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The digital landscape is always evolving and marketers are confronted with an expanding spectrum of terminologies every day. Recently, the sexiest is the buzzword “growth hacking”. Every marketer heard about it, few know exactly what is, and how it works. Simply because the term growth hacking is not referred a rigorous methodology that you can learn from a book. The growth hacking is an approach, that requires a mindfulness mindset.

The growth hacking activities aim to achieve an organic constant business growth. A growth hacker is a person able to define a continuing process of experimentation that involves not only the product but in some case the entire business. As Sean Ellis – father of Growth Hacking – said “A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth”.

Sean Ellis simply observed the market, finding traditional strategies inefficient. Saturated channels, consumers tired of being bombarded by the online advertising, high costs of acquisition of new consumers.  Growth hacking is a new approach to the digital marketing strategies, is not an alternative. Sometimes, the traditional marketing and the growth hacking can overlap. Are the effect extensions of growth hacking activities that are larger than traditional marketing results. Traditional marketing works on the final steps of the communication funnel – awareness and acquisition; growth hacking descends deep down on the activation steps, retention, revenue, and referral.

In the growth hacking approach, instead of using the entire budget, the latter is divided into “mini-budget” and is spread on a set of experimentations. Each experiment is wisely chosen, is not a Russian roulette. A growth hacker finds a strategy within the parameters of a scalable and repeatable method for growth, driven by product and inspired by data. Growth hacking’s goal is based on marketing but driven by product instincts. A growth hacker lives at the intersection of data, product, and marketing. Normally a growth hacking experiment has 3 main features: measurable, scalable and repeatable. In order to understand how a given marketing action can affect growth is crucial found metrics linked to the growth able to identify the variations of relation cause-effect between the target and the business. In addition, a growth hacking activity must be sufficiently flexible to be scalable, i.e. implemented on a large scale.

As evidence suggests, the backbone of the most successful crowdfunding campaign is marketing. When the question asked, “Why do crowdfunding projects succeed or fail?” there are really only two reasons any crowdfunding project succeeds or fails. Traffic & Conversion.

A growth hacker’s success lies in defining precise, actionable goals that will feed into the overall goal of growth. Set measurable goals in time, coherently with the Call to Action of your campaign. Another fundamental aspect is creativity, is a common feature of crowdfunding and growth hacking. Don't be invisible. Finally: Data, data and data for monitor constantly your progresses. Record the main evidence and use successful digital experiments (only one time) in your campaign.

The pre-launch phase is the right one to find untapped sources of potential users, maximize leverage from existing networks.

• Perfect Your Product: After the “product-market fit” phase, use an experiment to make sure that your offering is as strong as possible. You will use it a catalyst for your success. Using little and targeted experiment, analyze preferences of your target and use this data to build reward that will meet their expectation. Consider to use "product sample" and find a way to test how your consumers can have a great experience with your product.
• Acquisition channel: Before to go online, consider to test and stress you acquisition channel. During the preparation of your campaign, try to test new channel, new engagement ways, and test if your potential base is incremented.
• Referral: Try to understand if your early adopter tells others about your initiative. If you are able to catch up this channel, you can use it during your campaign. You have to find the incentive that turns your consumer into an ambassador.