Before I dive into the deep end of B2B marketing growth hacks, let’s get one thing straight: growth hacking can’t be done in a vacuum. If you’re rushing to scale and diversifying marketing channels for quick wins without a proper grasp of industry dynamics and business-level KPIs, you’re in for a brutal wake up call.
That being said, growth hacking can absolutely be a game-changer for accelerating business growth—but it’s not a magic bullet, and it’s not for the faint of heart. Now that I’ve mentally prepared you to receive our shiny pearls of wisdom, let’s get into it.
What Is Growth Hacking?
If you already know the answer to this, you get a gold star, skip to the next section. Growth hacking combines marketing, optimization, and some tech know-how to create automated marketing on a shoestring budget. You’ve got to be resourceful, creative, and smart with your marketing efforts to drive growth without breaking the bank.
Growth hacking is usually linked to start-ups and small businesses, which don’t have a ton of cash to burn but need quick results (and if that’s you, you should’ve started dialing us like 5 minutes ago).
Pearls of Wisdom: B2B Marketing Growth Hacks
The three pillars of B2B growth hacking
- Rapid Experimentation: Think of rapid experimentation like speed dating for your marketing tactics. You’re testing out different strategies and channels to see what clicks. If something isn’t working, you ditch it fast and move on to the next idea. No time wasted!
- User-Centricity: User-focus is all about getting to know your audience like they’re your best friends. Understand their behavior and preferences so you can engage with them better and turn those interactions into conversions.
- Data-Driven Decisions: Data is the GPS of a good growth hackers marketing strategy. Instead of guessing which way to go, you’re relying on solid data and metrics to guide your path and measure your success. It keeps you on the right track and helps you reach your goals more efficiently.
Automated Referral Programs
Referral programs are a killer growth hack because they build on the trust you’ve already earned. When friends or colleagues recommend your services, people are more likely to say “yes” and become loyal customers. This is especially true in B2B settings, where peer recommendations and industry networking play a huge role in decision-making. Plus, it’s a budget-friendly way to stretch your marketing dollars by leveraging relationships you already have with paying customers.
Freemium Models & Free Trials
This is a personal favorite, because we all love a good free trial (especially the ones where they don’t ask for your card info up front—that evokes the panic associated with long-term commitments). When you’re courting potential clients, you want to keep the mystery alive. Free trials and freemium models allow you to carefully choose which features to include that will provide enough value to spark curiosity and create a need for the premium features—driving those conversions.
SEO Strategies
Either you saw SEO and got really excited, or your eyes glazed over. Either way, SEO (search engine optimization) is a B2B marketing growth hack that you can’t overlook (especially when the competition is fierce). Imagine you go to a concert to see your favorite artist. The place is packed, tens of thousands of screaming fans. You made a sign with an inscription on it that references something of meaning to your artist, but so did 1000 other fans. The difference is, you did the research, you know the artist's history, likes, favorite color (probably blue), relationship status—you get the gist—and what you wrote caught the attention of the artist, despite all the other signs other fans made. In the world of SEO growth hacking, the artist is Google and your landing page, social captions, website, blog etc. is the sign that caught its attention.
Google gets about 250 billion searches every month, which breaks down to around 99,000 searches every second. With this huge volume of searches, SEO holds massive potential for reaching a vast audience. Good SEO means Google notices you, ranking you higher and moving you to the front of the line when people are searching.
How do you think you ended up here? If my count is correct, I’ve mentioned growth hacking 14 times, making it super easy for Google to recognize that this blog is about B2B marketing growth hacks (that’s 15!).
Exit Popup Tools
Ever noticed those popups that show up just when you’re about to leave a website? That’s an exit intent tool at work, aiming to keep visitors from bouncing away. Similar to when you’re planning on irish-exiting a party and your friends notice and persuade you to stay a little longer.
These popups can be customized to show a special message right before someone clicks away. Whether it’s asking a question, providing a value prop, telling them to subscribe to your newsletter, or hyping up an upcoming launch, you can tailor it to fit your needs. Since you’re B2B growth hacking, you should regularly test different exit messages, analyze what works, and pivot your strategy accordingly.
LinkedIn: Party in the Front, Business in the Back
This is a bit of a backdoor solution to leverage LinkedIn as a B2B growth hack. As we all know, LinkedIn is the go to networking platform for businesses. If your network isn’t buzzing yet, now is the time to start getting more involved. Join groups that your audience will be in, and take 10 minutes a day to comment or contribute in those groups. Analyze what is getting engagement, what groups are most receptive, what messaging or content types are working, and keep pivoting your strategy. Even though you took the back entrance to engage with your audience on LinkedIn, you’ll start getting leads coming in through the front door (AKA your LinkedIn page, your website etc.)
You Can Hack It
Now that you’re prepped to be a growth hacker, let me remind you to stay curious, and never stop tweaking. Keep it data driven and think outside of the box with these strategies. Now go forth and conquer growth hackers!
