Growth Hacking Unveiled: A Success Story of Slack

Priya Bawa

She has started her career as a Content Writer and writes on blogs related to career.

Source: Safalta

Growth hacking is a constant activity of uncovering chances for growth. It entails:
  • Investigating the market
  • Information examination
  • Identifying the most successful methods for acquiring, activating, retaining, and referring clients
  • Using low-resource and low-cost digital marketing methods
  • Looking for innovative and unique methods to get out to customers
  • generating income
"Growth marketing" is another term for "growth hacking." It use machine learning techniques to do the following:
  • Audiences should be segmented.
  • Recognize patterns
  • Consumer behavior can be predicted.
To put growth hacking into action, you'll need a funnel and a roadmap to guide your activities and track your progress.
Sean Ellis, founder and CEO of GrowthHackers, created the phrase "growth hacking" in 2010.  Here are some instances of growth hacking:
  • Boosting the growth of B2B SaaS products.
  • Airbnb's success was built not just on traditional marketing strategies, but also on the creation of self-reinforcing growth loops. Boost your Skills by learning: Digital Marketing 
Table of Content:
1) Determine which experiences convert customers into promoters.
2) Case studies on growth hacking:


Determine which experiences convert customers into promoters?
Have you seen Slack's love wall? They are every entrepreneur's dream.
One recurring pattern arises when Stewart Butterfield analyzes Slack's success. It was consumer input that was critical to gaining traction with users. It's in the company's DNA. Slack was able to detect modest modifications that had a large influence on the company's development by constantly gathering input. Members of Slack's development team recognized early on that it was difficult for new users to traverse new discussion channels at huge corporations. Slack adds features to enable the description and the number of people using the channel as a solution. On the surface, it looks to be a minor issue, yet it was a key fault that rendered Slack unusable in the first place.
On the surface, it looks to be a minor issue, yet it was a crucial flaw that rendered Slack unusable in big teams. Every day, Butterfield and the Slack customer success team sift through hundreds of emails and comments, passing product proposals to management. We will accept user feedback in any form we can get it." We have a command in the app that users may utilize to email us feedback. People may send support tickets by clicking on the assistance button.  Slack began to study more about its product and have a thorough understanding of its consumer demography. Slack recognized three critical features and got them right. In their product, they discovered the actual core of value. In their product, they discovered the actual core of value. As First Round Review's article "From 0 to $1B - Slack's Founder Shares Their Epic Launch Strategy" highlights:
  • Search Capabilities: Google has increased the bar for search user experience. Slack recognized the need to provide a unified user experience in which users could easily discover documents and chats.
  • Simple File Sharing: Slack users interact with the product for hours every day. By introducing the easy ability to swiftly transfer files and photos by dragging and dropping, shortcuts and productivity hacks are provided.
  • Slack knows where every individual in every chat leaves off when a user leaves their desktop and switches devices to a phone.
Download these Free EBooks: Introduction to digital marketing  

Allowing clients to offer feedback in their own words, in brief, creates a complete picture of what causes a great or poor experience. With this information, you can confidently decide what to accentuate and what to repair. As you do so, you will see that more of your consumers will become Promoters. Slack does not end at simply adding you as a user. They want you to brag about how great Slack is at every turn.
NPS may assist you in identifying your brand's supporters, driving your product roadmap, alerting you to consumers in risk of churning, and determining which people to contact for tales. Request reviews, tweets, or customer videos from your most ardent supporters. It's quite simple to reach out and participate in that evangelism. CMO of Slack (2014-2017), Macaitis, Bill They consider NPS to be the most essential metric. It's no surprise that it's one of the world's fastest growing companies. Here are some tried-and-true tactics for getting your consumer to chat.
 
1. Conduct a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey:
You can't do anything unless you measure it. Some businesses measure the viral coefficient using smart tracking and referral codes. However, only a few firms develop through obvious social media methods. The majority of word of mouth occurs elsewhere, where it is difficult to quantify. Consider a coffee shop, a conference, a meetup, a canteen, and a variety of other settings. Some items just do not entice individuals to share their experiences with strangers. Mint.com is a good example of rapid word-of-mouth development in the absence of real virality. Mint was well-liked. It had a high Net Promoter Score and solved a real problem for individuals. Anonymous sharing app, on the other side In 2014, the secret spread like wildfire, reaching 15 countries.
Secret, on the other side, spread like wildfire in 2014, reaching 15 million members before shutting down a year later because virality only compensated for the "hot new thing factor," not the utility of the service. We use Net Promoter Score to assist us in determining genuine long-term growth potential. NPS is a simple survey that asks your customers to rate their likelihood of referring your company on a scale of 0 to 10. And, in case you're wondering, yes, this is an 11-point scale. And, no, it doesn't make sense. That is life. Based on their responses, it divides your consumers into three groups: Promoters (9-10), Passives (7-8), and Detractors (0-6). The more Promoters you have, the more clients you will get through referrals. Bain & Co established the Net Promoter Score as "the one number you need to grow" in 2003. It is a figure that approximates how much your consumers like you. It is determined as follows:

NPS = % of Promoters (9-10) — % of Detractors (0-6):
A good NPS is often defined as anything above 70%, with over 85% considered exceptional. However, this is only a basic guideline; the true value of NPS stems from learning how to increase it within the context of your particular firm.
 


