Growth Hacking is a great option for anyone looking to grow their business fast! For anyone unfamiliar with the term, growth hacking refers to a series of techniques used to add social media followers rapidly and with minimum investment on your part. As growth hacking’s popularity grows, people are coming with more and more ways to draw followers to their brand. The tricky part is usually finding out which technique works best for you. Don’t worry, we’re here to help! 

So, in no particular order, here is a list of 17 of our favourite growth hacking tactics! 

1 – Smart Social Media Monitoring 

In 2020, having a social media presence is absolutely necessary. The disheartening part of being a new company on social media is the fact that every account starts with no followers. So how can you kickstart a social media following? One answer is with strategic social media monitoring.  

This is often overlooked but it’s the easiest and most effective tactic for organic growth! Develop an understanding of your target audience’s online presence and find out who they are currently supporting. Once you find this out: interact with your target audience and interact with competitors. 

Important: Be polite; don’t take it as an opportunity to attack other companies in the same industry. One ethos of the web: “collaborate and compete.” This is doubly true interacting in the same spaces as your competition. Be informative. Be helpful. Create meaningful interactions with the pages and avoid any direct solicitation of your products and services! You’ll have better results creating a meaningful interaction (eg. “this makes sense of X”) rather than a generic comment like “nice picture” or “you might like our page, check it out”. 

2 – A/B Testing with Measured Conversion 

Knowing your customer’s behavioural patterns at the beginning of your venture can be difficult. Your landing page, wording or design elements could be the thing that’s driving potential customers away and you might not even know it. With A/B testing with measured conversion, you can determine your target audience’s behavioural patterns to quantify which test versions are more effective. 

A/B testing can be as basic as changing one word, changing the colour scheme of your CTA buttons or trying out a new blog title. The key lies in tracking it, so you can see whether any given change affects conversion or not. 

3 – Guest Posting & Tools like HARO 

Guest posting is the act of writing blog posts or articles for a website that isn’t your own. Though can take time, it’s a great tool for increasing brand awareness. 

Looking to get started with guest posting? Reach out to credible websites and see if they are interested in including one of your blog posts. If they aren’t accepting guest blog posts, then try a guest blogging platform such as myblogguest.com or place yourself as a potential source for journalists on helpareporter.com. 

If you’re thinking about guest posting, keep in mind. 

• Write blog posts for websites or people that have a similar (or same) audience to your target audience
• Be informative! Apply personal experience and research to the topic.
• Don’t be afraid to work with an old topic. Use juxtaposition to contrast an old idea with something new in the field. 
• Be positive. Try to add new knowledge and insight through your work. Don’t just re-hash established data.
• Include a call to action or a minor pitch at the end to entice people to visit your page. 

4 – Leverage Referral Programs

A great way to grow your business is with a referral program! Referrals allow existing customers to vouch for your business and act as a trusted voice to people in their network. This system is cyclical as it then opens the opportunity for new members to act as the trusted voice to their network and so forth. 

When implementing a referral program, the most important element will be to offer an incentive program with it. Dropbox is a great example of this; the company allowed both its users and their referrals to add an extra 500 MB upon successfully referring new members. This referral program increased signup conversion by 60%.

5 – Become a Leader on New Platforms 

Social media is an ocean of opportunity, but popular platforms like Instagram and Facebook have plenty of boats. Becoming a leading fashion brand on crowded platforms such as Instagram or Facebook takes much more effort. Incorporating your brand on a new social media platform or a platform that does not have leaders in your industry on there, gives you the opportunity to become the leader. Keep in mind, for this to work, you need to know which social media platforms your target audience uses! 

6 – Add Value with ‘a Freebie’

Similar to food samples at Costco, offering your customers a “Freebie” is a great way to give your customer a taste of what you have to offer before they are required to commit. If your business doesn’t allow for a customer to “try before they buy”, offering a gift to add value is also an option. 

A “freebie” can be a trial period of your service, a sample of a product to try, or a specialty gift to act as a “thank you” for choosing your company. 

7 – Add Personality 

Personality is another great way to increase brand loyalty and viral potential. There are two ways to add personality: Creating or emphasizing a social media style and tone for your brand, or putting a human face to your organization. 

One example of this is Chris Hughes from A Nerd’s World; a web developer and SEO professional in Toronto. Chris has a captivating personal presence and highlights this through his successful YouTube channel. Creating a trusted personality linked to his brand’s name has given him a large social media presence (over 20K subscribers) and growth for A Nerd’s World. 

8 – Run a Contest 

People love a chance to win free stuff! Running a contest is a sure way of generating brand awareness and growth on social media. The key to running a social media contest is to make sure your prize fits with the company’s brand. This helps you attract people who will continue to follow and support your brand after the contest is over. 

