Although there are many who think growth hacking is only a fancy new trend in the world of startups, it is actually a brand new viewpoint which is becoming more and more widespread. The creator of the term is Sean Ellis, who has not provided a concrete definition of the phenomenon yet, but has referred to it as an approach to marketing based on data analysis, which tries to make an enterprise grow by adopting a new point of view.

There is a famous saying by John Wanamaker which says “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.” Well, data-driven online marketing can put an end to this problem, because continuous measurement and analysis of data can help you determine which campaigns, ad variants and platforms are the ones that don’t provide the appropriate amount of inquiring customers.

At the event, the speeches were grouped around three major areas: growth, hacking, and stories.

Growth

The Growth section of the conference was kicked off by Nejc Skoberne, the Marketing Manager of UBER, who presented how they achieved the explosive growth of the company by revolutionising our ideas of transportation, and how they turned the sales funnel “upside down” with their recommendation system in order to reach out for more and more potential customers.

Krisztián Egerszegi, the CEO of MiniCRM has assigned specific metrics to successful sales, satisfied customers and thus achieving growth. According to their strategy, all email inquiries must be answered within 5 minutes, because that way you can maintain the customer’s interest while the problem and your company are still occupying their thoughts. If you cannot make an agreement within 7 days of the first inquiry, the chance of a successful cooperation drops by 50%. If you manage to make a deal, then you have to apply the 3-3-3 rule after the sales: contact the customer in 3 days, 3 weeks, and 3 months and find out whether they are satisfied with your service. That way you can assure them of your customer support as the priority of the company.

Dávid Pásztor, the leader of UX Studio believes in growth coded into the product. According to statistics, you can only achieve significant growth if you product is essential for at least 40% of users. You have to improve the product until you reach this rate. According to the UX professional, the most important step is to determine the critical process which the user must go through in order for engagement. You can see the early stages of Facebook as an example, where you needed to upload a profile picture, add a friend, and post on your timeline to be able to see through the system and become a fan. However, the “walkthrough” elements which describe the product are not effective enough, because users treat them as banners, and exit without reading them. Instead of this, “empty state” can be a better solution, with the help of which you explain the steps on the empty screens.

Kádas Péter, CEO of online marketing agency 7digits, emphasised the importance of micro-engagements. To achieve those, you have to put blocks into your website that trigger more activities, inquiries and engagements. For example, when you create a blog post, the number of leads can be significantly improved with rating options, calculators related to the professional content, or multiple-step forms.

Hacking

Dávid Ottlik, CEO of Synetiq (which is a company with neuromarketing services) gave the audience some useful tips concerning video marketing. Their research results show that it is very important to grab the viewers’ attention at the very beginning of the video – don’t be afraid to provoke. Triggering emotional responses is crucial when creating video content. If you show close-ups of faces, or people who are like your target audience, then it will be easier for your audience to relate to the content. It is important to know that videos on Facebook are viewed with no sound in 85% of the cases, so it is advisable to subtitle the videos, so that your message reaches your target audience.

We could also get some practical advice about SEO and Inbound Marketing from Gábor Nagy, online marketing specialist of Growthery. With their online marketing blog called Pitch they managed to get to the top of the search result list for the term “search engine marketing,” which is a very popular term. What can be of help when you want to be the first on the list? Gábor says that you have to write content that engage the reader and gives them value. You also have to monitor where your competitors appear, and you should design your link building strategy based on that. Besides search term research, you also have to determine the expressions you want to appear for in the list.

7digits founder Zsolt Farkas talked about the most effective Facebook strategies. In case of most ads, online marketers tend to use the same few types of advertisements, but Facebook has actually a number of new advertising options which are worth trying. You should forget boosting posts, because it is much less effective compared to other advertisement types, and users do not react to them well because of the well-known structure.

Stories

As the closing session of the conference, growth stories were shared by big brands, such as Red Bull Hungária, Jófogás.hu, Shinrai or Car Throttle. 

Red Bull Hungária marketing manager Ákos Takács said that knowing our target audience’s needs is crucial. To get inspiration, it is worth it to leave the office every now and then, since the best ideas aren’t  usually born within the walls. Besides sponsoring sports events (which require a big marketing budget), Red Bull tries to gain popularity with projects that result in a bigger public but don’t cost as much. Such an idea was for example the Red Bull Pilvaker, which covered the masterpieces of Hungarian literary people, or starting the competition Red Bull Can you make it?, which encourages youngsters to hitchhike.

Shinrai has grown more than 15 times bigger since the launch of the company. Love Akpan thinks that this growth is thanks to the fact that they had managed to establish trust towards cryptocurrencies in people. The company puts special emphasis on the comprehensive service of clients, and they also provide free consultancy related to Bitcoin and all cryptocurrencies. Shinrai believes in the importance of lean, are ready to eliminate all unnecessary loss and launch and MVP in the case of products which are not completely ready yet.

Alexandra Oláh is the marketing manager of Schibsted, which also operates Jófogás. She said that they put the emphasis on services based on data analysis. They don’t settle for the income that comes from advertisements themselves, but they have created a strategy through  which they can reach out to their existing customers with an even broader service offer. For example a user who puts up an ad about a property will get an offer about loan schemes and moving services as well from partners of the company.

Although there were no two similar growth stories at the conference, one factor was identical in every case: the collection and appropriate use of data was crucial in the companies’ marketing activities