Alfena
  • Go to LeadRebel
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Sign up
  • enEnglish (English)
    • deDeutsch (German)

B2B Growth Hacking - Bewährte Techniken wo Budget Size Doesn't Matter

Beispiele, Fallstudien und Inspirationen für B2B Growth Hacking. Tipps/Anleitungen, wie man diese Techniken heute anwendet und mehr B2B Wachstum erreicht
what is growth hacking

B2B Growth Hacking – Tips and Tricks for More Growth

Usually, entrepreneurial growth is regarded as “slow but steady.” We do not fully agree with this statement. After all, a good kick-start never hurt anyone. Which leads us straight to B2B growth hacking. B2B growth Hacking strategy is about helping your business grow through imaginative, unusual, or bold marketing strategies.

See how it works from the following companies. In this article, you will get an overview of growth hacking for B2B companies and learn about: 

  • proven growth hacks 
  • exclusive inspiration and how these ideas can be implemented today
  • case studies and take-aways: Slack
  • two examples of growth hacking for B2B start-ups
  • summary 
Do you need more B2B leads?
Ultimate List of 300 lead generation tools and techniques

    B2B Growth Hacking: what has proved itself worthwhile

    Globally, three companies have shaped the term growth hacking substantially: Dropbox, Hotmail, and Airbnb. Thanks to the hacks used, all three companies have massively expanded their follower base within a very short time.

    1. Dropbox
    2. Hotmail
    3. Airbnb
    4. Pipetop
    5. Slack

    Dropbox: The recommendation hack

    Growth Hacking Cornerstone – Number 1: Dropbox’s double-edged recommendation scheme

    1. Users who recommend Dropbox to a friend will receive free additional storage space. 
    2.  The person who registers via a link also receives a promotional gift.

    This win-win opportunity paved the way for the company’s rapid growth, which today has 500 million customers.

    B2B Growth hacking

    Source: Google. Referrals by Dropbox. Perfectly SEO-optimized, of course. 

    “How-to: How’s it going today? Payoneer is currently applying the same strategy and is likewise growing successfully with it.

    Hotmail: Backlinks

    Growth Hacking Cornerstone – Number 2: Building on proven concepts

    Well, Hotmail’s big days are over, actually. But: The company had managed to register 6 million usersin just six months.

    This worked because the company used its original 20,000 subscribers as “carrier pigeons.” Every email sent contained an automatic message linking back to Hotmail. And it reads: PS: I Love you.Get your free Hotmail email address.

    PS: “I love you” worked so well because it was cordial and sympathetic. The concept was new, and people liked it. So, the results didn’t take long to show and almost everyone who clicked turned into a Hotmail user. 

    “How-to”: How’s it going today? Add “Powered By” or trust badges to the footer of your websites and in your email signature. 

    The integration of “Powered by” or trust badges into the signature or footer is easy to implement and produces excellent results. The principle behind it relies on references: If you use brand widgets of a reputable brand or if people see your product on other websites, this can lead to a growth boost.

    growth hacking

    Example of a “Powered by” integration. Source Screenshot: Optinmonster

    startup growth hacking

    The world-famous Hotmail signature. Source Screenshot: Optinmonster

    Airbnb: Backlinks

    Growth Hacking Cornerstone – Number 3: From zero to millions

    Airbnb is famous for effortlessly finding affordable, stylish and exclusive accommodation – wherever you go. 

    It wasn’t always like that. Airbnb also had to build up its customer base in laborious detail work. In the early stage, its founders discovered that Americans who did not want to stay in expensive hotels searched Craigslist for alternative accommodations. Without further ado, they had the opportunity to have their listings copied there. 

    The idea is brilliant. And theresult? Immediate access to a potentially huge market.

    airbnb growth hacking

    Source Screenshot: Airbnb Facebook Account. Without Craigslist no overnight stay in the “Wienermobile.”

    Before we reveal to you how this can be done today, please reflect on the most important growth hacking rule: pirate metrics. 

    If you simply want to remember the basics of growth hacking, just remember “AARRR!“

    Acquisition -How do your customers find you? 

    Activation – How enjoyable is the initial point of contact for the customer/visitor?

    Retention – How many of your customers do you retain or lose?

    Referral – How can you transform your customers into ambassadors? 

    Revenue – How can you increase revenue?

    Preliminary conclusion: before you growth-hack, you need to know your customers inside outand know where they are. 

    “How-to: How can the Airbnb strategy be implemented today? Use advertising portals, contact exchanges, and LinkedIn marketing. 

    LinkedIn probably is the most important social network for B2B companies.

    In addition to the common content sharing features, LinkedIn offers a handy tool: you can see the users who have viewed your profile. Yup! Thanks to this hack, you can find out which LinkedIn users have been visiting your site.

