19.02.19 | Growth Hacking Update

Our February speaker has a calendar.

An appointment calendar.

And it’s full.

It makes us even prouder that we could win Ben Küstner from Pottsalat as a speaker for our special February Meetup. His company is, after all, so successful that they can’t really afford a break. Which makes us believe that he must have some pretty good idea on how to grow a company. At our meet up he gave all our participants an initiation into the secrets of “Growth Hacking”! From perfect beef and growing numbers, Ben cleared the understanding path to Growth Hacking. Sure, the goal to grow with his company is a noble and above all a legitimate goal, but not so easy to implement. You have to eat your vegetables to “growth” and become strong. So what can you do, what must you eat to grow properly?

„Growth hacking is a “mindset of data, creativity and curiosity“” (Aaron Ginn, 2012)

Where creativity and analytics meet, there is also Growth Hacking. This interdisciplinary mixture of creative marketing, engineering and data testing is mainly found in today’s startup scene. Because with this technology, a lot of “growth” can be achieved with little money and, based on this, good “hacks”. Behind this phenomenon is a marketing technique that focuses on growth – as the name suggests.

Schmackofatz!

In order to claim that you are doing good marketing, it also helps to tell good stories. One of them was given by Ben during the evening and could prove how essential and effective the conglomerate of marketing, engineering and data testing is with a real example from the Pottsalat practice:

Pottsalat is selling the salad “Schmackofatz Deluxe” and people bought it at first: beef strips, leaf salads, apples, feta etc., what could be better? But somehow it didn’t work out as Pottsalat imagined. People ordered it, but they didn’t become “repeat offenders”. So what now? Instead of forcing the people to have a taste, a different approach had to be adopted. The analogue telephone spam is not as negative as one might think. At least not with Pottsalat. And that’s where the beef thing begins.

The approach is very simple: Why not ask people what they want instead of determine what they want. What should customers say if they get a phone call?

1. „What are you thinking, annoying me like this?“
2. „Whoop, I am important and someone is asking me what I actually want.“

With the second reaction Pottsalat was able to score perfect points: Since it was now possible to determine what made the Schmackofatz not as tasty as desired, it was possible to adapt it exactly to the customer’s wishes. And what was the Casus Knaxus? The beef. So the most obvious thing to do was to make the beef better.

The story, of course, only briefly outlines an extensive and complex process that is primarily based on analysis. It is full of figures and data to be evaluated. These can be used to find out which products make the most sales and which make the least.

It is also important to use the data to filter out which products are bought again and again, regardless of whether they generate a high turnover. At the top of the priority list is the returning customer. It becomes clear that a happy customer and the resulting steady income have a higher value than the unsteady and one-time pile of money could ever have.

Throw some spaghetti on the wall 

In order to be able to give the customer exactly what he or she wants in the end, it means testing, testing and re-testing. “Throw Spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks” is the motto here. After all, it is the quality, the quintessence of the tests, that gives concrete indications of what the customer wants. This investigative work is therefore well worth it. Because with the findings, the problem could now be precisely determined and tackled at the root.

Sure, method is everything, you should already know what you are doing and Growth Hacking alone is not enough to bring your company forward. But it is an important component, a process, for which one must bring will, passion, commitment, but also patience – that’s why we regularly invite experts like Ben Küstner to support us and also give valuable advice.

Are you already feeling the growth? If not, then start right away with “Growth Hacking”, it will be worth it!