Don’t forget to be purposeful with your contests. Have a goal in mind and make sure that the reward, the rules, and the contest structure are aligned with those goals. 

9 – Create Tiers and “Freemium” options 

“Freemium” is a portmanteau of the words “free” and “premium;” it’s a business model that involves offering customers both complimentary and extra-cost services”. 

This strategy attracts people who are interested in the product as well as those who love to see the word FREE! 

10 – Partner with Influential People  

There’s no denying, the word “influencer” has been exhausted after the last few years but that doesn’t mean they aren’t effective! Similar to defining your target audience, targeting the right influencer for your brand and product is the key for amazing results. 

Influencers have spent time cultivating trust from an audience of like-minded people. Their referral can increase conversions and generate sales immediately. Sounds great, right? Well there’s more! Influencers are also skilled at creating great interactive content that can be shared to your platform later. 

11 – Create FOMO  

FOMO is the fear of missing out; the state of anxiety caused by the thought of missing out on something great. Done right, it entices purchase to purchase a product or service to avoid that anxiety. 

Create FOMO by creating urgency; give them an offer they can’t refuse! This is typically done with online contests, special sales and offers, and limited-time promotions to name a few. Another tactic is creating exclusive offers. For example: 25% off select merchandise for those on the mailing list. 

12 – Building Online Communities

A social media presence should be a priority for all businesses. It isn’t just a cost-effective marketing platform; it’s also a way to build a customer-facing online community. Building your online community will involve a few detailed decisions: deciding on a target audience, picking your niche, developing content strategy and creating valuable content. 

There’s no denying that building an online community takes time, especially if you’re starting from scratch, but the results are growth in brand awareness, brand loyalty and trust, direct product/service feedback, and more!

13 – Gamification Strategies (Competitions, Rewards) 

Gamification is the process of adding gaming elements to non gaming environments, such as your online community. Gamification can be any form of loyalty program that creates competition to receive the most incentives. 

The best example of this: Starbucks’ Summer Drink game. This summer exclusive game allows customers to connect their Starbucks account to a board game. Players earn moves with every Starbucks purchase made over a certain period of time, which allows them to move across the board to reveal prizes.

Strategies like the Starbucks Summer Game create engagement in the community and provide instant gratification for consumers, while simultaneously generating more sales for the company. 

14 – Build Your Email List Pre-Launch 

An email list of engaged users who are excited about your brand or product release is a great asset to your business. The question is, how can you generate an email list of users interested in your brand before launch date?

One technique to generate an email list before you launch is by using the calls to action in your guest blog posts to direct readers to your email signup page. This page should be designed to attract visitors to convert and add themselves into your mailing list. 

Another great means of adding people to your email list is to offer them something in exchange. Find something of value to your target audience, and offer it to them in exchange for joining your email list. 

15 – Repurpose Content

Repurposing content is a great way to be consistent online when you’ve hit a creative slump. You do have to remember that not all content can be repurposed. Anything topical, that’s tied into a specific time, trend, or event shouldn’t be repurposed. It’s better to repurpose things like general concepts, facts, or marketing tactics that are still up to date. 

Recyclable content goes beyond pictures, infographics and videos. It also includes blog posts or other articles that you may have written in the past. Just tweak them a little to bring them up to date.

16 – Content Promotion Strategy 

Creating content is one step, but the real priority is getting it seen. Start by promoting it on all appropriate platforms. Not all posts are built the same, so if you’re looking to share a post across all social platforms, make sure it is edited to work for all platforms. (Ex: adjusting image size, rewording language, adjusting calls to action) 

If you’re a newer brand, share your blog posts and content in your newsletter. Not only are you getting your content seen, but you could be reaching new potential followers.

17 – Website Pop-Ups

Pop-ups are an effective strategy markets use to garner conversion rates higher than 40%. Depending on how much content you have on the page, passive viewers may not scroll down to where you can convert them. A pop-up puts important information like  announcements or your email list sign up right in front of their eyes. 

But aren’t pop-ups annoying? Not when they’ve been strategically set at the 30% mark of the page! This allows engaged readers to scroll through the site as normal, only giving them the pop-up at the point where they expect to be hooked. This way they’re more likely to convert to the CTA you just put in front of them.  

About Us 

Web321’s Web Design Subscription Plan makes it possible for small businesses to get a professionally designed, lovingly maintained website for just $321 a month. This done-for-you service includes absolutely everything a small business needs to have a compelling, safe and secure website and online presence.

For more information, check out our website https://web321.co or @web321co on all social media channels. 

The post 17 Ways To Win at Growth Hacking  appeared first on Hospitality Web Design.

When it comes to web design, there are many designers and packages available. Various players in the web industry have tried to differentiate themselves with new features and buzzwords – but how many of these “premium features” are actually standard? In many cases, your provider may be artificially throttling a feature they get for free, or in unlimited supply, just to turn around and sell it to you as something special.

