The Complete Guide to Growth Marketing with Strategies & Examples

Every marketing campaign has “growth” as one of its goals. However, only growth marketing, a specific branch of digital marketing, intensely focuses on rapid, scalable expansion. An experienced growth marketing agency prioritizes data analysis and data-driven experiments to see which works and which doesn’t for the intended audience. Growth marketing is a constant evaluation, an answer to the continual change in the marketing world. In this article, we’ll discuss concrete growth marketing examples and best practices.

 

What Does Growth Marketing Actually Mean?

Growth marketing dissects the entire customer journey to help the business grow. It uses a cycle of analysis, experimentation, and optimization to implement growth across all touchpoints. At its core is the relentless improvement fueled by data insights and a deep understanding of customer behavior. 

A growth strategy is the antithesis of traditional marketing as it implements the make-market-analyze-remake-remarket discipline. A growth marketer uses various techniques for this approach, mainly through A/B and multivariate testing. A successful growth marketing strategy means:

• Rapid customer acquisition
• Full-funnel optimization
• Improved customer lifetime value
• Data-driven decision-making.

As marketing tools and platforms advance, technologies like AI thrive, and customer expectations shift, a growth marketer stays ahead through continuous learning and commitment to data-fueled innovation.

Related content: Customer Acquisition Services

Why Growth Marketing Represents the New Frontier in Marketing?

Consumers today are digitally savvy. Technological advancements are popping up daily. Local and international marketing campaigns are digitalized. It seems that every day, there’s something new in the digital world, including growth marketing. While this type of marketing has been around for decades, not many businesses take advantage of it. Growth marketing is marketing on steroids. It revamps, reevaluates, remakes, and remarkets. 

What makes growth strategy the next frontier of marketing is its amalgamation of the old and the new. It blends traditional marketing models and adds calculated risks to get better and optimized results. This fusion emphasizes experimentation and iteration to remove passive tactics. Additional layers include split testing, smart content, data-driven email campaigns, creative ad copy, and technical analysis of every step of a customer journey. The ultimate goal of these calculations is to quickly identify what works for the targeted audience, capitalize on that success, and remove the less effective strategies.

The data gained from this fusion and cross-functional collaboration are then quickly implemented in marketing strategies to achieve sustainable growth. Cross-functional collaboration breaks down organizational silos. Collaboration between teams is optimal and necessary. A collaborative growth marketing team ensures that data and objectives are aligned, customer experiences are seamless, and new insights can flow freely within the organization. 

Source: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/data-and-measurement/marketing-collaboration-statistics/ 

How Is Growth Marketing Different from Traditional Marketing?

Traditional marketing involves strategies focusing on products or services to generate revenue. Conversely, growth marketing involves strategies focusing on the customer base to increase sales using customer lifetime value (CLV). Both forms of marketing aim to drive business success. However, they fundamentally have different principles where growth strategy breaks the traditional mold. 

 

PRINCIPLES	TRADITIONAL MARKETING	GROWTH MARKETING
Funnel Stage	Focuses on top-of-the-funnel stages like brand awareness and lead generation	Uses the entire marketing funnel, primarily focusing on the customer lifecycle
Business Partners	More suited for established companies with known products that they want to sell more	More suited for SaaS, startups, eCommerce, and SMBs trying to grow their user base
Data Usage	Decision-making can be based on gut feeling or best practices. Uses broader metrics like reach and impressions.	Decision-making is based on data and backed by granular analytics. Metrics include user lifetime value and user acquisition cost.
Campaign Types	Runs product marketing strategies on advertising and sales to see which will increase sales revenue more effectively	Runs experiments across advertising and sales to see which strategy is more effective for long-term success
Experiment and Optimization	Uses the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach	Its core tenet is about adapting to real-time data.

 

These principles translate into action through the AARRR framework, which maps the customer journey for optimization at every step.

