Attract customers at no cost! What is growth hacking?

In reality, how many people actually know the term 'growth hack'?

Perhaps, aside from those involved in marketing, websites, or IT, most people might not be very familiar with it.

Rather, I feel that growth hacking is a term that should be used not only by professionals, including those in marketing, but also for side businesses.

So, what is growth hacking? It's 'attracting customers without spending money'.

In a word, that's all it is.

Thinking through and executing what to implement to 'attract customers without spending money' is, in a sense, growth hacking.

Well, it sounds simple when you put it that way, but of course, there are various methods.

Even if you understand the concept of growth hacking, the problem is that you can't actually do it.

How to attract customers without spending money is something that smart people have thought about endlessly, and they've left their footprints for us.

Today, I'd like to explain everything from the basic concepts of growth hacking to its case studies.

How did the concept of growth hacking first begin?

I don't intend to explain the history of growth hacking, but since its history itself tells us about the methods, I will share an example that is considered its origin.

Does anyone here use Hotmail?

Microsoft's Hotmail, that is.

In 1996, an era when advertising methods weren't as diverse as they are today, smart people began to think about how to get everyone to use Hotmail.

What was created then was the strategy of adding the message 'P.S. I Love You: Get your free email account at Hotmail!' at the bottom of emails.

Nowadays, when you use an email service, these kinds of messages usually come with it, don't they?

Even when you send an email from an iPhone, there's a message at the bottom saying 'Sent from my iPhone', isn't there? That's also a type of growth hack.

By sending emails, your service automatically spreads.

Thus, starting with Hotmail's pioneering method of 'inserting company advertisements at the bottom of emails,' the concept of growth hacking gradually took shape.

Growth hacking primarily means 'implementing a diffusion mechanism' and 'steadily analyzing and improving'.

To summarize the basic idea, growth hacking can be divided into these two terms.

'Implementing a diffusion mechanism' means setting up a system, like the one I just explained, exemplified by Hotmail, where the more people use the service, the more it naturally spreads on its own.

Like Hotmail, if your service spreads and becomes viral to others the more users use it, it would be incredibly easy, wouldn't it?

You should incorporate such a mechanism, where users naturally spread the word, into the service from the very beginning.

So, what does 'steadily analyzing and improving' mean?

While 'analytical skills' are necessary for analysis, you won't develop them unless you try, so let's start by giving it a go.

For example, when your blog post receives traffic, you'll go through trial and error, thinking 'How can I get people to read it?' or 'How can I sell my product?'

You'll consider and plan this while looking at data.

There's a free web analytics tool called Google Analytics.

First, let's implement this web analytics tool on your blog or website.

By utilizing Google Analytics, you can collect very detailed data, such as where users came from, how long they stayed on each page, whether they accessed from a smartphone or a PC, and how many visitors there were.

By analyzing this data in detail, you can make predictions like, 'Many people are coming to this page, so let's analyze it,' or 'If we improve this, maybe they'll stay longer.'

It's a cycle of forming hypotheses based on data and then actually implementing them.

Accumulating better results through a series of small improvements and hypotheses is also a means of growth hacking.

'Implementing a diffusion mechanism' and 'steadily accumulating analysis, hypotheses, and improvements.' Broadly speaking, these two ideas support the growth hacking methodology.

What are some successful examples where growth hacking was implemented?

First, Dropbox is one successful example of growth hacking.

Dropbox provides a storage service that allows you to share all kinds of data over the internet.

For example, if you want to use a file on your computer on other devices like another PC or smartphone, Dropbox allows you to smoothly share files across all devices.

Also, you can share one common folder with colleagues and friends, allowing everyone to manage data in a single folder.

It's one of the frequently used tools in website creation and IT-related work.

Actually, this Dropbox wasn't initially expected to do much, but by using growth hacking methods, it succeeded in spreading widely.

What they did was make the service itself 'private' and had people sign up for a 'waiting list'.

By having users register for the waiting list and saying 'we'll notify you when it's available,' they created a system to collect email addresses before public release.

Furthermore, they created a video to make it easier to convey how convenient Dropbox is as a service.

By switching to this method of making the service private and having users register for a waiting list, it spread rapidly and increased its user base.

There are many other successful examples of growth hacking.

Rather, most services that have become popular in recent years are due to growth hacking.

For example, Instagram.

Instagram has evolved into a service that almost everyone in the world knows! The secret behind this was creating the following mechanisms for spreading.

• Made it possible for anyone to follow.
• When posting to Instagram, it was made possible to automatically distribute to other services like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Google+.
• Made screen transitions and loading faster.

By pioneering these methods, which are now considered 'obvious,' the service spread rapidly.

Another example is Paypal. Are you all using Paypal?

It used to be a bit difficult to use, but now the site has been renewed and is easier to use.

Paypal is a payment service that allows any business to implement a credit card payment system, making it an incredibly convenient service.

The mechanism is that users first register a Paypal account and then register their credit card as their payment method.

When purchasing a product, the user pays via Paypal, and the payment is processed from their credit card.

This PayPal also became a globally famous service by incorporating several growth hacking methods.

• Pay users 10 dollars.
• Pay users who refer friends 20 dollars.
• Made it usable on eBay (an online shop where you can sell products overseas).

By implementing growth hacks such as paying incentives to those who registered and linking with already widely used services, they significantly increased their recognition.

And the third one is Airbnb. It's already widely known in Japan, a private lodging service.

Airbnb is a service where individuals can register and rent out spare rooms in properties they own or rent.

Airbnb also utilized the concept of growth hacking.

• Hired professional photographers to take beautiful photos.
• When registering a property, they made it automatically post to other property listing sites.

As a result, Airbnb spread widely and has now evolved into a service that changes the way people travel and live around the world.

In this way, there are many examples of services that rapidly expanded their market share by introducing growth hacking concepts and mechanisms.

Hmm? But they didn't do anything that outlandish, did they? Growth hacking is the 'mindset' itself.

If you've been paying attention, you might have noticed that growth hacking isn't about the methods themselves being brand new, or there being some special tool.

Up until now, when providing services, everyone has thought about how to promote them without spending money, and these things have already been tried and tested.

In other words, what is growth hacking? It's the 'mindset' itself of how to spread something without spending money.

We sometimes call it a mindset.

Personally, I feel that growth hacking is about firmly shaping and clarifying the idea of attracting customers without spending money, creating a new theory of thought on how one should think.

For example, while data analysis is important in growth hacking, if you start with the mindset of 'let's analyze data and form hypotheses' to attract customers without spending money, you won't waver.

Basically, what's important in growth hacking is to think for yourself, combining methods that have been invented so far, about 'how to make it spread rapidly and automatically'.

From next time onwards, we will delve deeper into specific growth hacking methods. Among the various techniques available, let's adopt what we can, think for ourselves where necessary, and gradually deepen our understanding of mechanisms that can automatically spread and attract customers.