Top 4 Overused Buzzwords In Growth Marketing
By: Binh Dang
Tags: Digital Marketing, Internet Marketing, Business Intelligence, Sustainable Development, Growth Hacking

Growth loops

Growth marketing is often summarized into self-repeating circular models. Loops, cycles, rounds, etc., are among the most popular terms to describe them. The reason behind such a “close-ended” pattern lies in the fact that growth factors tend to repeat themselves. Such repetition is shown to come from both sides — the brands/publishers and the customers/audience.

An example of marketing growth loops (Source: Baremetrics)

In reality, however, things hardly fall in line so neatly with such patterns. First, from the side of brands, every attempt to follow the loops is another step closer to a dead end:

Most growth tactics wear off their effectiveness overtime , after a certain degree of repetition. Think “social proof”, for instance. How many of such proof can one possibly find and use? Whatever the quantity, it’s finite, and an end point is inevitable.

their effectiveness , after a certain degree of repetition. Think “social proof”, for instance. How many of such proof can one possibly find and use? Whatever the quantity, it’s finite, and an end point is inevitable. In order to compensate this, each loop will need to come with new ideas. In fact, idea validation through experimenting a fuel of growth marketing. Yet, it’d require an infinite amount of ideas to sustain the same pace of growth overtime. What’s the best way to make sure you’ll run out of ideas? Repeating what you do.

Second, customers are complex human beings, who are especially unpredictable online. Their motivations, interests, beliefs and behaviors are full of outliers. It makes no sense to expect them to sort themselves out neatly into loops and mindlessly repeat their behaviors forever.

Take the viral loop, for example. Even though viral marketing generally depends on Internet users to repeatedly engage and share in a rapid manner, this repetition isn’t linear and doesn’t close the loop. Instead, each trigger opens a new level beyond the loop, just like viruses leave past hosts to infect the new. It’s often forgotten that viral infections tend to spread, not circulate — why would viral marketing be any different?

The self-repeating viral loop (Source: Fractl)

Either way, it’s now obvious that growth should come in waves rather than loops. For brands, the perception of growth waves encourages you to think outside the boxes. Since waves don’t close loops, you can keep growing to infinity and beyond.

For consumers, it’s also crucial to understand that customers come in waves, each differs from the previous. This way, you’ll be able to estimate the size of each group of customers, and measure its impact on business. After all, would it make more sense to measure “ten waves of customers” or “ten loops of customers”?

An example of growth waves from Airbnb (Source: Growth Manifesto)

The practical implications of growth “waves”

Once you’ve shifted your perspective beyond the loop logic, it’s time to also act beyond the loop behaviors. You need to go outside of the box — as in, outside of the loop — in order to find more elements and new ideas to grow with. How? Customization may be the key.

In general, there are at least four major types of growth marketing paths or campaigns you can run next to each other to stir new waves:

1. Product marketing:

This involves the direct attempts to persuade an audience to buy your product or service for what it’s worth. In principle, there are three core components of a product: The value propositions, the technical functions or features, and the content to enrich the experience.

For example, a video streaming service promises on-demand entertainment to viewers as a value proposition, and a key feature to deliver it is via a well-organized list of genres for viewers to browse through, and the content may range from actual substance like what’s happening in Breaking Bad, to other elements like the cast, the synopsis and the posters. At the end of the day, any attempt to promote the service by telling viewers how great each, some or all of these components are is another effort in product marketing.

Product marketing usually serves as the baseline campaign type in growth marketing (Image by Fusion Marketing Partners)

2. Brand communitation:

An advanced type of campaigns that emphasizes on selling the company instead of the product, the provider instead of the service, or the emotional values of the business instead of the physical. It promises a whole new path of growth that can totally operate independently. This promises a new opening for you in cases ideas are dry for product marketing.

In addition, brand communication campaigns are better suited for contexts where selling your product would seem awkward or inappropriate. For instance, in scenarios where “greater good” topics like ecological sustainability, human rights, racism and other social issues are the main focuses, promoting a product would paint your business as “green washing”, hypocritical or opportunistic. Instead, if you communicate what your business stand for as a brand and how relevant it is to those topics, you may be able to win the hearts of the audience.

The brand sometimes plays an even greater role than the product (Image by Zac Johnson)

In shorts, customers often support your business simply because they support your cause — doesn’t matter the product.

3. Seasonal promotion:

Sometimes, the best way to persuade customers to support your business isn’t showing them “why” they need it, but rather “when”. This is because, throughout the year, certain consumer actions are simply made because it’s the right time for it, even when there’s no specific need. For growth marketing, this means a third kind (or wave) of campaigns can be run in parallel of product marketing and brand promotion: Seasonal.

Seasonality works differently in different industry and for different customers. For shoppers, Black Friday has been the annual tradition. For travellers, winter and summer breaks are the typical peaks. For fans of films, Halloween is the best time for horror flicks whereas Valentine’s Day is the occasion to watch something romantic. Even for gamers, seasonality still exists, despite at a smaller scale, such as weekend deals.

Different times, different scenarios, different needs, different campaigns (Image by Kidzpuzzle)

The key to seasonal promotion is, as you may have guessed it, to capture the special occasions as an “excuse” to start a conversation with the customers. This is why picking the right times before, during and after them is critical.

4. Extracurricular activities:

As we’re witnessing “the new normal” in life, we’re also experiencing great turbulance in growth marketing. Nothing works as it should, and nothing is easily foreseeable. This is why many brands are going the extra mile so to stay competitive. Side projects or extracurricular activities, therefore, become more needed than ever before.

Examples of “something extra” include viral marketing, PR, social media, event prospecting, sponsorships, among others. Under normal circumstances, they seem like nice-to-have options to consider after primary objectives are achieved, such as performance marketing campaigns optimization. However, when things are unstable and normal approaches yield limiting results, they become a much needed extra card to play.

Event marketing (mostly online nowadays), for example, may come for the rescue when ideas are scarce (Image by MarTech Advisor)

As a summary, remember there are at least four questions your business may help customers answer, not just one: “Why” should they buy your product, “Who” are you that they should buy from, “When” should they buy it, and “What else” can you do to reach them.