 

ACTION	TRADITIONAL MARKETING	GROWTH MARKETING
Awareness: Where do your customers find you?	Broad-reach avenues such as TV ads, billboards, and general interest content	Highly-targeted online communities, forums, and social platforms
Acquisition: How do you generate leads?	Focuses on static forms or contact points. Quantity sometimes overshadows quality.	Focuses on interactive contact points that are ripe for nurturing
Activation: Understand factors driving engagement	Limited emphasis on onboarding or post-purchase experiences	Emphasis on user onboarding and value-based communication to drive initial product or service usage
Retention: What strategies do you use to keep your customers coming?	Often reactive; limited customer engagement outside of promotions	Mostly proactive; tries to build rapport at every stage of the customer journey
Revenue: What strategies do you use to increase revenue?	More concerned with initial sales than CLV	Intentionally uses upselling and cross-selling
Referral: How do you turn customers into brand advocates?	Uses word-of-mouth marketing; referral programs are often supplementary	Encourages advocacy by providing exceptional experience and incentivizing referrals

The Main Components of Growth Marketing

Growth marketing uses a blend of strategies from other marketing branches and takes them further. As such, this type of marketing is about working smarter. The goal is to build customer loyalty and convert them into brand advocates using these key components:

• Cross-Channel Marketing

About 73% of consumers prefer to engage with brands across multiple touchpoints. They search for products on different social platforms, eCommerce sites, and newsletters for more competitive offers. This multi-touchpoint reality makes a siloed marketing approach a recipe for missed opportunities. 

Growth strategists use cross-channel marketing to seamlessly generate a unified brand experience, increasing their chances of capturing your audience’s attention and guiding them through the sales funnel. Cross-channel marketing is more than just being visible on various growth channels. It’s vital to be cohesive and consistent in terms of communication. 

Growth marketers also ensure they deliver the right content on the platform. As seen below, videos are still the most popular content type. Growth strategists can create short video content for Instagram and TikTok and long-form ones for YouTube and LinkedIn. This helps keep your brand in people’s minds as they make buying decisions. 

Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/service/cross-channel

A growth strategy also uses various touchpoints to create more marketing opportunities. Growth hackers can attract your target audience with engaging social ads, informative blog content, and exclusive deals in newsletters. This combined effort can turn potential customers into actual buyers. 

• A/B Testing

A/B testing is the foundation of any data-driven marketing strategy. The principle of this experimentation is straightforward: Version A vs. Version B. To get a result for a desired goal, you simultaneously test two versions of an element to different audience segments. For instance, a B2B digital marketing services company may conduct split tests to check their landing pages, email subject lines, and ad creatives. The test results will help you better understand which is more effective for your goal.

Also known as split testing, A/B testing symbolizes the growth marketing mindset of constant experimentation and development. Around 71% of businesses value regular split testing to guide their marketing strategy. The more tests your customer acquisition agency runs, the better results they get to identify product improvements. You can do your own experiments independently as there are many tools available to assist you.  

However, one of the benefits of working with growth strategists is their data literacy. Agencies ensure their marketers know how to read, understand, and implement data. They interpret these figures into actionable insights so you can constantly improve your campaigns. This aligns with 77% of organizations that use A/B testing on their corporate websites for optimization. This also discourages guesswork or solely relying on intuition. Furthermore, they can apply the A/B test results across your marketing efforts, resulting in higher ROI due to progressively increasing performance.

Growth marketers can split-test many elements. The obvious element is your product. A growth hacking agency can change your website’s CTA to see which variant is more effective for customer engagement. Another element they can experiment with is your communication channels. They can use different subject lines to see which leads to higher open rates. Using visual content on social pages can also be split-tested. This is particularly effective for targeted ads. 

Alpha.One’s homepage split test is a great example. Due to low contrast, the background was split-tested, aiming to improve readability and navigation. After research, multiple designs were created to enhance visuals and draw more attention to specific sections. The new design, particularly version B, attracted a 5.9% increase in visual attention. 

