekend

Capitalize on your mailing list by sending out relevant (but older) content on the weekends. This is a great way to drive more traffic to your blog with minimal effort.

Growth Hacking Tip #3: Provide a secondary CTA on your post sign up page

Strike while the iron is hot and prompt your newly converted leads with a secondary CTA on the post sign up page. Here’s an example of a secondary CTA that we offer new leads on one of our ebook post entry pages.

Growth Hacking Tip #4: Use pre-filled form fields

Use information you already know about your users to pre-fill forms in order to make it easier for them to convert.

Growth Hacking Tip #5: Add hidden form fields to your lead-gen forms

The more you know about your leads, the better you can cater and nurture them in your marketing down the line. One trick used to capture even more information about your leads is to pass a parameter in a URL which can be received by a hidden field on one of your forms. Using this trick you can capture even more information about your leads without making them fill out multiple form fields that you already have information form. Common uses of this can include location, campaign, and interest category.

Growth Hacking Tip #6: Set a time period for your AdWords call extension

If you’re using the phone number call extension on Google AdWords, there’s nothing worse than wasting money on clicks when no one’s around to answer. Use call extension scheduling to set a predefined schedule for when your call extension will appear.

Growth Hacking Tip #7: Use Gmail ads to bid on your competitors keywords

Use Gmail ads to target by keyword in a user’s inbox. This hack allows you to find people who are likely receiving newsletters and other promotional materials from your competitors, and target them with a similar product.

Growth Hacking Tip #8: One click webinar registration (from email)

Use the one click webinar registration hack by passing a users information via a URL once they click on your email CTA. Note that you’ll also need to ensure your landing page is set up to receive these parameters at which time it will automatically sign them up for the webinar rather than requiring them to enter their information again.

Growth Hacking Tip #9: Use Facebook lookalike audiences

Leverage the power of your email list by creating a Facebook lookalike audience. Using this hack you can target people with similar characteristics to your pre-existing email list on Facebook and Instagram.

Growth Hacking Tip #10: Use content upgrades

Content upgrades are one of the easiest and most effective lead generation tactics on the market today. A content upgrade is essentially an extension of one of your content pieces, except available for download in exchange for contact information. Types of content upgrades include: bonus strategies for a blog post, video recordings, checklists, and resource / tool guides.

Growth Hacking Tip #11: Send an “oops! forgot the link” email

When automating follow up emails, consider incorporating some “human errors” into your email sequences. One trick is to send one email that’s missing either a link or a file. You then automate a follow up email 1-5 minutes later sending the missing piece of the first email. While open rates will likely remain the same, we’ve found that conversions for the second email tend to skyrocket.

Growth Hacking Tip #12: Use exit intent popups

Exit popups are an easy and affordable way to capitalize on your pre-existing website traffic. By using exit intent popups, javascript in your browser will identify when a user is trying to leave from your page and automatically display a last-minute offer. This is especially effective for ecommerce companies.

Growth Hacking Tip #13: Trigger SMS text messages based on actions

Using marketing automation, you can now trigger text messages whenever someone converts on one of your campaigns, visits a number of web pages, of makes it onto on of your lists. It also doesn’t hurt that text messages have a 98% open rate. Growth Hacking Tip #14: Create automated webinars Put your webinars on autopilot by creating automated webinars that can keep running the background.

Growth Hacking Tip #15: Send emails from a real person

Rather than sending emails from info@yourcompany.com or even “Tom at Company”, send them from real people with their first and last names. We’ve found people respond better to actual people when compared with generic company emails.

Growth Hacking Tip #16: Add an image to your Google+ profile for increased open rates

While you’re sending emails from a real person, you might as well add an image that will appear in the thumbnail of people’s inboxes as well. This will help reinforce that you are in fact a real person and can help boost open rates on your email mailouts.

Growth Hacking Tip #17: Use Buffer’s optimized posting scheduler

Use Buffer’s optimized posing scheduler to determine the best time to post throughout the day based on the times of highest engagement.

Growth Hacking Tip #18: Reschedule popular Tweets on buffer

Your audience has already told you what they like, why not give it to them? Reschedule popular tweets using the “Re-Buffer” button to keep old content alive and traffic flowing. Just don’t overdo it. Use your common sense (it also depends on how much you’re tweeting and the size of your Following).

Growth Hacking Tip #19: Schedule social media posts using Buffer

Use Buffer to schedule Facebook and Twitter posts weeks in advance and save yourself time and stress.

Growth Hacking Tip #20: Engage in communities

Responding to questions on Quora, reddit, LinkedIn and others are great way of driving targeted traffic to your site.

Growth Hacking Tip #21: Make your 404 page a landing page

When people get lost on your site, why not prompt them with something of value and a CTA? Popular giveaways can include ebooks, checklists, and course signup pages for lost visitors.

Growth Hacking Tip #22: Use an entry overlay

Entry overlays have been known to give insanely high conversion rates for high traffic pages.

Growth Hacking Tip #23: @ mention people when you post content on Twitter

Whenever you share a piece of content on Twitter remember to @ mention the author or the company involved. This is a sure way to get a couple extra likes and retweets.

Growth Hacking Tip #24: Create lists on Twitter

Creating and adding people to lists is a great way to keep your contacts organized, but also allows you to gain visibility on Twitter from people who matter in your space.

Growth Hacking Tip #25: Use autoresponders to send follow up emails

Use a tool like Wishpond to automatically send an email as soon as a user converts on one of your landing pages, popups, or forms.

Growth Hacking Tip #26: Use Google Customer match

Target your best leads across Google search, Gmail, and YouTube using Google’s customer match. By uploading a list of contacts, Google will allow you to target those users specifically across Google’s entire network. This is a great strategy for lead nurturing and user onboarding.

