Growth hacking is a means of highly resourceful and creative marketing singularly focused on high-leverage growth with an emphasis on high ROI in a compressed timeframe. We elaborate more on this definition and what it entails in our book,Growth Hacking.

Growth marketing is the methodical pursuit of sustainable, ROI-centric growth via a variety of means including programmatic advertising, partnerships, influencer marketing, social media marketing, search engine marketing, and conversion optimization.

Growth hacking often utilizes the product to drive growth via referrals and increasing retention, something not generally within the purview of digital marketing. Growth hacking often connotes a series of one-off incremental improvements, that are less likely to persist for a long duration. One distinct characteristic of digital marketing is that it includes brand marketing activities, unlike growth hacking. Growth marketing strikes a balance between growth hacking and digital marketing, while growth marketing is typically more ROI-focused than traditional digital marketing, brand building activities are necessarily off-the-table. And while growth marketing may still include product enhancements to achieve marketing goals, there is a stronger emphasis on long-term sustainability.

Growth hacking and growth marketing are not just for technology startups. They are toolsets and philosophies designed for resource-constrained environments. Whether you are making digital products, physical products, or providing services at an organization that is large are small, it is probable that that resources, at least initially, will be constrained. The process of growth hacking and growth marketing will help you identify the best initiatives to maximize ROI in the shortest amount of time.

Absolutely. Local businesses often have a physical presence which unlocks geo-location growth hacking opportunities. As GPS-enabled devices increase in popularity, so too does the opportunity to be found on their maps. Growth marketing agencies like Deviate Labs have specific consulting services suited for local small businesses.

Yes, with a few caveats. If your desire is to adopt growth hacking methodologies and tactics internally, it will require organizational and cultural changes. Because growth hacking often incorporates product-level marketing modifications, you will need individuals in the product development part of the org chart to champion growth hacks. Certain organizations prefer to empower existing resources with growth hacking training to create a growth hacking culture within the organization. Oftentimes, retaining a growth hacking agency for a particular project can catalyze the cultural shift. Deviate Labs offers advisory services, to advance organizational and cultural changes, in addition to execution services for specific projects.

When looking to hire a growth hacking marketing firm, there are three primary evaluation criteria:

1. Methodology - Do they offer the services you are looking for?
2. Experience - Have they had auccess with similar companies?
3. Fit - Do you get a good feeling from talking to them?

For entities tight on resources, we generally advise hiring a growth hacking marketing agency after you have a product or service that has demonstrated traction in the market. The benefit of hiring a growth hacking and marketing agency like Deviate Labs after you have product-market-fit is we can help you achieve what we refer to as “product-market-marketing” fit to help you scale quickly. Certain corporations that are well-funded will hire a growth marketing agency pre product-market-fit as a means of compressing the time-to-market. This approach is common when there is a “land-grab” strategic opportunity in a highly competitive market with other well-funded participants.

Creative and cost-effective approaches to growth will benefit the vast majority of businesses. However, if you have not established product-market-fit, and resources are tight, we advise investing your resources in the product or service until you start receiving word-of-mouth organic growth. In certain situations, Deviate Labs can help iterate target markets in parallel with product iterations.