The city cannot shelter the body.
The hometown cannot shelter the soul.
Hello, I am Bicong (Bitcoin Beginner), Zhan Qiangwei.
A nonprofessional programmer writing daily, bringing you crypto stories every evening at 21:50.
Day 12 of serious writing.
A Growth Hacker combines marketing, product development, and data analysis. Growth is the sole objective, pursued with the fastest methods, lowest costs, and greatest efficiency. (Source: growingio)
Growth hackers seek smarter explanations for product growth and turn them into lasting mechanisms. Common methods include A/B testing, SEO, email reactivation, viral marketing, analytics, and user profiles. They track page-load speed, registration conversion, email deliverability, and viral coefficients.
In other words, they drive marketing with data and products with market needs, using technology to pursue growth. They understand both technology and user psychology, apply creativity, bypass limitations, and solve early startup growth problems cheaply. Outsiders see a mix of geek, inventor, and advertising obsessive. They resemble a startup marketing department, but with little budget they focus on spontaneous growth arising from product strategy.
To support business growth, they must truly understand the product's core value, describe simply what it is and what problem it solves, and identify growth questions to answer. (From Growth Hacker by Fan Bing.)
Growth hacking has long been a profession abroad. Dropbox's referral reward of an extra 500M of storage brought 500% annual new-user growth. LinkedIn used SEO and email invitations to activate 400 million professionals. Slack offers free and paid cloud collaboration features; as adoption grows, its revenue increases by USD 1 million every 11 days. The book gives many cases, all rooted in marketing, development, and analytics. Good products need marketing and strong development teams; with that support, analytics helps retain past users and create growth.
Let us use Binance to explain why growth hacking matters in crypto.
Binance appeared last year after the September 4 ban on domestic fiat trading. Timing and circumstances brought it to public attention. Amid weak markets and policy pressure, holders did not know where to trade, and many knew little about foreign exchanges. Crypto had just become popular when restrictions struck. Binance gained many users, rose to first globally in months, and reached millions of users. Promotions such as TRON listing rewards and a car for the top trader captured a large share of the market.
People say habit is frightening because once accustomed, one does not want to change. Most prefer a comfort zone, and familiar software is one too. Since its 2012 launch, WeChat has exceeded one billion users in a country of over 1.4 billion, making it almost universal. If WeChat is a way of life, that life seems rather cold.
Back to Binance: strong product experience and marketing retained quality users and built a reputation. Word-of-mouth growth is only the tip of the growth-hacking iceberg. Its UX and UI create habits. If another exchange offers worse experience and little additional gain, users will stay and may recommend Binance to friends.
This year's joke asks: “It is already 8102 and the experience is still so poor; will anyone use it?” People live in comfort and experience zones. Even free products may be rejected if the experience is bad, while good software can attract paying users. That is why products matter.
Now data analysis. People call it big data, but I once saw “online data” and prefer that term. Size alone is not enough: inactive data is rubbish. In an age of purchased traffic, who believes big data? Online activity can also come from AI. Recent AI development revived bots. How can analytics identify truly active data?
Binance can inspect trading volume, activity, purchased coins, deposits, and frequency to judge bots or inactive users. Growth hackers must also acquire and retain users through SEO, ASO, social media, A/B testing, and email reactivation. Exchanges should activate their social channels. Binance uses TG, FB, Twitter, reddit, Weibo, medium, steemit, ins, and youtube: excellent coverage, ahead of exchanges not synchronizing these channels. The illustration shows substantial social traffic, saving marketing costs. That is growth hacking's power.
The two figures show entry points to Binance: search in figure 1, advertising in figure 2. Keyword traffic is more than twice advertising traffic. Can you still call SEO and ASO unimportant? It feels like saving hundreds of millions.
In the social-media era, everyone needs a medium for personal or business promotion to increase profit and reduce cost. Once a product is stable, unexpected growth can occur. I saw a post saying a business had done no promotion beyond a few Douyin posts, then suddenly gained nearly 100000 users in a day. It did not know why, yet achieved organic growth. That is the appeal of growth hacking.
Why does crypto need growth hackers even more?
First, the market is weak and users are leaving. A product with no user experience cannot attract newcomers or retain existing users.
Second, crypto is still a small market. Established exchanges, media, wallets, and third-party technology providers should improve products and reputation to capture opportunities and users before the next surge.
Third, some attribute much of Binance's success to “First Lady” He Yi's influence. A KOL can bring many users, so that may be true. A thousand loyal users who willingly buy whatever you make could secure your future. TRON is another example: Justin Sun's entertainment profile brought many retail newcomers into crypto. Every industry needs growth hackers and good products to go further.
-
Risk warning: all Bicong articles express personal views and are not investment recommendations. Contact the official channel with concerns. Investing involves risk; consider your tolerance, investigate projects thoroughly, and decide carefully.
-
Bicong (Bitcoin Beginner), Zhan Qiangwei: contracted Huobi information author and columnist on Jinse Finance, Qianke, Toutiao, Penguin, Jiamiquan, 32know, Zhidian, Bihu, and other platforms.
Scan the WeChat QR code to join Knowledge Planet free and learn blockchain technology and crypto trading techniques.
Recommended articles:
Bicong: expand your boundaries and understanding, then persist to succeed
Bicong markets: how long can ADA support at USD 0.035 hold, and can ADA reach a new high in 2019?
Bicong encyclopedia: what is Nano, and can Block-Lattice reverse its weak trend?
