After choosing a product to help grow, it’s important to remember that a growth hacker has no actual influence to improve or even change a product in any way. Much like a spin-doctor aiding a politician, a growth hacker can do everything in their power to change the description of a product, but they are unable to change the product itself. Rather than live within the world of built-on marketing, growth hackers work to build virality.
Perhaps two of the best examples of recent growth hacking are LivingSocial and Groupon. These two daily deal sites not only continue to grow in terms of countless products and tons of special offers, they also provide a great marketing plan.
LivingSocial offers a “Get this deal for free” option, which invites customers to share any deal with three friends through a specialized link, inviting the initial user a free product, despite the price. On Groupon, the “Refer a friend” option gives back ten bucks when a friend purchases a product through the site.
These examples are much different than something as simple as “Like this on Facebook” buttons, which do offer a chance for customers to share the product, but do not offer any real incentive.
Through the LivingSocial example, a user could actually receive a free trip by simply signing up three friends. These daily deal sites save tons of advertising and the leads are much more satisfying than simply Liking something on Facebook. These two deals are actually paying users rather than taking a shot in the dark with wasted advertising bucks.
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Shortly after these two sites hit the market, bril iant (but struggling) company, Dropbox, started a “Get free space” option to invite additional users to use their cloud-based storage system.
For every new friend who joined, 500 megabytes were offered for any additional friends who signed up for the service. After months of struggling, Dropbox increased sign-ups by approximately 60 percent with nearly 2.8
mil ion direct invites recurring each and every month. Presently, 35 percent of customers stil come from referrals.