DigitalisierungTechnologie
Growth hacking. No, we don’t mean hacking databases or a new phishing method. Growth hacking is a real job. Our two growth hackers Marieke and Olga work at Miele X in Amsterdam. As part of the Miele New Growth Factory, they work closely together with our colleagues in Gütersloh as well as partners like KptnCook. In this interview, they explain what they do in their job, why Miele needs growth hackers like them, and why it’s so important to know your target audience by heart.
Olga: My grandma is very modern; she even has Instagram!
Growth hacking is a field in marketing that uses cost effective and efficient solutions together with (digital) tools to drive rapid growth of business. Growth hackers combine knowledge of UX design, data analytics, marketing or product development. So, it’s really a job where you can be creative and connect with a lot of teams and people across the organization.
It’s a process that starts with validating the business offer to make sure consumers want it and are willing to pay for it. So, we collect data to understand our target personas, their needs and pains. Once that is done, it is time to search for sustainable growth opportunities across the whole user journey. To achieve that, growth hackers are involved in constant ideation on potential creative solutions, plan experiments and analyze the results to figure out WHAT works well and WHY it does. Once you know that, you can automate and scale it.
Marieke: Many startups use growth hacking to rapidly test their ideas and bring them to market. However, I think that every company can benefit from this method: Facing problems openly, identifying them, and solving them with the help of big and small changes.
Olga: Yes, I completely agree with Marieke on this point! And because the world is changing so fast and there are so many new channels every day, there is also a lot of noise. Nowadays it’s just not enough to have a great quality product and a very reliable brand like Miele. You have to fight through that noise as well. Growth hacking helps with that.
Marieke: To get started, these questions are especially important: Ask yourself who your target audience might be. Imagine them and think about what problems they have and how you can solve them. Once you have narrowed down your target group – talk to them! What are their desires and ideas? The most common mistake is that we think we know what our customer wants. But maybe we are not our own customer. That’s why it’s so important to seek out the conversation.
For example, we organized interviews with KptnCook customers to better understand them – who they are, their needs and challenges. Why they use the KptnCook app and whether they would pay for it. We talked to many current customers, but also to potential new customers. From this, we developed personas that we can now work with further.
Olga: This is my first growth hacking position. So, for me, it’s learning on the job. You talk to a lot of interesting people, and you get a lot of insights. And after a few conversations, your day is just not the same. I then ask myself: how did I live without that insight? It broadens your horizons and that’s what I really like.
Marieke: Figuring out what consumers are doing, either through data or by talking to them, that’s always been particularly interesting to me. Also, our job doesn’t follow a strict structure. We can solve problems in many different ways, depending on the product, on the market or depending on the problem itself. And that’s where you really must be creative.
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