This week we went through two masterclasses -Growth Hacking, and Effective Persuasion.
Growth Hacking
Titan Lee, Growth Hacker and Digital Marketing Trainer, brought us through two days of masterclass on Growth Hacking.
Growth hacking according to the inventor of the term, Sean Ellis, is completely focused on growth because that is the first thing startups need. As the lines between marketing and growth hacking are often blurred, Titan helps to clarify the distinction between the two.
The key difference between marketing and growth hacking is that as traditional marketing channels have become overly saturated and expensive, the “Growth Hacker” has to “Hack” (find innovative solutions) to acquire new customers. The “Growth Hacker” focuses more on ROI, than “Brand Awareness”.
Titan also shared with us that certain platforms should be used for different purposes. A good example would be the following:
1. Yahoo!/Google Search Engine, for Intent Based Marketing, as results are based off key words input into the Search Bar.
2. Facebook, for Interest Based Marketing, as results are based off your Facebook Profile, which captures the profile from your Facebook Account.
Titan also stressed on the importance of maximizing ROI, through the Golden Equation.
“Traffic (#) x Conversions (%) = Sales($) / Leads”
To increase the probability of success of our growth hacking efforts, Titan suggests that we will need to:
1. Fully understand the persona of the target audience.
2. Experiment with various designs/Copywriting and do some A/B testing to see what gives us the highest ROI, to minimize the Cost Per Click (CPC).
Our primary goal is to keep acquisition costs at the minimum through well-planned ad placements. With this intention, identifying our target consumers and their behaviors are critical to the success of our advertisements. — Gabriel
Effective Persuasion
Our coach and mentor, Fred, a Thinking Coach from Think Solutions, (gave us a masterclass) on Effective Persuasion. (He likened being persuasive to) designing our ad campaign, our ability to influence and persuade. We covered the basics of using the power of emotions to convince our audience to act on our message.
Key points:
1. Establish relevance → Create trust → Identify loss or gains2. Introducing a loss typically drives people more than gains
3. Give people a call to action
4. Presenting your solution first is the most common approach, however, it is not the most effective way to present. It is largely seen as ego-driven
5. Effective flow = Relevance →Pains → Benefits → The Solution
Equally important, Fred also provided some tips on deck designs. The most overlooked component of putting together slides is text layout and spacing. Merely adjusting character and line spacing can have adverse effects on how a presentation is perceived by the audience.
For some of us who are not adept with the fundamentals of visual design, the topics covered by Fred this week are invaluable indeed. — Gabriel
Ending off with a lovely picture of us discussing about our projects over dinner.