When looking for your next website design, make sure that you are not paying a premium for the following features: 

1. WordPress Website

WordPress websites are fast, powerful, and secure – but they are built using open-source software which, on its own, is free. Web developers may use WordPress as a foundation to build great websites, but they aren’t paying anything for the tool they’re using. Granted, it does take a small amount of effort for a developer to install WordPress and connect it to a database, but that’s true of any website content management system. WordPress should be marketed as a feature – because it’s definitely one of the better platforms out there – but if a package charges you a premium for WordPress, look out!

2. Mobile-Ready

In a time where almost everything is digitally driven, 45-55% of website audiences are viewing sites using mobile devices. In fact, having a mobile-ready (“responsive”) website is more important than ever! 57% of users visiting a non-responsive website on their mobile device won’t recommend that business.   A good web designer should make every site they build responsive by default, without a premium charge. If your designer is trying to tack on extra fees for this “feature”, look elsewhere!

3. 99% Uptime 

Website uptime is the time that a website or web service is available to the users (“up”) over a given period. Optimal website uptime is 99.9%, which guarantees your website is up and running with only 43 minutes of downtime out of the 720 hours in a month. 

If your website has an uptime of 99%, out of the 720 hours in a month, your website will have a downtime of 7.2 hours per month. That difference is huge!

A 99% uptime guarantee is nothing special and falls far short of the minimum 99.9% uptime you should be looking for. If you’re being charged a premium for 99% uptime, in our opinion, you’re getting fleeced.

4. Unlimited Email Addresses 

Hearing “unlimited” always sounds like a win and mentally justifies a premium price. However, you may not know that most hosting comes with unlimited email addresses for your domain – all your web designer has to do is activate them for you. What’s actually limited is the drive space available on the server – and most providers will cap the size of each email account to prevent hitting the drive space limit. Essentially, if your web designer is charging you extra for more email addresses, they are charging you a premium for something they get for free.

To put this in perspective, imagine a pizza parlour offering you a pizza that has 20 slices. This sounds like a great deal, however, is the pizza really any bigger than if they cut the same pizza into 10 slices? Be careful you aren’t paying more money for the same thing just because there’s a more impressive number attached.

5. Unlimited Blogging 

Here’s another example of how packages use the word “unlimited” to create the illusion of a juicy deal. The space available on your server, or server farm will reach a cap at some point. However, this cap is usually very large and isn’t a problem for most businesses (unless you’re an extremely large firm such as Facebook).  

When it comes to blogging, you shouldn’t have a limit to how much you can publish. Blogging as a tool on your platform helps create viewership on your website and demonstrates your thought leadership. It gives you the opportunity to drive search traffic, generates leads, and acts as content for email newsletters. 

If you’re given a limit of how many blogs you can post on your website, your provider is artificially throttling your growth simply so they can ask you for more money. The only limit on how much you blog isn’t server space – it’s subject matter and time. (We can actually help with that, too.)

6. Unlimited Form Submissions

Forms on your website allow your future clients to contact you about purchasing your services, request quotes, or inquire about your company. Form submissions are the key to successful conversion on your website. 

Some providers are stingy with their bandwidth, and will actually throttle the number of form submissions you’re allowed – even though their capacity to handle form submissions is huge! This means that at some point, you’ll reach a limit of form submissions for a given time frame. If you want more, you’ll have to shell out extra money for this “feature”. Not cool.

7. Content Editors 

As your business grows, you’ll probably look towards hiring talent to contribute or edit the content on your website. A hidden element of some packages is artificial “limits” to how many content editors you are allowed on your website. On WordPress websites, for example, there are no practical limits to how many editors you can add to the site – unless your web developer imposes one.

When it comes to your website, you may want to limit the number of content contributors for administrative or tracking purposes, but your web provider should never impose a technical limit on this number. If they do, they’re likely looking to make an extra buck off you.

Web321 is Different

At Web321, we know you don’t have money to waste. You shouldn’t need to bribe your web design, web management or hosting company for features that should come standard. Our pricing structure is simple – $321 for everything you need, no artificial limits imposed. That means if we don’t pay for it, neither do you.

So if you want an all-in-one web design, hosting, and management experience that includes standard in every build:

• WordPress website platform
• mobile responsiveness for every screen size
• free premium plugins
• 99.9% uptime guarantee
• unlimited email addresses
• unlimited blogging
• unlimited form submissions
• unlimited content editors
• unlimited done-for-you content updates
• and a lot more…

…visit our website at https://web321.co or email us at contact@web321.co for info.

The post It’s 2022: These Are Seven “Features” That Shouldn’t Cost Extra appeared first on Hospitality Web Design.