You are more than determined that entrepreneurship is your path and you want to be as prepared as possible! You have a great business idea and you know for sure that it will work, because you have thoroughly documented yourself, and you are ready to give up a lot to take advantage of the chance of a lifetime!

Sounds great, doesn't it?

Well, the problem is that entrepreneurship is not all milk and honey. There are hidden things that interact with your dream; stress, worries, and misconceptions that, during your development, may cause you to give up.

Please don't think that we want to discourage you - they are simply things that I have noticed over time interacting with hundreds of entrepreneurs, but also developing the SEOLITTE company and with the help of which, if you become aware of them, you have the best chance to set realistic expectations that will lead you to success.

Because we are constantly researching everything that means marketing, we also researched the success formula of big companies like Facebook, Linkedin, Dropbox, or Airbnb: they didn't end up being worth tens or hundreds of billions of dollars and growing so fast, thanks to a simple moment of inspiration. Behind these ideas with an exponential effect was a well-crafted process and a marketing approach based on measurement and testing, not on going with the ideas that everyone uses.

What these companies do differently when it comes to marketing is to use the growth hacking marketing approach.

In the following, we will present the concept of growth hacking and the procedures used, with slight variations, by all the companies mentioned above which can help you to find, in a sustainable and repeatable way, the best ideas, and marketing strategies for your start-up.

Before you start marketing, the first thing you need to make sure is product-market fit. In other words, be sure that what you offer is what people need.

Set goals and come up with ideas

Before we get to work, we need to know what we want, right? And you won't believe it, but in most cases, we are wrong even on this seemingly simple aspect. Why?

First, we set general goals: "We want to increase sales." This means that even if we have an extra sale we have achieved our goal, but that is not what we want. The problem is that if we don't have a very specific target, it will be much harder for us to find ways to achieve our goals.

A good growth hacking goal can sometimes be achieved by a single well-applied tactic. For example "increase the conversion rate of Google Ads visitors from 2.4% to 4%". That means a specific goal.

Once we have the goal, it's time to come up with ideas on how to achieve it. This is a very important stage.

What we could recommend here:

1. Use brainwriting, not brainstorming. If you try to come up with ideas during a meeting with your team, they may all go in one direction. It's much more efficient to work on each separately, do research, and then put them together.
2. Don't just focus on attracting customers. One of the mistakes we often make is that we associate marketing only with customer acquisition, or other goals that only refer to the beginning of the sales funnel. But it is much more effective to focus on optimizing the conversion rate, increasing the lifetime value of existing customers, rather than attracting new customers.

Prioritize ideas

But how do we do this? How do we choose from all the ideas the right one for us?

We should score each idea according to 3 criteria:

a) The potential of the idea - what can be the impact on the business? Is it an idea like Dropbox's that can radically change our business, or one that moves things a little, but in the right direction?

b) Ease of implementation - do we already have the logistics or resources to implement it, or do we need to put in a lot of effort and change a lot of things to get it to the development stage?

c) Our confidence in the idea - what are the chances that this idea will have the expected impact?

Depending on the moment and the context in which our business is, each criterion gains in importance. For example, if resources are limited and we need some quick wins, we go for ideas we trust and are easy to implement. On the other hand, if things are going well and we have time, it is worth investing in an idea with great potential, even if we are not sure about it because if it is successful it will take our business to the next level.

Implement measurement systems

Without properly implemented measurement systems, it's like painting in the dark. We don't know if what we are doing is good or not.

If we cannot say with certainty that we have achieved our goal or not, then we are not ready to go to the next stage. Moreover, analysis can provide us with valuable information that can lead us to change our goals.

But measurement doesn't just have to be online. Although more difficult, we can find ways to measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns in the offline environment as well. Are you running a flyer campaign? Ask people to bring it to your store for a bonus. This way you will know exactly how many flyers brought you customers and how many went straight to the first trash can.

Rapid deployment and testing

Test as many ideas as you can. You'd be amazed how often we get it wrong when it comes to marketing. If you want to be successful in marketing, let the market decide what the most effective ads and messages are, and stop doing it subjectively, just within the team.

Write the results you expect. Why is this important? Because, most of the time, regardless of the result, we will say "I knew!". The truth is, we didn't know, but our brains have an extraordinary power to find justifications and make ourselves look good, if only in our own eyes.

Analyze and optimize

A few rules for this stage:

a) if an idea fails, remove it from the list;

b) if it performs below expectations, but not by much, see if you can improve it and if it is worth doing so;

c) if it went as you expected or far beyond expectations, double all investments in it.

If you manage to integrate this process into the organizational culture of your team, you will greatly increase your chances, regardless of what kind of business you have and what goals you have set for yourself.

Good luck with your business!