Gain Clients with Growth Hacking
“A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth. Everything they do is scrutinized by its potential impact on scalable growth.” -Sean Ellis

What does every single industry have in common? They all want to grow. However, it can be difficult for new businesses to resist the urge to model themselves like every other business in corporate America. The truth is small businesses don’t need the same structure and goals as large businesses, and it’s OK to adjust your goals and processes as you grow. It’s easy to become too process-oriented and forget business is about results—and that’s where growth hacking can help you.
Growth hacking 101
In 2010, author, podcast host, and business coach Sean Ellis coined the term “growth hacking” and defined it as a mindset that you can adopt to attain scalable growth in your business.
Some people think growth hacking is simply a buzzword, but it’s not. Don’t be fooled by the term hack. Growth hacking is more than a bunch of tactics and tricks, and it’s certainly not a get-rich-quick plan—you must put in the work to see results.
Focus on what will help you grow right now and how you can use your failures as a stepping-stone. This tactic is effective for startups—it’s cost-effective and efficient, using trial and error to understand what works and leave behind what doesn’t. In other words, you should be able to acquire as many users or customers as possible while spending as little as possible. But it works for other types of businesses too.
An effective growth-hacking strategy
If you’re ready to start growing your business, take the time to develop a strategy first. Remember that you don’t need to have every detail figured out beforehand—dive in even if you’re unsure.
Leverage your following
You may not realize it, but you already have a great source of new business sitting in front of you: your existing clients. Tapping into your relationships is an inexpensive and effective customer-acquisition method. Your customers already know you and your business, and they can refer your business to their friends and family effectively because they know and trust you.
Real company example: One of Hotmail’s competitors spent $20 million to attract less than half of Hotmail’s subscribers, Hotmail spent only $500,000 over 2 years and gained 12 million subscribers. They did so by simply placing a link at the bottom of every email that said, “Get your free email at Hotmail.” The company leveraged their following’s desire for a free way to access their email from anywhere online, and they made it easy to sign up and share with friends and family.
However, just asking for referrals may not be enough. You have to offer consistent chances for clients to engage with you and get excited about your business, which leads to the next part of your strategy.

Find your “aha!” moment
There are usually points in your customer experience when things click, and your customer gets hooked. That’s the “aha!” moment you need to pinpoint and use. Once a customer reaches this point, they become a raving fan of you and your business.
Growth hackers know that lasting excitement from clients comes from action, not ideas. A classic way to hook your customer is to develop a personal relationship with them through conversations and stories that turn you into a friend. Don’t feel discouraged if you don’t connect immediately with a client after one personal conversation. All good relationships take time to blossom. With growth hacking, it’s vital to try a wide variety of tactics with different people to see what sticks the most.
Real company example: Looking through their analytics, the growth team at Twitter discovered that people who followed at least ten other people on Twitter were dramatically more likely to be active users than those who followed less than ten. That “aha!” moment became the focus of their efforts. It was the impetus for the “People to Follow” feature, among others. Once Twitter’s team optimized for this metric, its user retention and engagement rates rose significantly.
Test small and scale
The fact is, while you can hypothesize what’s going to work, you never know until you test it. Ellis even admitted most growth ideas fail. That’s why he believes it’s vital to explore a wide variety of options.
Relationship marketing is a personal approach, which means it usually lacks the structured tests some other marketing approaches use. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t measure and learn with relationship marketing, and you can easily do so by testing small and scaling up or down appropriately. Here’s how to do it:
- Develop ideas for strengthening relationships, such as posting on social media or sending newsletters. Write down as many realistic ideas as possible.
- Try each of your ideas with your clients using a cross-sample of your client list. Set a specific time frame, such as three months, to ensure your ideas are working.
- Record the results of your cross-sample in terms of referrals and other KPIs. For example, write down if you learned something personal about your client and if the client approached you for a follow-up conversation. Give every KPI a point, and tally the points for each method.
- Analyze which of your efforts gave you the best return on your time and resources. Scale back on any methods that didn’t yield promising results.

Automate whenever possible
If reaching out to the bulk of your client list seems daunting, it’s time to automate. You only have so many hours in a day and many crucial tasks to accomplish, so automating emails and streamlining processes can free valuable time for you to focus. Nowadays, many people hire a virtual assistant from an affordable site like Fiverr or Upwork to support their outreach tasks.
Real company example: When Airbnb was first trying to gain traction in the marketplace, it developed a way to integrate their service with Craigslist. Listings on Airbnb were automatically posted to Craigslist as well. As a result, when people visited Craigslist searching for a place to stay, they found Airbnb listings with a link to the Airbnb site. Airbnb could also reach Craigslist posters by email to promote the ability to post to both platforms without any extra effort.
Actionable items
Consider the four A’s—assess, ask, act, and analyze—when taking actionable steps toward growth hacking. Implementing these tips can help you find success with this method.
Assess
Update your client list, look through your contacts, and assess what you believe your clients appreciate the most about doing business with you.
Ask
Ask your top clients what they appreciate about your business, and use this information to compare your beliefs to what clients are thinking.
Act
Arrange a plan of attack to connect with your clients. Start by posting more frequently on social media and direct-messaging top clients. Ask them what they think of your content to gain insight into your clients’ preferences. Be sure to follow up with another conversation soon. You should also send email newsletters. Use the newsletter as a direct way to follow up with recipients.
Analyze
Analyze your results by looking at the following:
Social media: evaluate how many views, likes, and comments your content is getting, how many responded to your message, and if you learned anything new about your clients.
Email newsletter: evaluate how many clients opened your newsletter, how many responded to your follow-up, and if you gained any insight into your client’s lives.
If social media performed better, scale back the frequency of your newsletters to focus on posts and messages and vice versa if email performed better.
Growth hacking is about small actions that make you work smarter, not harder, to grow your business. By focusing on strengthening your relationships in a cost-effective and time-saving way, you can grow your business quicker than you expected.