Step 2: Gather Feedback:
Follow up with an open-ended question on why the client gave the score that they did. The problem here is to gather enough high-quality comments to explain why respondents provided the suggestion score they did. You may also ask your consumers what it would have taken for them to give you a higher rating. Customers may frequently tell you amazing things about your company that you might otherwise overlook. Read our customer experience technological stack guide for additional information on some of the top technologies for gathering feedback.
Step 3: Determine which experiences convert customers into promoters:
Customer input is actually important to Slack. Every day, their crew looks through a large number of emails and comments before submitting product proposals to the management team (who also like reading this stuff). As good as this strategy is, it is difficult to grow. Every CEO should be able answer this question: what would be the top 3 reasons for which individuals recommend and do not recommend your brand?
Slack's CMO, Bill Macaitis
An option to manually reviewing client feedback is to have a machine do it for you. Chattermill.io, for example, offers specialized algorithms that can precisely detect mood and topics in client comments. It can tell you exactly what your clients are saying. Allowing clients to offer feedback in their own words, in brief, paints a complete picture of what causes a great or poor experience. With this information, you can confidently decide what to accentuate and what to repair. As you do so, you will see that more of your consumers will become Promoters.
 
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2) Digital Marketing Salary for Freshers in Bangalore: Jobs, monthly salary 2023  

Case studies on growth hacking:
 
  • The Dollar Shave Club: Dollar Shave Club, which debuted in 2012, faced stiff competition. For decades, Gillette has been the go-to brand for every American razor customer. As a result, DSC needed to make a compelling case to unseat the industry's incumbent. To do this, they posed two questions to customers: Do you enjoy spending $20+ a month on razors, and do you believe that razor need all of the flashing lights and superfluous frills included in today's products?  DSC also understood the value of video marketing. Do you want to see the advertisement that generated over 12,000 orders in one day and was watched over 26 million times?
You certainly do: DSC understood that word of mouth may be the key to success. This works well in conjunction with viral videos to promote the ad from client to consumer. However, they discovered that when a client has a positive experience with their brand, they are more inclined to suggest it to a friend. As a result, the firm decided to prioritize client retention over customer acquisition.  Investing in the client's lifetime value so easily attracts new consumers. As a result, when your consumers are really pleased with the goods, they produce their own advertisements.
  • Dropbox: Dropbox employed incentives to gain word-of-mouth advertising in a more basic, stripped-down method. They obtained access to users through their friends and family by offering 500 MB more space for every friend referred. And it wasn't a one-time offer; consumers could get up to 16GB of free space, so people kept recommending new individuals to the program.  Instead of sign-up' incentive, the corporation converted every user into a prospective free advertisement. As a result, they quickly became well-known, i.e. the definition of successful growth hacking.
  • Airbnb:  This one is rather ingenious. Airbnb provided the ability for anybody advertising a home on their platform to advertise it on Craigslist. If they reached an agreement, the listing would show on both platforms. Any clicks on the Craigslist site would then be sent back to the original Airbnb posting. In addition, Airbnb went through Craigslist postings and contacted consumers. If they wanted to rent out their property, they'd get an email encouraging them to advertise it on Airbnb as well. So, basically, they infiltrated Craigslist and took it from within. As if you were a cool spy or a parasite.
 

To put growth hacking into action, you'll need a funnel and a roadmap to guide your activities and track your progress.
Sean Ellis, founder and CEO of GrowthHackers, created the phrase "growth hacking" in 2010.  Here are some instances of growth hacking:
  • Boosting the growth of B2B SaaS products.
  • Airbnb's success was built not just on traditional marketing strategies, but also on the creation of self-reinforcing growth loops. 

Read More: How Artificial Intelligence Can Do Great Things For Human Beings
 

What factors contributed to Slack's success?

Simple file sharing – Because Slack's user interface is so basic, it's only logical that they've included simple file-sharing options. Slack saves customers time and improves their experience by allowing them to drag & drop files and paste photos right into the conversation.

What is the backstory of Slack?

Slack began as an internal communication platform used by Stewart Butterfield's Tiny Speck during the creation of Glitch, an online game.
 

How did Slack become the world's fastest growing business app?

Slack was able to establish a devoted and enthusiastic user base that helped promote the platform and drive growth by prioritizing their brand identity in all facets of their business. Slack's innovative marketing technique was one method they increased brand recognition.
 

Why has Slack grown so quickly?

It's an incredible narrative that nearly seems to have happened by chance. Success, on the other hand, was no accident, as Slack expanded by aggressively listening to clients, swiftly testing, iterating, and always putting their lessons to use.
 

What are the advantages of Slack for a business?

  • Collaborate in a single location.
  • Channels are structured locations for dialogues to take place around each of your projects.
  • Eliminate email formality and improve exposure using emoji, direct messages, and threads.
  • Slack may be accessed from any device, whether at your work or on the go.

What distinguishes Slack?

  • Slack is simple to use.
  • Slack employs colorful colors, dynamic themes, an intuitive interface, efficient features, excellent APIs, appealing fonts, and amusing characters such as emojis. For a more smooth workflow, Slack enables for feature enhancement and app connections.

Why is Slack superior to its competitors?

Although Slack links with more third-party solutions, both applications offer Zapier connectors. Both Microsoft Teams and Slack have amazing connectors with other applications, but their approaches benefit users in different ways.
 

What is Slack's position?

Ranking of slack.com, Website ranking aids in determining the worth of a company. Slack.com's worldwide rating has dropped from 362 to 349 in the previous three months.