Is growth hacking really just smart marketing?

Growth can be hacked. You're doing marketing in an innovative way. I would agree with your statement, growth hacking truly is just smart marketing.

Growth hacking uses data analysis and technology to get more users for a product or service. Growth hackers focus on getting their products into the hands of their users, using whatever means possible. The term is a combination of two words: growth and marketing. So it is marketing, but it is not just marketing. A growth hacker is a person whose primary job is to create and implement marketing strategies that result in higher levels of growth.

I would say yes-ish... but I think it's looking at where growth can come from that isn't what we've traditionally considered marketing channels. For instance, what experiences can you create in your product that will contribute to your k-factor? Additioanlly, I think there's a mentality around rapid and bite-sized tests so quick learning happens - I think that feedback cycle was often slow in traditional marketing.

No, it's about all the little things you can do to temporarily augment specific metrics. I'm not sure it's fundamentally interesting to dig further!

"Growth hacking", I think it's just a fancy word for marketing in general. Growth hacking is still growing a business, and you often do that through sales and marketing. Some might argue that a growth hacker is a person utilising growth hacks, but it's limited how many growth hacks there are. And when they're discovered then the channels close them pretty fast.

@phillipstemann @zainab_saeed1 As a Growth professional i can try to clarify some doubts "Growth Hacking" is an outdated naming (even the creator no more like it > https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/g... ). Nowadays there are a lot of Growth professionals, you can find it in small startups and in the biggest companies (Meta, Spotify, Uber, Amazon etc. etc.). You can also notice how every big company have Growth, Marketing, Performance (and so on...) department well divided. So: "Growth" (without hacking) is definitely not a fancy word to name (smart) marketing. And it's not about tricks, hacks and tactics too. It's a precise methodology to fast experiment on both marketing and product with a multidisciplinary team. It's based on data models, frameworks and strategy. You can also read more on this article from Brian Balfour (ex. Growth @ Hubspot) https://brianbalfour.com/essays/...

It includes engineering and product managers and implies custom development rather than simply traditional marketing assets, which I'm not sure "just smart marketing" gets across. So I think someone that gets the idea it's "just smart marketing" probably has a fairly incomplete understanding of what it really takes to do properly. It's really more smart product management that includes the marketing team as part of the team than it is pure marketing. This is especially true when going down the product lead growth route.

Sean Ellis, the godfather of growth hacking has posted an article on its podcast about this confusion on what growth hacking is and isn't. https://gopractice.io/skills/gro...

It feels like growth hacking is rooted in "exploits." System errors or missed possibilities that users take advantage of. Back in the day, we'd publish a website with a white background. The background however would have one word just copy and pasted all over it. That was our desired keyword, and we made the text white and unselectable. But back then, Google scanned the background and saw our keyword so many times that it ranked. A lot's changed since then, but it makes the point. It's an obvious exploit that's now been corrected. Another example is on Instagram today. IG promotes reels like crazy, and some accounts that don't post videos couldn't take advantage of reels' natural distribution. So they took the same quotes they posted as static images, and made them into 2-second videos and posted them to reels. Is that what Instagram was going for with reels? I doubt it. But it's a clever exploit. Most of these hacks are short-term because platforms (often, not always), cut it off because it upsets too many other users. Some platforms let it go for as long as possible to keep those super-active users happy. A rapper who worked in a fast food restaurant had a growth hack too. He would drop a mix-tape in every takeaway bag to get his music out into the world. It's a clear exploit, and I'm sure it didn't last long... but it's an applicable example. I doubt the fast food restaurant saw that coming. In my case - anytime I go to the mall - I visit the Apple store and change all the computers, so the default webpage is for my newsletter... not sophisticated. Still, it's not the apple stores intended usage of their display computers, yet here I am with extra subscribers. Good copy, design, and good ideas are not hacks. Being great at IG ads doesn't mean it's growth hacking. Once 5, 6, or 7 + channels start going for one company, then hacks are easier to find and exploit. I hope that helps draw some lines! This was my first post on the PH community. Do you know if I'm allowed to drop and link and say "subscribe to my newsletter" at the end of posts like this? 😅

100% hacking is just a cool word. but at the same time... growth hacking techniques to a certain level, do have; bending the rules kinda approaches.

There's a lot of fancy terminologies out there, but bottom line there's only so many user activation channels accessible. Growth hacking to me is assessing your business situation, your product and team capabilities, and selecting the channels with highest likelihood to work for you. For reference, these are the common channels you can leverage as a startup, for whose "growth hacking" is most relevant (quoted from Lenny's podcast): - activate friends and colleagues - cold target strangers that fit your ICP - go to (digital) places that your ICPs hang out - Hire influencers that your ICPs are following - physical placement - get press - create viral content For VoiceLines as a messaging service product, of course viral content is one of our core growth pillars

There is a good subreddit on the topic by Ryan Holiday and me: https://www.reddit.com/r/GrowthH...

I feel this way about ABM — it's nothing but a very detailed version of smart marketing ... which we should all be doing anyway. We marketers like to come up with a bunch of fun terms to market ourselves as thought leaders on LinkedIn, haha. :) That said, I agree with a lot of the posts on this thread that the main differentiator of growth hacking is that is generally not sustainable long-term ... it's meant to be a combination of short term, manual, innovative tactics to provide business growth. Almost the antithesis of a formalized or sophisticated marketing campaign.

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Amazing thread, reading on hoping to see more in the comments!

What's the difference between growth hacking and marketing? Would love to know :)

Growth hacking is an edgy term. It's a term made up by a marketer for marketers. So when someone claims they're a growth hacker they were fooled by another marketer who made up this term without any substantial difference to marketing.

Depends on the growth marketer you work with/hire. Some are better than others because they know the tips and tricks to accelerated growth, they understand how to reach an audience fast, convert them with right sales strategy. Other "growth marketers" are just glorified facebook ad agencies / media buyers.

Growth hackers are not only good at marketing their products but are also data-driven and analytical. They use data to guide their actions. They are marketing-savvy and thus, may be considered "hackers" of marketing. They are open to new tactics but will also be very deliberate in their execution. The ultimate end of "smart marketing" is to maximize ROI. When a growth hacker is involved, the end game is not just to maximize the customer acquisition but to maximize that customer's lifetime value.

Growth hacking is not marketing. Growth marketing is. Growth hacking is a set of functions like marketing, engineers, product developers who combined perform A/B tests.