Samir Patel is president and CEO GrowthMachines TheGrowth. Academy and Mentor to 500Startups.
"the ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly an organization, is the ultimate competitive advantage."
~ Jack Welch, former CEO of GE
The reality is most companies have types of digital marketing old school in leadership roles in thinking and outdated methods daily operations. These people, while the experienced and talented in many ways, often have a different set of skills than the growth pirates today.
A new era of tech events began
We're back in New York in November for the 4th edition of our technology event focused on growth .
With the advent of new distribution methods (such as mobile applications and now the platform of the apple show), some companies who "get" these new channels are raking in millions of dollars in revenue in a few short years, while old school companies are left holding the bag. To win or sometimes just to survive, an urgent overhaul of the digital organization must occur.
A key pillar foundation and catalyst in this change your team. This post will guide you in assembling a growing team assistants who practice a constant incessant improvement philosophy and a commitment to understanding why experiences and succeed or fail together have an ability to methodically across your business to greater heights.
In short, they need to know how to design, operate and evolve your growth machine.
Growth Squad = As + Designer + Hacker + Canal Gurus = All Hustlers
meet the new growth Squad:
Chief growth Officer : Drives Profit & Loss Statement for the team. It is a tried-money manager on financial performance, not only digital CMOs screwed on vanity metrics.
As :. In financial jargon, as one is a person who specializes in the application of mathematical and statistical methods - such as digital or quantitative techniques - financial problems and risk management
Designer :. Guru empathy, design thinking, knows how to design for man, not demographics and thinks the conversion before, during and after conception
Hacker : A computer programmer who can speak less and build all kinds of automated programs that help scale marketer of their customer growth
Gurus channel :. tactical and strategic depth knowledge of each paid (adwords, facebook ads, retargeting etc.) and organic (SEO, Social entrants) hacking distribution avenues
9 world class qualities Teams hacking growth
1) Apply Data-Driven Thinking
Everyone on the points of the growth team and includes figures. Analytics, data, pivot tables, and user satisfaction surveys will always guide strategy and take on the intestine assumptions.
Beyond a healthy respect for the data, growth hackers are experts at identifying trends, large and small, and then translate it into information.
2) Fast Learner of Dynamically Changing Channels Marketing and growth platforms
The growth of team broad and deep understanding to quickly move paid marketing channels and unpaid in terms of what they do, how they work, and the time of each holder for the company and the specific marketing industry. Marketing knowledge is essential -. understanding markets and targets users as well as the means to achieve them
SEO, search marketing, mobile, remarketing, social media, viral marketing, email marketing, marketing and platforms incoming software for automation and channel experience, are the responsibility of growing pirate.
3) Understanding growth process
The process by which growth occurs is one of the tests and constant analysis. Tests and optimizations resulting in performance improvements lead to more tests and other brainstorming. The test results are collected and systematized for incorporation into future experiences.
More importantly, the test data is translated into real learning on the market, products, companies and business industry.
pirates growth know that the tests are useless if the results do not lead to better products, an ROI improvement, and key information in business operations and strategy.
4) are very Savvy product
There are many tools in the toolbox growth pirate. In addition to a deep understanding of marketing channels and networks that serve, products and third-party tools are used to obtain and maintain a competitive advantage.
competence in product solutions for myriad A / B and multivariate testing, user analysis, conversion rate optimization, competitive monitoring, on-site investigations retention and the user gives additional insight and performs the functionality for improved tests.
Additional must-know include :. How to measure retention, churn and cohort analyzes
5) Have a Hustle Mindset
most important of all, growth hackers think differently. They think "outside the box", often avoiding common approaches and best practices even if they feel there is a better way to do it. They practice innovation processes by breaking down problems and resolve them through a very organized system controlled experiment. They encourage other growing crop of infecting with the mentality of thinking fiercely logical and creative.
These are personality traits on which the growth of pirate focus because they are used to facilitate the kind of smart and scrappy strategy, tactics and actions that lead the success in the highly competitive and complex world of digital marketing.
6) possess transdisciplinary expertise Set
growth pirates are able to apply their expertise plat- shapes and growth products across multiple disciplines. Based on a large group of people (each with specific expertise in one area, confined), which must work together in order to extract even the most basic knowledge from a test, is suboptimal.
growth pirates have enough knowledge in each area to extract valuable information without having to rely on the "expert" in a particular area to produce the information for them. For example, an SEO specialist needs to understand SEM opportunities for cross pollination.
The member Mixpanel analysis team must understand the product, competition and specific performance to the channel to pull actionable intelligence, and should be able to propose the budget breakdown cross-channel based on the performance of a particular customer segment.
