Skip to content
Close
Talk With US
Talk With US
Derek Clark 12/28/13 3:48 PM 1 min read

What is “Growth Hacking”?

Growth_Hack_Vinn

“Growth hacking”. Sounds a little strange and probably doesn’t mean anything unless it’s used in context. “Hacking”, after all, is widely perceived as something destructive or subversive. Here, however, the emphasis is on the creative connotation of the word, where the path to the solution requires shortcuts, and shortcuts require a comprehensive understanding of each piece involved.

“Growth Hacking” is a phrase that started spreading around Silicon Valley in 2011, used to describe the creative usage of technical knowledge to develop and implement marketing strategies.

Growth hacking is not a rigid process or “secret book of ideas“, but rather a philosophy that says that every client and product requires a highly customized growth plan that requires:

  1. Multi-discipline knowledge – from understanding customers to understanding APIs
  2. The creativity to combine that knowledge to develop highly customized, well-tuned marketing plans

Marketing’s Paradigm Shift

By its nature, online marketing plans have always required a firm grasp of technical concepts. Effective SEO, for example, requires a firm understanding of algorithms (search results), HTML (and the relational concepts implied by the DOM), and even networking concepts like DNS. And even those skill sets could be inadequate if the SEO analyst cannot effectively communicate the process required to integrating SEO strategies into a client’s website.

The gap between developer knowledge and the knowledge embedded in business plans is the fundamental problem that disrupts productivity and postpones growth objectives. The web is changing, and the new wave of marketers are equipped with the knowledge required to take marketing plans directly from blueprint to deployment. No more middlemen.

Inturact as Growth Hackers

We take pride in providing end-to-end solutions for clients because we have experience with the technical disciplines required to achieve traction with growth strategies. We are developers turned marketers. Computer scientists turned market analysts. CTOs turned CMOs. Let’s put an end to the excessive compartmentalization of online marketing and eliminate the problems caused by poor communication across disciplines. In the future every marketing department will take on this new description; we like to think we’re there now.

SMART Marketing Goals Worksheet Download

Derek Clark

Check out all of the latest marketing blogs written by Derek Clark.

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR BLOG