It’s not every now and then that you bump into ‘growth hacking’. So, what is it then? Well, it’s a marketing technique first developed by Sean Ellis in July 2012. Ever since – Google has more than 32,700,000 pages on that subject. So, how is growth hacking intertwined with content marketing? That is what you’re about to find out.
Let’s take a simple formula for example –
If a growth hacker’s aim is to devise growth strategies, then a content hacker’s target is to develop shareable content.
Therefore, the aim of content marketing = Make sharable content.
What makes content more sharable?
Here are some of the statistics to make you understand better:
- 94% of articles with images generate more views
- 36% of generic readers prefer headlines to start with a topic right away
- 36 of the top 80 stories shared on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter include videos to reel in more audience
Furthermore…
- Blogs provide sites at least 434% more pages indexed by Google
- Articles with a word count over 2400 rank higher in the Google search index
- Content hacking is ranked as the most effective SEO tactic by 53% of content marketers
- 78% of consumers believe that organisations which provide custom content have better chances of gaining user engagement
What does the goal of a growth hacker be?
- The first and foremost aspect of content marketing is FOCUS.
Growth hackers stealthily pursue and grow only one metric. It’s your gas pedal to slam right on – that will accelerate your business and outdo the others.
The second aspect is the specificity.
Content hackers set a specific set of goals to measure that one metric which matters. The aim at first is to generate “more” users. Revenue comes at the next priority. They are hell-bent on increasing their user base exponentially.
Revenue will fall in its place – they say!
- The third aspect is the speed.
Growth hacking is essentially about speed. Fix a clear timeline for when your goal will turn into reality. It could be a week, month or a year! However, shorter the timespan, better it is.
…and there you have it!
These are the 3 aspects that are a sure-fire way to up your content marketing strategy. One might find it challenging, but it’s the bitter truth. By now, you must have realised that you can do this. If that means –
- Doubling your sales
- Increasing your user base tenfold
- Tripling your email list
…it’s not an option; it’s a compulsion.
If you want your content marketing services to grow, you must get your hands messy. It’s not complicated. Instead, it is simple, a bit time-taking in the middle but, quite effective in the end.
And, if that makes you sprint towards 10x growth, then it’s time you make a cup of coffee and get it started!
How does growth hacking help content marketing?
The former is essentially a marketing technique that helps startups to sell their products and services to gain exposure. On the other hand, the latter involves creating and sharing media to acquire more customers.
For these, your shareable content must follow through some guidelines –
- Audience fit – Content must be audience fit rather than market fit. It will garner more response.
- Data-driven – A content marketer must always measure and manufacture success at every step of the marketing process.
- SEO minded – A content developer must create contents that are SEO optimised.
- Think growth – A content marketer must focus on growth to pull in more traffic.
- Viral growth – Making your content is something to be created if you’re a content hacker.
- Scale = Scalability – While a growth hacker understands scale, a content hacker seeks sustainability.
Now you can see that this methodology is leaner than those theory-based most marketers use. The simplest way is to make observations, test your hypothesis and find new insights which give you an edge over the competitors.
Hence, to growth hack your copywriting services, you need to –
- Develop more successful campaigns than your competitors
- Identify success patterns within these campaigns which have more likelihood of success
- You can also come up with a new marketing technique based on the previous findings
- A content hacker must test a newly introduced hypothesis to validate them and refute if needed
The results achieved can be assessed to understand what works or what doesn’t.
According to a reputed content strategy institute, around 63% of B2B marketers have claimed to have been effective at content marketing services. It proves that there is a broad gap between what content marketers aim and achieve. It might have to do with the fact that most B2B marketers use tactics by a trial and error method.
Although this is often the recommended method – this dilutes their efforts which make the marketing less potential. Here, growth hacking makes an entry.
How to ‘hack’ your growth potential?
You can start by focusing on scaling up your marketing strategies. To do that, one needs to have a clear idea of how content marketing can assist in growth. Otherwise, you’re falling in those 37% content marketers who lament in not effectively doing it.
You’ll understand that your marketing skills are put to good use when you notice –
- Attract traffic
- Generate more leads
- Nurturing those leads into potential customers
Of all the content you create with your strategy, the focus must be on attaining these goals. Try making your sharable content share-worthy and link-worthy.
Now, coming to the part of generating leads. Feed people what they want to be fed. Give them something which they want so badly, only to get it when they need it the most. After this step is over, your leads must nurture into potential customers. It can be achieved by developing a full-funnel content marketing strategy that ‘feeds’ them with the information they need the most.
So, how to figure out what people want? Most importantly, what do content users demand at every stage of the strategic process?
Here are the essential hacks to up your content marketing services
A content marketer must focus on implementing the following hacks –
Hack #1: Generate more traffic through reverse engineering
Driving organic traffic must be a growth hacker’s sole aim. If one website has adequate domain authorities, one can expect to receive thousands and even millions of footfalls each month – thanks to all the traffic brought by search engines.
To ensure you drive organic traffic, both your contents and websites requires optimising for search engines – especially for Google, which has a 63.8% market share out all search engines in the world.
Hack #2: Get more social media shares
Besides driving organic traffic, having a massive social presence can help you generate more consistent traffic. But, how do you to manage to get social traffic?
Content marketing, nowadays, is all about social presence and readable content. So, one of the popular ways is to get noticed on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google+ among others.
Besides, installing a social-sharing installed and a well Twitter and Facebook presence can be a good start – but at times, that’s not enough. Hence, social plugins come into the picture. For instance, you can try ‘Click to Tweet’ with your content to help you increase the social currency of your readers, hit them with a trigger to share your content. This way, you can lend a practical value and make your posts public, at the same time.
Hack #3: Make sharing feel like a breeze
Content marketing and successful growth hacking share same goal is to generate revenue. One of the smart ways to do that makes your content more shareable.
Create simple click-to-tweet redirect options embedded inside the blog posts – offering users with a call-to-action to share your posts with the world!
Hack #4: Be more aggressive
Most marketers often fail to be aggressive when it comes to collecting leads and emphasise on calls to action. Most of the users are wary of pop-ups or page overlays – hence use blockers to stop them from functioning.
A content hacker knows how to bypass this by adding simple plugins like OptinMonster. This simple and customizable can integrate with all leading email providers. It operates on both free and paid level. If you want, you can grab a licence and make sure to purchase ‘User Intent’ option that will prompt a user with CTA right before one leaves the page.
That’s the best way to pounce!
Wrapping up…
If you’ve been in content marketing, mastering the trick of growth hack will double your success and discard the less-useful parts. That’s how hackers think; now it’s time for you to take the leap and think like a growth hacker!
These innovative tips and hacks will help you to grow your content marketing services faster.
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