7) Connect marketing to product development
Although somewhat counterintuitive for product developers, growth hackers believe that marketing ideas should inform product development. Marketers usually do not have input into the products they sell, which can create the possibility somewhat predictable construction products nobody wants.
hackers growth appreciate the approach preferred to use reliable market research to inform the development of products, ensure the development is in line with the desires and needs of the market it aims to serve.
"I would like an entrepreneur all you do - every action you take in product development, marketing, every conversation you have while what you do - is an experience
If you can conceptualize your work not as structural features, not as launching campaigns but that the execution of experiments. you can radically get more with less effort. "
~ Eric Ries, entrepreneur and author of The Lean Startup
8) growth acceleration Technical Acumen
growth hackers are skilled in these six technical areas based on:
code - a little knowledge in this field is beneficial when it is time to make a small change to customize or repair broken Optimizely Google Analytics code to track without having time to wait 48 hours for a response from the developer.
Being able to make small changes to the code on the fly can save massive amounts of time and energy in teams and make marketing independent in managing rapid experiments.
Growth Analytics & Data Visualization -. Analytics growth is the command of the growing central team Analytics data is the basis for the marketing strategy, tactics, testing and implementation of results.
Although the free tools like Google Analytics provide a huge amount of information, there are many other analysis solutions on the market, each offering unique features and benefits. A solid mastery across multiple analytical solutions allows marketers to choose the right tool for the job.
Data visualization with Table is a valuable skill to produce actionable intelligence and identify trends. A dashboard 'live' which follows the real-time data in each business unit allows early detection, rapid response to threats and opportunities, and it also keeps the team concentrate goal.
Web Scraping -. Finally, growth hackers know how to find the data they need Web scraping involves collecting and organizing large amounts of data from multiple sources on the web via tools like Import.io and Excel.
There is an extremely powerful hack for traders who want to increase their lead list, make informed decisions about content creation, and track their competition more effectively.
Quantitative Finance - While an absolute mastery is not necessary to understand the basics of statistics in key areas goes a long way towards effective analysis data. With so many handy modern marketing data, it is crucial to understand how to find the signal in the noise.
Advanced Excel / Data Analysis -. Advanced skills Excel means knowing how to make a deal with the data LTV vs CAC analysis, churn and retention analysis, cohort analysis, financial modeling, virality and viral mathematics, multichannel allocation, attribution modeling and understanding of the problems of attribution are all essential weapons in the arsenal of the growing pirate.
A / B multivariate & Testing - Beyond understanding the value of testing, growth hackers know enough about this process (the tools use, how to set them up) to create their own small tests without the need to reach out to developers and designers.
They also know what to do with the data. After running tests Optimizely or Google Website Optimizer, the results are stored and incorporated into future experiences.
9) Hiring
pirates growth have a strong network. When it comes time to build their growing team, they know how to find people who possess not only the growth of skills, but also understand the industry and the particular market their business.
There are invaluable to have colleagues of the team who understand the product, know where the customer acquisition channels are directed, and understand customer behavior and trends in specific industry your organization.
Growth Training Hackers
Once you have identified gaps in skills, there are some ways to fill them. The first way is to train your team. You know where their skills are lacking, to find appropriate training is simple.
One way to start is to keep up with a newsletter from Growth Academy and ask growth MBA at The Next Web . We offer courses in all strategies and key skills for the magic of growth. I t has been my experience that most marketers with a certain level of analysis of core skills, curiosity and the desire to improve can acquire the necessary skills fairly quickly.
Consider these questions for your organization:
- Given your growth plan, it is your own strengths and weaknesses in the first 'P'?
- How do you structure your growing team?
- What is the difference in the acceleration of growth skills?
Ideally, your growing team has a set of nine core competencies. Your company can train existing employees to acquire these skills, or you can hire new team members who already have the skills.
The fastest way to hack growth may be to outsource your growth strategy. Distance Scale!
Sources
- QuickSprout "The Definitive Guide To Growth Hacking"
- WeWork, Roth, Jamie (April 4, 2014) "Stop trying to hire a hacker growth"
- TechCrunch, Ginn, Aaron (8 December 2012). "Setting a growth Hacker"
- firstround (Blog) "The Case For Why marketing should have its own engineers"
- Desmond, Nate. (June 19, 2014). "7 technical skills for marketing growth"
- growth Hacker, Neumann, Chris. (October 17, 2013). "growth Hacker Job Description"
Interested in becoming a growth guru, join the growth MBA in a day, to New York November 17
How your growth machine: Part 1