What is growth marketing? Growth marketing aims to sustainably grow a business over time, rather than overtly drive sales. Put another way, growth marketing strategies are deemed successful when a brand has more followers, engagement and daily traffic—not necessarily a higher number of sales.
Established brands use growth marketing strategies just as often as small, startup brands. They use them because they work. In fact, growth marketing strategies can deliver a higher-value punch for smaller brands because they’re low-cost and high-impact, which means more return on every dollar spent.
Ready to learn more about growth marketing and the strategies you can start using today? Read on.
- Growth marketing focuses on long-term, sustainable business growth by emphasizing customer retention.
- Unlike traditional marketing, growth marketing nurtures relationships throughout the entire customer lifecycle.
- Brands of all sizes can benefit from growth marketing’s low-cost, high-impact approach by setting clear KPIs, testing regularly and adapting based on real-time insights.
Growth marketing defined
So what is growth marketing? It’s not just one concept; it’s a collection of marketing strategies. Growth marketing strategies include A/B testing, multi-channel experimentation and growth hacking, but when it comes to that last one, there are a few nuances to keep in mind. What’s most important to understand is that growth marketing is largely characterized by how it differs from traditional marketing, which focuses on acquiring clients and making sales. Growth marketing aims to do these as well, but puts an equal emphasis on keeping customers and making them part of a brand’s long-term marketing strategy.
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Growth marketing is also heavily data-driven. It’s a more nimble approach to marketing than traditional marketing, as it’s focused on continually tweaking strategies based on data as it’s collected. Below are four common growth marketing strategies. A brand may focus on one or make all of them part of a larger growth strategy.
A/B testing
A/B testing is a popular growth marketing strategy because it delivers insights quickly. Basically, here’s how it works:
Two pieces of content, such as an ad with the same graphic, but two different calls to action, are presented to the brand’s audience.
- As the audience engages with the content, the brand collects data.
- The brand then analyzes the data, determining whether Option A or Option B performed better with their audience.
- With the data collected, the brand can make educated guesses about which kinds of content will continue to perform well with their audience. The brand may also choose to test additional options, such as the winner from the A/B test with a new graphic.
A/B testing is a great way to compare advertising ideas. With it, there’s no guesswork—just direct feedback from your audience.
Customer journey optimization
Customer journey optimization is the strategy of making your sales funnel as frictionless as possible. This increases the number of people who make it from the top of the funnel (brand awareness) to the bottom (a sale). In fact, it often involves steps beyond a customer’s initial purchase, nurturing the relationship to keep them in the loop.
To optimize your typical customer’s journey, you need to understand their behavior. Do they care about flash sales or promo codes? Do they respond well to warm check-ins from sales reps? Use data you collect through web and social media analytics, A/B testing, direct feedback and sales trends to craft a customer journey that matches your buyers’ behavior.
Multichannel experimentation
Today, brands rarely have just one marketing channel. You’ve likely got access to social media, digital marketing, print marketing and depending on the type of business you operate, a physical location. A common growth marketing strategy is experimenting with multiple marketing channels.
For example, you might tease a new product drop on social media, but make it exclusively available in your store. This promotion catches followers’ attention online, but drives them into your shop where they’ll not only get that rush of snagging exclusive merch, but experience all you’ve put into creating an immersive shopping experience. Maybe that’s a tantalizingly scentscaped showcase or the opportunity to have an expert salesperson recommend the best product for their skin type. In any case, it’s a memory that will make them continue following and supporting your brand.
Data-driven decisions
At the end of the day, every growth marketing strategy involves data-driven decisions. The entire purpose of A/B testing, customer journey optimization and multichannel experimentation, plus other growth marketing strategies, is to understand your customers better so you can meet them where they are.
But once you understand your customers, you need to act. That’s the part that’s “meeting them where they are.” If the data shows that two-thirds of your buyers not only shop online but shop on mobile and tend to engage most with your brand on weekday evenings, a data-driven decision may be to run weeknight flash sales on social media.
Growth marketing vs. other types of marketing
How is growth marketing different from traditional marketing? What about other types of marketing?