    You must have a Premium LinkedIn account and insert the following HTML code on your website:

    <img src = ”https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?authToken=XXauthType=name&id=XX” />

    Here, XX stands for your LinkedIn ID page.

    Pipetop: The pufferfish among the growth hackers

    Growth Hacking Cornerstone – Number 4: Fake it until you make it 

    The pufferfish uses a visually awe-inspiring adaptation technique when it is in danger.

    The fish sucks in water or air and suddenly becomes three times as big as usual. This warning prevents other sea animals from messing with the prickly fellow. 

    Pipetop, a Danish company, followed a similar approach in its sales strategy. The start-up wanted to give the impression that it operates in several countries, although it had only one office in Denmark.

    Instead of opening different offices, they bought several Skype numbers in different countries. Although the company is no longer on the market today, this hack created the necessary confidence for sales, especially in the highly competitive B2B sales market.  

    “How-to: How’s it going today? Here the motto is: “steal” the strategy. Buy (Skype) numbers and place them on the website. This gives the impression that your company is bigger than it seems.  

    “If many others find something good, it will also work for me” – that is the concept of social proof. A lot depends on this today – who wants to use a service that nobody else is interested in? 

    That’s what Uber’s rival “Lyft” also figured out. The company solved its problem (too little demand, too few operators) by paying taxi drivers to pretend being booked and waiting for passengers. This mass of suppliers ensured that potential passengers were convinced of the service quality even before their journey.

    Case Study – Slack: Growth the easy way

    Growth Hacking cornerstone – number 5: Convince with simplicity and a great product

    Founded in 2013 by Stewart Butterfield, Slack is a cloud-based hub where multiple companies can collaborate in real-time.

    Here are some company facts: 

    • 1.25 million paying users
    • 4 million active users per day
    • The fastest-growing SaaS company of all time
    • Turnover from 0 to 4 billion USD in only 4 years
    • 77% of Fortune 100 companies use this software

    The Slack growth hacking strategy in detail 

    Slack did not use cold calling, lead generation, or support campaigns for its growth hacking strategy.

    It is worth mentioning here that the founding team – besides Butterfield – was made up of Eric Costello, Cal Henderson, and Serguei Mourachov. They all were involved in building the photo-sharing site Flickr.

    By the way: Slack is worth more than 100 times as much as Flickr today. 

    The most crucial growth strategy at Slack:

    • Optimization for PQLs (product-qualified leads) instead of 
    • optimization for MQLs (marketing-qualified leads) 
    • or SQLs (sales-qualified leads).

    This means that Slack focused on generating active logins rather than building a massive database of inactive users.

    This was achieved with a free product version.

    Charges only apply once the user wants to unlock additional functions such as memory or app integrations. This is a tactic used by many SaaS companies.

    Slack is different, though, because they are always focused on one goal: They want to make the day for your users as easy as possible by doing the organizational work for them. 

    Instead of pushing people to try out the demo version by using intrusive sales techniques, Slack relied on paid advertising (retargeting) and the following concept: simplicity. 

    • Instead of technical jargon, the user sees simple slogans, ads, and landing pages.
    • The company uses easy-to-use registration forms, friendly ads, and uniform branding.

    “How-to: How’s it going today? 

    The Slack Growth Hacking Take-Aways for B2B lead generation agencies. 

    Word of mouth: Improve your product continuously and simplify people’s work. Make it easy for people to share your innovation with colleagues and friends.

    Use paid advertising: Do not rely on scattering losses, but on paid advertising. This is particularly recommended as part of social media marketing. 

    Give a lot but make yourself well paid for giving “more.” 
    This can be done through extensions. It’s quite logical, actually: Thanks to the integration of a multitude of apps and functions, not only Slack is continuously growing, becoming more powerful and indispensable, but your company, too.

    Growth Hacking for B2B Start-ups: Feel free to think out-of-the-box 

    There are a host of unorthodox ways you can use to accelerate entrepreneurial growth. Even on a shoe-string budget, start-ups can implement their ideas. The only prerequisite is to be innovative.

    Especially extensions, as mentioned above, holds particular potential for companies in the growth phase. 

    Base CRM: Use Chrome Extension

    Convert your product or service so that a user can use it as a Chrome extension. Whenever users open Chrome, they can automatically access your product. 

    Google Chrome is one of the most popular web browsers. Over 60 % of Internet users use it as their standard browser.

    Build into Chrome is the Chrome Web Store, the app marketplace where you can publish apps and extensions (so-called Chrome extensions). When a user adds your web application to Chrome, a link to your service is continuously displayed in the browser’s bookmarks bar, increasing the likelihood of a return visit.