Source: https://www.alpha.one/blog/how-we-improved-our-website-with-ab-testing

• Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is a goldmine of actionable data that help growth marketers refine marketing campaigns to enhance customer satisfaction and acquire new customers. Genuine reviews from unpaid or unsolicited users rarely sugarcoat what they think about a product. This authenticity is valuable market research directly sourced from your target audience. Growth marketers can use these direct inputs to create a roadmap for your product development. Your growth strategy team consolidates comments, analyzes them, and provides you with a strategic growth marketing plan for remaking and remarketing your product. 

Customer feedback also drives growth opportunities. About 69% of consumers trust a business with positive reviews. Testimonials from corporate heads and detailed case studies from satisfied customers are potent marketing assets. A growth company’s responsibilities include consolidating these assets and creating a dedicated page on your site so visitors can see what others say about your product. 

There’s a science behind consolidating and implementing customer feedback. It’s called the Customer Feedback Loop. It’s a four-part process that starts with asking for feedback, categorizing it, acting on it, and, lastly, following up with customers who shared it. Growth marketers use this loop to segregate valuable feedback from those without merit. They research which platforms and forums your audience uses the most so they can ask for feedback on the right channels. From the collected feedback, they provide a plan to act on. Customers want to feel that their concerns are heard and that the business is making the necessary changes to satisfy their needs. 

Again, you can do this independently. However, working with a growth strategy team means the feedback is immediately acted upon. With a team in your corner, every valid concern, like a broken link or an outdated article, can be addressed quickly. Even if the concern takes time to be handled, your growth marketer can communicate with your customers and provide assurance that things are being handled. Once the improvements based on the feedback are implemented, you and your team can let them know. This is your opportunity to emphasize how you value their business and how customer support is a priority in your company. 

Here’s an example of a customer feedback survey used by Airbnb:

Source: https://www.retently.com/blog/airbnb-net-promoter-survey/

• Customer Lifecycle

Retaining customers is cheaper than acquiring new ones from scratch. New customers bring new revenue, but existing customers who come repeatedly are responsible for sustaining your revenue. That’s why nurturing long-term relationships with existing buyers is vital. CRM tools help with this process, but the customer lifecycle begins on the first contact when your existing buyer is still a prospective buyer. From the get-go, you must find ways to keep your prospects coming back and becoming actual customers. The same principle applies to making one-time buyers repeat customers. 

Growth marketers create an optimized lifecycle strategy to help you better understand your customers’ needs and buying habits. This roadmap lets you identify inefficiencies in your operations and remove or modify them to improve the customer’s overall experience. The end goal is to build a network of loyal, long-term customers. 

Strategies to optimize customer lifecycle marketing include just about every effective marketing tactic, including PPC advertising, social media marketing, email marketing, SMS marketing, and content marketing. Initiatives that add consumer value, like community forums and loyalty programs, are also part of lifecycle marketing. So are exclusive deals, free trials, and discount offers. 

A proficient growth marketer uses the most effective tactics to develop a full lifecycle strategy to attract your customers. For instance, a prospective buyer who’s just learned about your brand needs quality information on what makes your brand better than the competition. On the other hand, existing customers also need personalized messages to reaffirm their decision to choose your product again. That’s where rewards like loyalty programs and exclusive deals come in handy. They ensure that your customers get long-term value from your business, more than just your actual product. 

By focusing on the entire customer lifecycle, growth marketers enhance customer satisfaction and reduce churn rates. This leads to a robust progression where satisfied customers become repeat buyers and recommend your brand to others.

Here’s an example of a B2B customer lifecycle:

Source: https://www.smartinsights.com/ecommerce/web-personalisation/what-is-lifecycle-marketing/

• User Experience

All your hard work optimizing your website will be wasted if it takes longer than three seconds to load on mobile. People have short attention spans, and an impressive user experience is the antithesis of that. The growth strategy mindset pushes user experience to be designed, tested, and implemented to cater to the needs of your target market. The impact of a good UX improves the usability of a product or service. This triggers the human psyche, in which the brand’s unique voice is magnified while ensuring users get optimal efficiency in every website or app interaction. There’s a visceral sense of satisfaction when a user loads your website and finds it fast, efficient, and engaging. 

