Download - Growthhacking 120502082450-phpapp01
Growth Hacking 101Your First 500,000 Users
@yongfookThursday, May 3, 12
Disclaimer!Based on first hand experience growing
a user-base of 500,000 (1.5 years) at previous companyand doing customer acquisition consulting
Focus is on users with an explicit ARPU!e.g. SaaS, E-commerce, Gaming...
Zero-revenue services may not be applicable
YMMV etc.
Growth Hacking 101 by @yongfookThursday, May 3, 12
Background
Director
#2 Luxury Flash-Sales Site in Japan
US$XX million per year sales
Joined at 0, left at ~500,000
I lived in Japan for about 10 years before moving to SingaporeAbove company is still going strong and has expanded into China
I’m founder of 2 SaaS startups (one active, one not) a user-generated content recipe site (acquired)
and a quirky viral game
Currently working on another e-commerce site targeting South East Asia
Growth Hacking 101 by @yongfookThursday, May 3, 12
cheapTrivia: The artist Michelangelo was famously cheap and lived in poor conditions, despite being very wealthy
Thursday, May 3, 12
Organic Search• Always be creating searchable
content
• Mix of template / basic editorial
• Have clear CTAs on your public content
• sitemap.xml
• Previous company = all brands we sold had a permanent public page (50% algorithmic and 50% editorial), we ranked on Google 1st page for some of the lesser-known brands. Long Tail.
• Hackers! implement your content generation strategy early on so you can set and somewhat forget.
• Spend some time making a few “superstar” pieces of content i.e. Infographics Editorial
Automatic / Template
There’s a page like this for every country on DirectRooms
Ex
Growth Hacking 101 by @yongfookThursday, May 3, 12
Blog• Create shareable content
• Top 10 Lists
• Interviews
• Op-Ed
• PICTURES! (e.g. Boston.com)
• Create fans who will turn into influencers and evangelists for you.
• Back-links are goood
• Become recognized as an authority in your vertical / niche
• Don’t write shitty filler posts - the point of the blog is to create an audience, not just to add content to the site (see previous slide for that)
Mr PorterExcellent, authoritative and shareable blog content.
Their business is e-commerce.
Ex
Growth Hacking 101 by @yongfookThursday, May 3, 12
Landing Page• Hackers! test like crazy.
• Don’t fuck around testing your design too much. Test your incentive / value proposition and CTA.
• Preserve Scent
• Get Their Email Address (it’s really all you actually need)
• Completing the process is the only way to leave the landing page.
GrouponDifferent graphic assets depending on entry keywordto preserve scent: this search was for “spa coupon”
Ex
Growth Hacking 101 by @yongfookThursday, May 3, 12
Share &Embed
1) Create Something Worth Sharing.2) Empower your users to share/like/recommend content.
3) More Users!
Thursday, May 3, 12
Massive APIs• Connect with Facebook / Twitter
• Reduce friction to entry / sharing
• Hackers! Retrofit other large markets to work with your site in a way beneficial to users.
• AirBNB / Craigslist
• Don’t forget language APIs - you too can be Big In Japan
Air BNBFamously created a “Post to Craigslist” feature
despite there not being an official API, in order to gain initial traction
Growth Hacking 101 by @yongfook
Ex
Thursday, May 3, 12
Social Campaign• “Retweet this to Win!”
• Is this really social? No.
• Can’t do it more than once. Boy Who Cried Wolf syndrome.
• Hackers! There’s A Better Way
• Leverage vanity and curiosity
• Give User A some dynamic content specific to them (e.g. a horoscope) and encourage User A to tweet it.
• User B learns about your company via learning something funny about User A (their friend).
• Alternatively
• Create content that is innately shareable e.g. Will It Blend
• Hook into a recent event / topic
KloutSome (most?) of Klout’s growth is driven through
leveraging user vanity and curiosity:1) Vanity of users sharing their high score
2) Curiosity of user’s friends to find out their own score
Ex
Growth Hacking 101 by @yongfookThursday, May 3, 12
Viral Scumbag Mechanics?
In 2010 I made a game that at a certain point you had to invite another person in order to progress...it worked incredibly well and it didn’t piss
as many people off as I thought it would.At that middle point in the game, most users werehappy to spread the word. 10,000+ users in 2 days.
Thursday, May 3, 12
scalableTrivia: Mount Fuji in Japan is actually a volcano and has been dormant since 1708
Thursday, May 3, 12
Influencers
Recruited over 30 trend-setting (non-celebrity) bloggersand incentivised blog coverage via VIP events and coupons
Hackers! Sweeten the relationship with widgets for their blogs
Growth Hacking 101 by @yongfookThursday, May 3, 12
Member Get Member• “Refer a friend and get a $25 coupon!”
• Japanese users seemed less motivated to refer for cash
• Test the incentive, for example “Refer 5 friends and get free shipping for 3 months!”
• Some incentives work better at different stages of the customer journey e.g. a newly-activated user / a long-term user
• Hackers! Remember to test the crap out of the HTML email design / message itself. Make it beautiful and personal.
GiltAll group-buying and private e-commerce siteshave an MGM mechanic. It’s a scalable way of
acquiring pre-qualified users - costs will riselinearly with new users acquired
Ex
Growth Hacking 101 by @yongfookThursday, May 3, 12
Paid Search• A reliable portion of our monthly
growth came from paid search
• You need an adwords virtuoso if you want to do well in paid search
• Doubly so for competitive spaces like travel / hotels
• Not super-viable for startups without much funding: it takes time, it’s expensive and needs to be constantly tweaked.
• Really handy for ad-hoc testing though.
“Singapore Hotels”A search for “Singapore Hotels” on Google shows
many companies with deep pockets: Agoda, booking.com, expedia.com - startups trying to
compete head to head with these companies in Paid Search will simply run out of cash
Ex
Growth Hacking 101 by @yongfookThursday, May 3, 12
expensiveTrivia: Archimedes discovered buoyancy, was one of the best mathematicians of his time and also built giant, mechanical war machines
Thursday, May 3, 12
Celebrity Blog• Bit of a gamble but can be highly
effective at getting users
• Depends on the size of the blog ecosystem but in Japan: 10,000++ new users from a single post
• User quality varies
• Can result in re-blogs, conversations
• Real Example: Celebrity A (paid) wrote about us, then Celebrity B (unpaid) checked us out and wrote about us organically and enthusiastically as we were selling a brand that she loves. We ended up getting more users via Celebrity B than Celebrity A.
• Best to do it in a regulated environment where there are guidelines.
Ex
Famous bloggers such as Xiaxue are no stranger to advertorials. Pick your audience wisely however.
Growth Hacking 101 by @yongfookThursday, May 3, 12
Partnerships• An incentivised partner sending you
targeted prospects is supremely valuable
• High quality users
• Try to negotiate a revenue-share, but be prepared for other costs like a revenue guarantee or an up-front payment.
• In addition to rev-share offer them something they can’t already get easily e.g. build something for them for free, give them data.
• Hackers! Offer something innovative. We put a whole store on their site that earned a rev-share, that they never had to manage and that seamlessly-integrated with the rest of their site.
We partnered with a popular fashion destination and got banner space, a dedicated page (we put an
inline-frame store on it), EDMs and more.
Ex
Growth Hacking 101 by @yongfookThursday, May 3, 12