    Example: Base CRM. The Chrome extension of Base CRM has almost 30,000 users.

    When Base CRM (a widely used and popular CRM solution) introduced its Chrome extension, the company immediately recorded nearly 30,000 downloads.

    For a few hours of development time and just $5 investment for the Chrome installation, they got a world-class growth hack for B2B companies. 

    Growth hacking for start-ups & founders: Udemy & Co.

    B2B lead generation

    Source Screenshot: Udemy website. One-time course generation, lifelong customer acquisition 

    Create an online course and establish yourself as an expert in your field. 

    Course platforms like Udemy create an additional source of revenue, increase your credibility, and generate leads.

    That is for life, with a one-time investment. 

    With these tools, you can easily create courses:

    • Camtasia (screenshot)
    • Audacity (audio recording)
    • Teachable.com (Create and manage courses)

    As a teacher and expert, you are automatically perceived as a professional and authority. They take you and your opinion seriously. This can have an incredible effect on your brand, your person, and your company.

    You think it’s too complicated? If you’ve already created and regularly shared content in the form of blogs, e-books, presentations, videos, and interviews, you have more than enough material to create a course.

    Re-use the entire content of a topic, create courses, and then refer to your new offering in your normal online activities.

    Growth hacking for B2B companies & start-ups: Conclusion and outlook

    Growth hacking is about using resources that are already available to you. A good growth hacking strategy not only has the goal to expand the company but also to focus on customer benefits.

    This shows the first category of growth hacks. The second category (which is also suitable for start-ups) shows you that it can be worth going new ways and trying things that are not mainstream. 

    Growth hacking for B2B companies, therefore, focuses on two aspects:

    • Creativity and the desire to continually improve one’s own product and to expand the application possibilities.

    Of course, you can’t copy any of the strategies and expect miracles. But you can better understand the dynamics and psychology behind the examples and take advantage of the critical points. The listed examples show that you can achieve good growth success even with the smallest budget or even real-time commitment.

    More interesting articles:

    If you’ve wondered how much a lead costs on average in your industry, read the article about the value of acquiring new customers.

    Privacy is paramount when it comes to email marketing. Read this article about GDPR and its impact on marketing and sales.

    If you want to learn how to generate more leads, read this article about 13 ways to generate leads.

    How to increase your Website Traffic

    Picture source: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/arrows-growth-hacking-profit-1574173/

    Tags: B2B Lead Generation, Growth Hacking, Online Marketing

    September 30, 2019 - 6:47 am

    Leave a Comment

    Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Website visitor identification

    Do you want to know, which companies are visiting your website?

    Sign up for free

    About LeadRebel

    LeadRebel is a software for B2B lead generation. We show you which companies visited your website, company and contact information of the contact person.
    More traffic, more "warm" leads, more sales success!

    Learn more

    Categories

    • B2B Leads
    • Customer Acquisition
    • Email marketing
    • Growth Hacking
    • Instagram
    • Lead Generation
    • Legal
    • Online Marketing
    • Social Media
    • Uncategorized

    Letzte Artikel

    • Google Analytics Alternatives for Europe June 27, 2022
    • 10 Lead Generation Techniques for B2B Shops June 21, 2022
    • Chat Marketing For B2B Lead Generation | How To Use Live Chat February 21, 2022
    • Website Visitor Tracking | How Can I Track Website Visitors? February 9, 2022
    • 20+ Best B2B Email List Providers in 2022 | B2B Email List January 25, 2022

    Tag

    Automate Selling (1) B2B Lead Generation (24) B2B Lead Generation Blogs (1) B2B Lead Generation Software (1) B2B Leads (15) B2B Leads Databases (1) B2B Search Marketing (1) Call 2 Action (1) chat live (2) Cold Email Templates (1) CTA Forms (1) DSGVO (2) email marketing (3) GDPR (2) Google Ads (1) Growth Hacking (1) how to find an email address (1) Identifying Website Visitors (5) identify website visitors (1) Instagram (1) Lead generation (11) lead generation software (1) Lead generation tools (1) LeadRebel (1) Lead Software (1) LinkedIn (2) Live Chat Lead Generation (2) Live chat tools (1) Marketing Software (1) Online Marketing (2) Sales Automation (1) SEO And SEM (1) SEO For B2B Companies (2) Social Media (4) Telemarketing (1) Types of sales leads (1) website visitor identification (1) website visitor identification software (1) website visitor tracking (2) White Label (2) White Label Marketing (1) White Label Marketing Software (1) White Label Software (2) White Label Software Liste (1) Who is visiting my website (2)
    Awesome Image
    Copyright © 2019 LeadRebel / Pulserio AG. Alle Rights reserved.

    Imprint    Data Privacy    Terms and Conditions