I tend to roll-eyes when someone introduces themselves as a “ Growth Hacker ” or for that matter say – we are looking to do “ Growth Hacking “

Why ?

Because its a fad.

Simple as that.

Good marketers think marketing, great marketers think growth.

Growth is an all encompassing, holistic role and marketing is merely a subset of the overall plane.

Here’s how you visualise it :

When you do growth for a company of any size, your goal is to always plan – what can I do to deliver the best results for the business requirements of the company. More often than not – this means – you take a look – holistically at all activities of the company, a snapshot if you may, you take a look at the product or service offered, the touch-points both internally and externally, the customers and value proposition offered to them and use that to formulate a growth strategy.

Nobody cares if “you grew an email list by 50 million emails” – what people care deeply about is – have you reduced significant cost for the company across the board, have you increased the bottom line sales revenue, have you increased the user lifespan or the Lifetime value ( LTV ) of a high net worth segment of the customer base?

Why?

Because those metrics directly contribute towards the company’s bank account.

The one and only goal of a successful company is to drive up profit (NOTE: I did not say revenue here) because its the single solid indicator that a company will have a longer life span and a significantly higher valuation. Are there counter arguments to be made – sure – someone might quote the case of Mailbox that got acquired before public launch – but lets’s face it – the Mailbox acquisition had more to do w/ Gentry as a person and the team that delivered a solid product than it was, the 1.3 million waiting list. (Don’t get me wrong – that’s an impressive stat regardless).

As a functionary of growth, your goal is not to focus of the vanity metrics such as the size of your email list but instead – the actual contribution of that list to your bottom line profit.

So think growth, not “growth hacking”.