17 Best Growth Hacks Learned from 5 Years as a Startup Founder
As an early-stage startup founder, It’s really tough to bring first 1000 paying users for your product with limited money.
5 years back, I started my startup while in college and wasn’t unable to spend much money on Facebook ads, Google ads and Automation. So we had to plan things in a way that we can at least 10x return on investment of Facebook/Google ads.
Throughout 5 years, Building my own startup to help many entrepreneurs, I have found a lot of growth hacks that can boost your conversions. So I want to share with you all.
Here are Top 17 Growth hacks -
Growth Hacking Tip #1: Hide retargeting cookies for 45 seconds
Stop retargeting people who bounced immediately from your site. Use a little bit of javascript to hide retargeting cookies for 45 seconds to ensure you’re only retargeting users who are interested in your content.
Growth Hacking Tip #2: Send out old articles as newsletters on the weekend
Capitalize on your mailing list by sending out relevant (but older) content on the weekends. This is a great way to drive more traffic to your blog with minimal effort.
Growth Hacking Tip #3: Provide a secondary CTA on your post sign up page
Strike while the iron is hot and prompt your newly converted leads with a secondary CTA on the post sign up page. Here’s an example of a secondary CTA that we offer new leads on one of our ebook post entry pages.
Growth Hacking Tip #4: Use pre-filled form fields
Use information you already know about your users to pre-fill forms in order to make it easier for them to convert.
Growth Hacking Tip #5: Add hidden form fields to your lead-gen forms
The more you know about your leads, the better you can cater and nurture them in your marketing down the line. One trick used to capture even more information about your leads is to pass a parameter in a URL which can be received by a hidden field on one of your forms. Using this trick you can capture even more information about your leads without making them fill out multiple form fields that you already have information form. Common uses of this can include location, campaign, and interest category.
Growth Hacking Tip #6: Create a free tool
Creating a free tool is an awesome way to drive a ton of leads. Side project marketing is the new king for rapid growth.
Growth Hacking Tip #7: Shopping cart abandonment email
Send an email as soon as someone bounces from your checkout page without purchasing. This is a great chance to address any objections they might have had which prevented them from purchasing while also giving them a chance to return.
Growth Hacking Tip #8: Use SpyFu to see how much your competitors are spending on ads
See exactly how your competitors have used google for paid search over the past 9 years using SpyFu. See things like ad variations, keywords bought, and total ad budget.
Growth Hacking Tip #9: Use Sidekick to see who’s read your emails
Hubspot has an awesome free tool call Sidekick which allows you to see when someone’s read one of your emails. This is great for sales, following up, and just for general interest.
Growth Hacking Tip #10: View 100 people’s LinkedIn profiles a day
Is your startup struggling to get visibility? Get noticed by viewing at least 100 LinkedIn profiles a day. To save time, try the Chrome extension Linkclump to speed up the process and view multiple profiles at once.
Growth Hacking Tip #11: Use names in your subject line
Using a user’s name in a subject line is one of the easiest ways to increase your email open rates. This can usually be done through most email service providers using a function called a “merge tag.” Of course, this assumes that you’ve also collected a name field from your leads at some point.
Growth Hacking Tip #12: Use 30% scroll popups on content
Scroll popups are content marketers dirty little secret. Not because they’re dirty, but because they’re effective. We all know people hate entry popups and few people actually make it to the bottom of your article to see a bottom page CTA.
That’s why a 30% scroll pop up works so well. It is triggered based on engagement just before the halfway point of your content. This way you know you’re prompting actively engaged readers rather than people simply browsing through your site.
Growth Hacking Tip #13: Make your 404 pages a landing page
When people get lost on your site, why not prompt them with something of value and a CTA? Popular giveaways can include ebooks, checklists, and course signup pages for lost visitors.
Growth Hacking Tip #14: Send emails from a real person
Rather than sending emails from info@yourcompany.com or even “Tom at Company”, send them from real people with their first and last names.
We’ve found people respond better to actual people when compared with generic company emails.
Growth Hacking Tip #15: Send an “oops! forgot the link” email
When automating follow up emails, consider incorporating some “human errors” into your email sequences. One trick is to send one email that’s missing either a link or a file. You then automate a follow-up email 1–5 minutes later sending the missing piece of the first email.
While open rates will likely remain the same, we’ve found that conversions for the second email tend to skyrocket.
Growth Hacking Tip #16: Use Facebook lookalike audiences
Leverage the power of your email list by creating a Facebook lookalike audience. Using this hack you can target people with similar characteristics to your pre-existing email list on Facebook and Instagram.
Growth Hacking Tip #17: Launch on a Tuesday
Tuesday is the best day to launch a product, feature or article since it’s generally the day with the highest engagement on social media.
Do Claps if you really loved the Hacks, I would like to share more of my learning in the next articles here.
Learn more about me and my work by visiting my Profile here.
