The Difference Between Growth Hacking and Marketing

Many of you must be familiar with the term growth marketing but you might have a cloudy knowledge of growth hacking. And here I have just seen a website cleverly mixing up both the terms of growth marketing and growth hacking thus confusing the audience. Well, what is the need of breaking their flow and let people know that growth hacking has a different approach and outcomes from growth marketing?
If you are looking for either of the options, then you should know what best suits you. So, let us look at some of the major and essential points of difference between both. But before that, let us take a glance about what actually is growth hacking and growth marketing.

What is growth marketing?
Growth marketing works on the three essential motives- awareness of the brand, long term strategy for the business and customer engagement in the best possible manner.
Generally, while talking about how growth marketing works, we can say that:

●    They work on content marketing, paid acquisitions and user differentiations to make a brand even if it costs patience to them.
●    They have a long-term strategy for the business and sustainable revenue growth with the marketing team.
●    They are not only focusing on the new customer acquisition but also the customer retention policy.

What is growth hacking?
Growth hacking was all started in 2010 with Sean Ellis’ original post of “How to find a growth hacker for your startup” that gained an ample amount of attention. The post defined a growth hacker as “a person whose true north is growth”. But to be precise with the general definition, growth hacking is all about a company's growth within a short time. The sole strategy of growth hacking is to fly high with some shortcuts and hacks on the technical part. Again, let’s unfold some points of growth hacking as follows:

●    Growth hackers focus more on the new customer acquisition which ultimately gives them revenue in a small period.
●    It requires both the skills of the marketing team as well as the technical team to develop strategies for the growth of the company by attracting maximum users.
●    They are born as the need of the startups who always want a sudden growth with a minimum budget and catch up with the peers of their respective industries.

Now just look at some of the points that make growth hackers different from growth marketers

1. Aim of growth hackers Vs. Aim of growth marketers
Growth hackers focus on the sudden growth of the business while growth marketers are more tilted towards sustainable growth. A growth marketing group has a finished product in their hand which they present in front of the user and imply several strategies for its promotion and conversions from the user side. However, their ultimate aim is to retain the customers in the long run by customer feedback and review process thus getting a return for a longer time.

This is not the case with growth hackers who analyze the users demand with different tech tools and strategies by running pilot projects and then work aggressively on the outcomes they got from the conversions, their focus is more on the growth irrespective of the product.

2. Data usage between growth hackers and growth marketers
Data plays a vital role in both the growth hacking and growth marketing process. It is a well-known fact in the digital world that if you don’t have the quality data in your pocket, you will be crippled and feel clueless for reaching the right masses of users. So, to have the best quality data is a matter of great priority for the growth of the business.
Now, the question arises: what are the mindset of growth hackers and growth marketers regarding the user data.
While growth marketers have realized the importance of digital promotion with the time, they seep into the use of data for the customer conversions for the ultimate growth of their business. However, growth hackers can be considered as a master of data usage. With the need for rapid growth, new technologies have evolved with pace thus setting the stage for the growth hackers to mine the data and refine it to get better user engagement.

3. Growth hackers are crazy people while growth marketers are a bunch of hard-working people
Yes, it is true that in the world of shortcuts, it is easy to attract the people who are finding the hacks like “get a free referral loop in minutes” as it sounds interesting and crazy. This is what a growth hacker is being capable of doing so. Even, one of the biggest video streaming services YouTube as a growth hacking story. You can check that later of course. Just paste the most clickable line in the screen of the user with some best possible technological hacks and here you are with some happy conversions in your data mapping tools.

A bunch of first benchers with the philosophy of “do the hard work and get the success” is more apt for the growth marketers who are ready to commit their time to each customer getting their feedback and working on it to develop long term relationships with them. By spending a cross-linking process with the user, they have a belief in getting the dividend in the future for sure.

What you will choose now: Growth marketing or Growth hacking?
Marketing your brand and establishing trust among the people is always a good option to go for. If you have an existing brand with a significant customer base, then growth marketing is well and good for you. With all these, you just have to develop long term goals for your business.

While, if you are a startup with a limited budget and aim to target the right audience, then Growth hacking is the appropriate option for you. As it is cost-effective, less time consuming and can lead to big profits. So, rather being satisfied with your current business strategies, it is high time to put your creative thoughts in action.