How do you prioritize your growth hacking channels?

Growth hacking is the art and science of finding the most effective ways to grow your startup using data, creativity, and experimentation. But with so many potential channels to explore, how do you prioritize your growth hacking efforts and avoid wasting time and resources on low-impact or irrelevant activities? Here are some tips to help you choose and rank your growth hacking channels based on your goals, audience, and resources.

1 Understand your growth funnel

Before you dive into any channel, you need to have a clear understanding of your growth funnel, which is the journey that your customers take from awareness to retention. Your growth funnel should be aligned with your value proposition, your customer segments, and your key metrics. You also need to identify the main challenges and opportunities at each stage of the funnel, such as low conversion rates, high churn rates, or untapped markets.

Add your perspective

Milco Leijen

Gevoel dat je online marketing beter kan? Dan zit je gevoel goed.
Report contribution
The growth funnel can be very complicated. Multiple awareness channels, multiple touch-points on the website etc. Therefore my advice in this stage is write down the most important metrics in a question format. (max 5). My example; 1. How do I get the right people to the website? 2. How do I get them to experience the aha + wow moment (early in their journey on the website). 3. How do I continue learn from my potential customers & gather information from them. (Growth) 4. Is it easy for them to purchase my product/service? 5. How can I make sure that people who buy my product/service can promote my business. Understanding your growth funnel is all about focus on what (already) works. Then expanding further.

Like

2 Use the ICE framework

One of the most popular frameworks for prioritizing growth hacking channels is the ICE framework, which stands for Impact, Confidence, and Ease. Impact is the potential effect of the channel on your key metric, such as revenue, sign-ups, or referrals. Confidence is how certain you are that the channel will deliver the expected impact, based on data, research, or intuition. Ease is how easy or difficult it is to implement the channel, considering the time, cost, and resources required. To use the ICE framework, you need to score each channel on a scale of 1 to 10 for each criterion, and then calculate the average score. The higher the score, the higher the priority.

Add your perspective

3 Experiment and validate

Once you have a list of prioritized channels, you need to test and validate them using experiments. Experiments are short-term, low-cost, and measurable actions that help you learn and iterate on your growth hacking strategies. You can use tools like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or Optimizely to set up and track your experiments. The key is to have a clear hypothesis, a well-defined metric, and a minimum success criterion for each experiment. You also need to analyze the results and draw insights that can inform your next steps.

Add your perspective

Sravani Bhattacharjee

Technology Marketing Leader | Industrial IoT | Cybersecurity | AI
Report contribution
Over time we know which channels are giving us better returns. But I think it's also important to see which channel interests you and whether you genuinely like engaging with it. For example, the focus and tone of Facebook versus LinkedIn are not the same, you may like one over the other. Yes, here "like" is important as that increases the chance of success as you'd naturally engage with the channel you like and perform qualitatively much better.

Like
Milco Leijen

Gevoel dat je online marketing beter kan? Dan zit je gevoel goed.
Report contribution
My advice; make an ironclad hypothesis and don't stare blindly at the results. Eg; I can increase my CTR through different Google Ads copywriting. But if these are 'empty' promises. This can then cause the drop-off on the landing page to be a lot higher. And then you are just paying extra CPC costs. Also regarding experimentation. Your story should always be right from start to finish.

Like

4 Scale and optimize

The final step is to scale and optimize the channels that have proven to be effective and discard or modify the ones that have not. Scaling means increasing your reach, frequency, and intensity on the channels that have shown positive results, while optimizing means improving your performance, efficiency, and quality on those channels. You can use techniques like A/B testing, segmentation, personalization, automation, or referral programs to scale and optimize your growth hacking channels. You also need to monitor and measure your results and adjust your tactics as needed.

Growth hacking is not a one-time activity, but a continuous process of learning and improving. By prioritizing your growth hacking channels based on your growth funnel, the ICE framework, experiments, and scaling and optimization, you can maximize your growth potential and avoid wasting time and resources on ineffective or irrelevant channels.

Add your perspective

Milco Leijen

Gevoel dat je online marketing beter kan? Dan zit je gevoel goed.
Report contribution
First, test and validate that your growth funnel works. If so, than Performance Marketing channels are the fastest way to scale and optimize. Also if you manage to get people to promote your business afterwards, you have a gem. Then it's a snowball effect. Also in terms of scaling and gaining awareness, video (Performance) marketing works really good, you can get people to get the aha moment early on in their journey. + it's relatively cheap.

Like

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

Add your perspective

How do you prioritize your growth hacking channels?

1

2

3

4

5

1 Understand your growth funnel

2 Use the ICE framework

3 Experiment and validate

4 Scale and optimize

5 Here’s what else to consider

Startup Development

Rate this article

Thanks for your feedback

More articles on Startup Development

More relevant reading

How do you prioritize your growth hacking channels?

1

2

3

4

5

1 Understand your growth funnel

2 Use the ICE framework

3 Experiment and validate

4 Scale and optimize

5 Here’s what else to consider

Startup Development

Rate this article

Thanks for your feedback

Explore Other Skills