Source: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/consumer-trends/mobile-site-load-time-statistics/

There’s a correlation between growth marketing and user experience. When done right, user experience contributes to many areas where growth strategies are directly affected. Both are also data-driven. User experience metrics, like conversion rates, are always tracked and measured. From these insights, marketers adjust UX elements for improvement. Even other elements of growth strategy, like customer feedback, rely on a polished user experience, particularly on smartphones. An intuitively designed UX pattern makes monitoring and interpreting customers’ movements on the website easier. This feedback helps determine which user segment is inclined toward which behavior. 

How to Implement a Successful Growth Marketing Strategy

Growth marketing requires strategic, data-driven planning and a well-defined roadmap:

Define Your Goals and Visions for Growth

Outline what you want to achieve from implementing growth marketing. Assess your business honestly to mold your growth strategy. Give your own feedback to your brand and be brutal about it. Before asking for an assessment from the growth marketing company, do your own evaluation to see which aspects need improving. 

You must also define your ideal future in terms of scalability. Break down your growth marketing goals to map your business trajectory. Start with a one-year vision mapping, and then five, and then ten. This will provide a more precise direction on how you want to scale your business.

Your business objectives should be next on your list. Be specific about them. For example, if you want to boost customer retention, specify a target, like increasing social engagement by 20% in a month. Being specific in your goals means having specific strategies. 

Make Data-Driven Decisions

If there’s one takeaway from all this, it’s that growth marketing’s core is data. Data-driven decision-making, or DDDM, bases business choices on analysis and data interpretation. Intuition, instinct, and observations don’t factor in growth strategies. Growth marketers make all decisions based on data, numbers, and experiment results. Growth strategy is analytical in many ways, with statistics and insights leading the way. 

The data-driven approach to growth strategy works because these insights reduce or remove bias. Growth marketers don’t rely on their personal opinions or biases in making their strategic plans. All choices are based on objective evidence. There’s also increased confidence when data backs a marketing campaign because you’re less reliant on guesswork.

This roadmap has important considerations, starting with data quality. Growth marketers must ensure their data is accurate, relevant, and reliable. Faulty data leads to bad decisions. It’s also essential that the team of growth strategists is data literate. Working with an agency that invests in educating its team on data analysis and interpretation is a green flag. 

Use a Multi-Channel Approach

Combining tactics that are most suitable for your business creates a synergy. It’s rare for a business to only use a single marketing strategy because every campaign is dynamic. Every stage has many moving parts that are part of a bigger cycle. By implementing a multi-channel approach, your marketing team isn’t putting all your eggs in one basket. Using a blend of growth marketing tactics also reaches a broader audience, enhancing your brand visibility. 

The most important thing to remember when using this approach is not to get overwhelmed. Communicate with your marketer and highlight your goals and visions. Add elements like growth marketing trends, target market, and budget to see how they can create a multifaceted approach within your means. This boils down to the core of growth strategy—experimentation. Your agency will test to see which strategies work best together and create a winning combination for your business.

Unlock Your Business Potential with NinjaPromo: Effective Growth Marketing Services!

With growth strategies, working smarter means working with a reputable growth marketing company that can help you revamp your growth marketing campaigns for scalability. Not only does it free up your time to deal with other aspects of your business, but working with one also guarantees expertise and experience. NinjaPromo is a creative growth marketing agency that caters to diverse industries with varied needs and requirements, from B2B, SaaS, mobile, startups, eCommerce, and crypto to small businesses. We provide digital services that align with growth strategies. Your responsibility is to define your goals. The rest is on us. Contact NinjaPromo now to develop your growth marketing strategy to help your business thrive, scale, and sustain long-term success.

Conclusion

Growth marketing doesn’t provide a universal solution. Instead, it uses different marketing strategies, but everything is founded on data. A good growth agency will examine your business and goals with a growth mindset. And that’s finding solutions and opportunities using data-driven insights to revisit your marketing initiatives and revamp them for better and bigger growth.