As we discussed above, the difference is in the goal. While growth marketing focuses largely on data collection and guiding customers through the entire sales funnel, traditional marketing mostly aims at the top of the funnel, with the goal of customers continuing the buying journey on their own. Neither is better or worse than the other, per se, and it’s very common for companies to use both traditional and growth marketing strategies.
Here are a few more insights about traditional marketing and growth hacking, a strategy that often comes up in growth marketing conversations.
Traditional marketing
Traditional marketing is a broad category that includes a lot of marketing strategies. These strategies include, but are not limited to:
- Direct mail campaigns
- Print and digital advertising
- Flyers
- Product placement
- Sponsorships
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
Traditional marketing strategies are strategies that are tried-and-true. This doesn’t mean every strategy or every campaign is guaranteed to work; it means these strategies have been successfully employed in the past and that brands can follow these success stories as blueprints.
Traditional marketing is used by businesses large and small, in just about every industry. Generally, it’s best to stick to strategies with a track record in your industry, like sponsoring events as a beverage brand and email marketing as a housecleaning service. A few more examples of ways brands can effectively use traditional marketing methods include:
- Billboard advertisements for local restaurants
- Flyers promoting sales at clothing boutiques
- Digital advertising for software as a service (SAAS)
- Content marketing strategies, such as blogging and social media, to promote automotive services
So, how is growth marketing different from traditional marketing? It’s the overall intent. Traditional marketing focuses on the top of funnel (TOFU), which is the beginning of a customer’s journey with a brand. This could be when they see their first ad for the brand, walk past the business’ storefront or receive a cold email from the brand. The customer (likely) isn’t ready to buy anything yet, but now that they’re aware of the brand, they may make a purchase in the future.
Growth hacking
While the terms growth hacking and growth marketing are sometimes used interchangeably, they aren’t quite the same thing. Growth hacking is solely focused on rapid growth, typically through client acquisition and brand awareness. Here’s how it’s different from traditional marketing: While traditional marketing relies on established strategies like brand marketing and advertising, growth hacking strategies emphasize experimentation and flexibility.
Growth hacking strategies also prioritize rapid, repeatable results. They aim to generate near-instant data that the brand can analyze, interpret and leverage in following marketing campaigns.
Instead of positioning growth hacking as separate from growth marketing, it’s actually more accurate to understand it as part of the growth marketing puzzle. Growth hacking strategies are largely part of overarching growth marketing strategies. The difference here is that while growth hacking aims to get more social media follows, more email signups and more traffic to websites and stores, growth marketing aims to hold those followers’ attention and keep them engaged after they’ve made a purchase. In essence, growth hacking refers to the first steps, and growth marketing refers to the entire life cycle of a strategy developed to curate a loyal fan base.
Growth marketing in action
A strong growth marketing strategy is effective for any business, large or small. By design, it’s also how a small business becomes a medium, then large business. Read on for real-life examples of brands that used growth marketing strategies to grow exponentially.
Etsy
Etsy.com is the world’s leading sales platform for handmade and vintage items. But it didn’t start out that way. In 2005, Etsy was a mere concept and today, it boasts a $6 billion market cap.
Here’s what the company did:
- Social listening: This is literally spending time in online spaces where your target audience hangs out and paying attention to what they’re saying. Etsy found that sellers were frustrated with eBay’s high fees and hands-off relationship with sellers. With this in mind, Etsy built a platform that was the anti-eBay in these ways.
- In-person introductions: Etsy’s founders personally went to craft fairs and vendor shows to pitch their new platform directly to artists and makers. This created trust and paved the way for artists to become spokespeople for Etsy.
Tinder
Tinder changed the online dating game by introducing the “swipe.” As of 2024, it boasted 60 million monthly active users and 9.6 million subscribers.
Here are a few growth marketing strategies Tinder used to become the powerhouse that it is today:
- Gamified dating: Through the swipe feature, Tinder made browsing profiles feel more like a game. Simply put, it lowered the fear factor involved in online dating and made it fun.