Growth Hacking Tip #27: Use 30% scroll popups on content

Scroll popups are a content marketers dirty little secret. Not because they’re dirty, but because they’re effective. We all know people hate entry popups and few people actually make it to the bottom of your article to see a bottom page CTA. That’s why a 30% scroll pop up works so well. It is triggered based on engagement just before the halfway point of your content. This way you know you’re prompting actively engaged readers rather than people simply browsing through your site.

Growth Hacking Tip #28: Use names in your subject line

Using a user’s name in a subject line is one of the easiest ways to increase your email open rates. This can usually be done through most email service providers using a function called a “merge tag.” Of course, this assumes that you’ve also collected a name field from your leads at some point. Growth Hacking Tip #29: Target people using the local locations option on AdWords (for local businesses) If you’re a local business, you might only want people within Vancouver rather than people searching for “Vancouver.” To weed out the people outside of your desired area, use the local locations option in AdWords to only show your ads to people within a specific geographic location.

Growth Hacking Tip #30: A/B test everything

Wherever there’s traffic, there’s an A/B test waiting to be run. No matter if it’s a blog title, email subject line, popup CTA, or a million other things. There’s an A/B test that can help you optimize that campaign.

Growth Hacking Tip #31: Use a headline tester before publishing

Does your headline suck? Try running it through a headline tester to see how it can be improved.

Growth Hacking Tip #32: Use PDF’s of articles as a content upgrade

Save your blog posts as a PDF and use that as a content upgrade. It’s literally the easiest and one of the most effective lead generation tactics you can employ.

Growth Hacking Tip #33: Use Wistia turnstile to email gate video content

Using Wistia you can gate your video content part of the way through using a feature called Wistia turnstile. Research has shown that gating content around 14% is the most effective and is a great way of coupling video marketing and lead gen.

Growth Hacking Tip #34: Use testimonials on landing pages

In an increasingly online world, social credibility can sometimes be the only factor differentiating you from your competitors. Add testimonials to your landing pages to increase trust and in turn, conversions.

Growth Hacking Tip #35: Auto select form fields

Enable the “auto select form field” option on your landing page forms. This will make it easier for users to convert since they’ll just need to start typing rather than having to select the form, then type. Never underestimate the importance of usability in your sales funnel. Growth Hacking Tip #36: Drive traffic to landing pages instead of your home page Driving paid traffic to a generic homepage is one of the biggest mistakes rookie marketers make. Drive all of your campaign traffic to a dedicated landing page in order to increase conversion rates.

Growth Hacking Tip #37: Clean up your email list

In marketing as well as in life, sometimes you just need to know when to let it go. Use your email provider or leads database to weed out leads that haven’t opened one of your emails in over 3 months. Then remove these users from your active email list in order to get a better gauge of who you’re real audience is.

Growth Hacking Tip #38: Use liquid code to personalize emails

Use liquid code to dynamically change emails based on a user’s behavior.

Growth Hacking Tip #39: Create separate landing pages for each ad group

Creating dedicated landing pages for each of your ad groups is one of the best ways to keep your messaging and content targeted and conversions high. Growth Hacking Tip #40: Create email drip campaigns Nurture your leads using a series of emails that all push towards a sales email at the end.

Growth Hacking Tip #41: Use merge tags on landing pages / popups

Personalization has been proven to drastically improve the conversion rates of emails, landing pages, and popups. Use merge tags to use what you know about your users to dynamically add their personal information to headlines, body text, and CTA’s.

Growth Hacking Tip #42: Use Statusbrew to keep your social media following ratio in check

Use the app Statusbrew to see who is and who isn’t following you on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The app also gives you the option to quickly unfollow, as well as sort users by inactivity and other properties. Growth Hacking Tip #43: Use the hashtag “#growthhacking” on Twitter Trust me, just try it.

Growth Hacking Tip #44: Make your CTA say exactly what the button will do

People will experiment with all sorts of CTAs. But rarely are CTAs as successful as a CTA that describes exactly what the user is doing. I.e. “Get my discount”, “See the 100 Growth Hacks”. Drill down to the simplest action of your CTA for maximum conversions.

Growth Hacking Tip #45: Use the AIDA copywriting formula

When in doubt use the AIDA copywriting formula for all of your landing page and email copy. Growth Hacking Tip #46: Use Buzzsumo to see the most shared content for a keyword Buzzsumo is a great way of seeing what the most popular and shared content is for any topic. Simply enter the search term you want information on and Buzzsumo will return the most shared results over the past year. This is a great way to determine if there’s an SEO opportunity for your brand.

Growth Hacking Tip #47: Use the AdWords keyword planner to find keyword opportunities

Just because you aren’t running any AdWords campaigns, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be using the AdWords platform. Use the AdWords keyword planner to find awesome keyword oppertunties for your content. Growth Hacking Tip #48: Use the skyscraper technique to own a niche If you’re just getting started with content, using the skyscraper technique is one of the best ways to get yourself seen and heard in a busy space.

Growth Hacking Tip #49: Create a referral contest

Referral contests are one of the best ways to run a social promotion with the best chance of going viral. Referral promotions require users refer other users in order to win a prize, which naturally encourages sharing and engagement amongst users. For a walkthrough on how to run a successful referral contest, check out How to Run a Facebook Referral Contest.

Growth Hacking Tip #50: Run a social sweepstakes to generate leads

A social sweepstakes is one of the quickest and easiest ways to generate a ton of leads (or traffic) in a short period of time. Simply select a prize related to your business, come up for a theme of your contest, and have people submit contact information in order to win

Get the extra 50 here, anything we’ve missed?

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