Growth Hacking…

No one really knows what it is but it seems people can’t stop talking about it. That’s because of the results proper “growth hacking” campaigns provide, think Airbnb and Dropbox just to name a couple. In fact, Sean Ellis, who was the head of growth at Dropbox, actually coined the term back in 2010.

Currently one of the most talked-about terms in startups and marketing, growth hacking is just a way of saying; acquire as many new users as possible, in the fastest way possible and for the least amount of money possible – how you do it does not matter at all. Growth hackers are less concerned with a prescribed process, long-term strategy and marketing plans, they spend less time planning and more time doing.

Growth hackers are also usually way more involved with other parts of the team (programmers, bizdev, product design, etc) than a normal marketer. They are responsible for calling the shots and making changes anywhere in the company if they believe it will impact user growth, and other parts of the team are happy to oblige since everyone has the same goal, more users.

Growth hacking is tactic-driven, it relies on instinct and pure hustler ambition. More than being just marketers, growth hackers are problem-solvers, constant learners who enjoy pushing the limits. A growth hacker is usually someone who as a kid has been told numerous times he’ll be successful.

Although it is something you can perfect, I strongly believe it’s also something you either have or you don’t. You’ve either been growth hacking your way to free candy and better grades as a kid or you haven’t. Either way, as an SaaS company who heavily relies on growth hacking for our website localization/translation solution, we put together the complete growth hacking list which will definitely open up your mind and help you see marketing in a different light. Here it is.

 Growth Hacking Guides

• The Definitive Guide to Growth Hacking
• 43 Ways to Drive Traffic to your Website
• 21 Actionable Growth Hacking Tactics
• How To Use Growth Hacking To Attract and Retain Customers
• An Epic List of 100 Growth Hacks for Startups
• 15 Truly Awesome Email Marketing Growth Hacks
• Growth Hacking Your SaaS Startup
• The Ultimate Growth Hacking Sourcebook
• 30 Ways to Build the “Know, Like, and Trust” Factor that Grows an Audience
• Growth Hacking 101: Read This To Become A Magician

Growth Hacking Tools

Bablic

We may be a little biased here but truthfully every growth hacker knows that one of the quickest way to increase visits, engagement & conversions is by adding languages. Bablic makes it extremely easy, it lets you translate your website with just one line code. It starts off with free machine translation and then lets you manually edit all of the elements you see (text, images, css, forms, etc) simply by right-clicking on them through a user-friendly, visual, editor. Once you’re ready just paste one line of code onto your website and that’s all. Complete website translation with just one line of code, try it out using our free trial, no credit card required.

HelloBar

HelloBar is a notifications bar that sits at the top of your page and allows you to show important messages to your visitors as well as present them with a call-to-action. Helps with collecting emails and presenting last minute promotions & offers. Also a great way to present any message you want your visitors paying attention to, can also A/B test those messages using HelloBar.

Bounce Exchange

Bounce Exchange – the name says it all, it helps you convert your bounce traffic into revenue. The downside here is that Bounce Exchange is quite expensive, especially for smaller companies. The product is great though, after a 10-second installation, it lets you collect emails right before visitors leave your website.

Snip.ly

Snip.ly is a unique tool that allows you to place your adds and attach a call-to-action to every link you share. If you have a large following, this can be extremely effective. It can also work if you’re promoting/advertising content that is related to your business. For example, if Techcrunch posts an article about a problem lots of startups encounter (lets say website translation) – you can promote that article and attach an add/CTA promoting your company which has an easy website translation solution.

 Sprout Social

Sprout Social is great because it lets you search Twitter conversations for anything related to your business. You can then jump into the convos and add insight as well as offer a discount or free trial for your product. Time-consuming but extremely effective if done properly. A useful tool for social media management, marketing and more importantly, social customer service which seems to be a growing trend that customers truly enjoy.

Optimizely

The go-to A/B testing tool, Optimizely. The leading platform for testing and personalization across devices, Optimizely lets you edit elements and track which perform better, all without any programming required. For example, change your CTA button color from green to red and see the difference it makes, all through their user-friendly editor.

Intercom.io

Intercom basically combines all user interaction (email, livechat, helpdesk, etc) into one easy-to-use back-end. It also lets you reach out to users based on their engagement, last session, purchase and so on. An extremely customizable tool which can easily help personalize all of the conversations you should be having with users/visitors in order to increase conversions and retention especially.

 ClickTale

Clicktale is an impressive tool that lets you build a better online customer experience. You can use their tools (heatmap analytics, session playback and conversion funnels) in order to see how your visitors are behaving on your website and then act on that to reduce friction. Session playbacks are also extremely helpful when it comes to finding out specific issues on certain browsers and browser version. A true must for any website focusing on online sales.

Instapage

Quite possibly the easy way to create landing pages on the fly, Instapage. All successful growth hacking strategies include building landing pages at some point or another. Instapage takes the hassle out of that and lets you customize a beautiful page which suits your needs in only about 3 minutes. Choose from numerous templates and then customize away, a real time saver.

PlaceIt

A simply amazing tool which can help a growth hacker save countless hours, PlaceIt.net. PlaceIt has ready made mockups for most of the devices you can ever imagine, simply upload your screenshot and have your website/featured on hundreds of devices in hundreds of settings. An amazing tool that complements any proper landing page design.

Growth Hacking Resources

• Unsplash – Free High Resolution Stock Photos ( More similar resources here)
• PetitHacks – A collection of Acquisition, Retention, & Revenue hacks used by companies
• SimilarWeb – Discover your competitors’ website traffic statistics
• BuzzSumo – Analyze what content performs best for any topic or competitor
• StartupStash – A curated directory of resources & tools to help you build your Startup
• LittleBigDetails – Daily UI inspiration

Growth Hacking Blogs/Communities

• GrowthHackers – A community for growth-focused marketers
• Quora – Growth Hacking topic on Quora
• SixteenVentures – Marketing, customer acquisition & growth strategies
• Dan Martell – Founder of Clarity shares his growth hacking insights
• Quicksprout – The official QuickSprout blog by Neil Patel
• Colibri’s Blog – Growth hacking blog by the Colibri.io team
• GrooveHQ’s Blog – Blog led by the GrooveHQ team – road to $500k
• Reddit Growth Hacking – Subreddit for growth hacking
• Andrew Chen – One of the pioneers of growth hacking blogging & essays
• OKDork – Noah Kagan’s growth hacking blog

Growth Hackers to Follow

• Neil Patel – Read his blog too
• Noah Kagan
• Andrew Chen
• Ryan Hoover – Follow him on Medium too
• Bram Kanstein – Follow him on Medium too
• Seth Godin
• Sean Ellis
• Eric Ries
  
• Nathan Barry – Read his blog too
• Evan Solomon – Follow him on Medium too

Growth Hacking Bonus

If you retain anything from this post it’s this: Absolutely make sure you are part of the communities at ProductHunt and Hacker News – submit your website/product on both of those can generate an incredible amount of traffic, inquiries and even investor interest.

A final growth hacking tip, add languages to your website. Translating your website may be one of the most underrated ways of gaining more traffic, user engagement and even sales. Try Bablic for easy website translation.

If you enjoyed the post please take the time to share it, it means a lot. Also, if we missed any resources don’t hesitate to post them in the comment section below!

Hack away!