- Adding new features: Features like “matchmaker” and “moments” continue to add value to the app, keeping users on the platform and preventing it from feeling stale.
- Continued improvement: Tinder isn’t the only dating app on the market, but it’s one that stands out as an app that listens to its users. Over the years, Tinder has incorporated user feedback into new features and changes to the app, such as making it easier for women to avoid heckling and harassment.
Spotify
Spotify currently boasts more than 600 million users and a market cap of $142 billion. But how did the company reach these numbers?
Initially, Spotify was a disruptor. By offering a seemingly endless music catalog for a low monthly fee, or even free with ads, Spotify changed how we listen to music. But beyond this, Spotify employed growth marketing strategies like:
- Partnering with Facebook: By integrating with Facebook, Spotify got its brand in front of millions of users. This move also lent Spotify credibility, as Facebook was one of the biggest brands on the internet.
- Experimentation with new features: Like Tinder, Spotify continues to innovate its users’ experience by introducing new features. A few recent features include an AI-powered DJ and the now-annually anticipated Spotify Wrapped.
- Acquisitions: Spotify acquired Anchor, a podcasting platform, in 2019. Anchor was then rebranded as Spotify for Podcasters, then Spotify for Creators, which keeps podcasters on the platform through easy tools and integrations.
Getting started with growth marketing
One of the best parts about growth marketing is that it’s fairly inexpensive to do. Generally, it involves the analytics tools built into the business software you’re already using, like Google Analytics and your email marketing client. If you aren’t using a program like this, now may be a good time to invest in one, as they provide the data you need for effective growth marketing.
Identify your goals and KPIs
KPI stands for key performance indicator. KPIs are measurable factors that show how a business or promotion is performing. Take a look at these examples:
- A song’s downloads or streams
- For a service-based business, the number of subscriptions
- Similarly, churn rate is an important KPI for services. This is the rate at which customers choose to stop working with the business.
- Average time spent on a company’s website
- Net profit margin
Before you can start implementing a growth marketing strategy (or a few strategies), you need to have a clear view of your goals and how to measure your progress toward them. These are your goals and KPIs. First, determine what you aim to change, such as increasing engagement with your brand’s content or adding new subscribers to your email list. Then, determine how you’ll measure your success (or lack thereof) toward these goals. For the first, KPIs may be the number of videos watched and the average watch time per video. For the second, KPIs may be subscription and unsubscribe rates.
Determine the best strategies for your brand
After you’ve determined your goals and KPIs, the next step is to determine how you’ll work toward these goals. Sticking with our examples from the previous section, let’s say your goal is to increase the amount of engagement your brand’s videos receive. From here, you can A/B test different thumbnails and titles. You can also switch up your videos’ format, such as including a call to action earlier in the video or dividing them into chapters.
Test and collect data
Next, do the strategy. If it’s A/B testing video thumbnails and titles, upload the options (many platforms, such as YouTube, include software that makes A/B testing easy) and allow the data to accumulate. Let your customers speak through their actions. As you collect the data, you’ll see exactly what they like, what they don’t like, what they do and how they engage with your brand.
Refine and repeat
Now that you have data about your customers, you can make adjustments to future content, offers or simply your brand experience to better match their preferences. You might find that, on average, viewers only watch your videos halfway through. With this information, you might want to try testing shorter videos. Then, test those shorter videos. What does the updated data show you?
Growth marketing isn’t a one-and-done strategy. It’s a continuous, ever-evolving approach to running a business. With traditional marketing, you’re using trusted methods for creating brand awareness and provoking interest. With growth marketing, you’re building relationships and continually changing how your brand shows up in those relationships.
Ready to scale? Give growth marketing a try
As a growing business, whether you’ve just launched or you’ve been in the game for a few years, you know you’re always marketing. As you map out your next marketing campaign, think about your big-picture goals: Are you still growing, or are you at a place where you can comfortably stick to traditional marketing methods? If you’re at a point where building and maintaining an audience is your primary goal, focus on growth marketing. This way, you’ll not only gather valuable data about what works, you’ll also develop a deeper, more effective connection with your customers.
