Top 5 growth hacking trends to take into account for 2020

Welcome to a new decade, it’s going to be an exiting one for digital! We have identified 5 growth hacking trends you should be aware of. Have a read below to find the newest information about SEO, data driven digital marketing, growth hacking, lead capturing, e-commerce and finally marketing automation.

1. SEO structured websites: Why H1’s and meta descriptions alone are not enough in a growth hacking setting.

The internet has grown so fast that search engines are having a difficult time choosing which web pages to populate the SERP (search engine results pages). Ranking on one of those coveted top 10 positions in Google is no longer possible with a topline SEO injection. The days where you only needed to write blogposts which contained a sprinkling of long tail keywords are gone.

To clarify, long tail keywords are still important when it comes to SEO but there is a whole lot more you could be doing to improve your changes of a higher ranking.

A Quick Guide to SEO growth hacking in 2020:

1. Narrow down your list to 10-15 short tail keywords that are important to you and what your audience is searching for. It’s important to write relevant articles for your audience. Don’t write for Google. We also suggest to add less competitive long tail keywords (keyword phrases). Do not rely on “gut-feeling” but use a keyword search tool to check search volumes before you start creating any form of content.
2. Next identify your topic clusters (e.g. what are three main categories/services you want to communicate around. These three categories/services will have separate landing pages which contain 4000+ words. Remember to include the chosen keywords in these 4000+ words. Great, you have just built your first pillar page which in the foundation of an SEO-proof website.
3. The next step is to start writing content to regularly update your website. This can be done in the form of blogposts (remember to make them 1500 words or more). These blogposts need to include a few of the keywords identified in point one. Make sure to link these articles to a pillar, and for that pillar to link back to the individual blogposts too. Remember to make your articles evergreen e.g. by removing the date of publication.
4. Monitor and learn and spread the word. Monitor your data with tools, for example Google Search Console or Google Analytics. This will allow you to build even better landing pages and blogposts. Make sure you spread the word (mailing, ads) and work on your backlink strategy. (partners,other website referring to you)

By doing this you can either choose to reach a bigger audience with broader keywords or focus on very specific keywords to target a very specific audience and convert them into consumers.

💡 Not sure where to start with implementing the changes? Reach out to us, we are here to help.

2. Data-driven hyper targeted digital marketing advertisement techniques

SEO and social media are both extremely important for the organic growth of your business. But the sheer overload of information has made it difficult to stand out of the crowd. This is where online advertisement plays a crucial role. It’s the only effective method to get access to a broad audience or target a specific group of consumers.

Digital marketers are increasingly turning towards machine learning and marketing automation to deliver these business results. Consumers these days expect advertising to be hyper targeted and to cater to their personal wants and needs.

Good news, there is no need to master machine learning to start using it yourself. Google, Facebook and other major ad platforms offer highly effective tools for targeting the audience of your choice. As we all know, Facebook owns both the WhatsApp and Instagram platforms. These are two of the most used social platforms on the planet, and you bet they are using tracking cookies to gather all relevant data. Are you looking to reach women between 20 and 30, living in London interesting in visiting museums? No problem, Facebook can help you with hyper target this audience. An additional nifty feature that Facebook offers is creating lookalike audiences based upon previous data.

Both Google and Facebook are doing their best to simplify the process. That being said it still requires some tech-savvy brains to master all aspects of digital advertisement. The biggest challenge is to make it profitable and sustainable over time.

💡 Not sure where to start with implementing the changes? Reach out to us, we are here to help.

3. Marketing automation: Lead capturing & growth hacking

Lead capturing and growth hacking techniques are one of the most underestimated domains of online marketing automation. To take it even further: There are a lot of business out there who do not fully realize that lead generation is 100% responsible for their existing revenue, grow rate and direction of their business. Imaging if you somehow can hack this number 😉

How can I turn this growth hacking dream into reality?

The hard part is getting started. The sheer volume of information, tools and techniques out there is overwhelming. As a result many business owners do not start a lead capturing campaign. Fear not, you are not alone, growth hacking is not easy but it is worth your time.

Before starting a lead capturing campaign, you need to get your ducks in order. Here are a few items that most likely need to be implemented before the campaign:

• Make sure to have a content plan (incl SEO research) set up with a substantial amount of content ready for publishing. (Landing pages, ads, blogposts…)
• Look into optimising your SEO website architecture (see point 1 above)
• Ensure all your content/pages are SEO-proof
• Implement CTA’s and lead capture forms
• Create or link your CRM database(s)
• Enable tracking pixels
• Run and monitor ads

Alternatively you could reach out to a digital agency to set up a lead capturing campaign for you. They can perform A/B testing and turn the best practices into a sustainable model.

Is growth hacking a hype?

No. Some growth hacking techniques are extremely effective. So effective someday your whole business model can rely on it. It’s not only effective, it’s in essence one of the fundamental building blocks of your company’s growth. Growth hacking forces you to focus more on your value proposition, it forces you to fully understand the needs of your ideal customer or partnership and it forces you to think in strategic sales funnels

3 cases of growth hacking techniques that we successfully applied:

1. A B2B startup providing acoustic solutions captures the IP-address of a visitor and matches that address with an IP in a business database. A different tool picks up the contact email from the company website (info@ or hello@). Finally this public business e-mail addresses are added manually (can be automated) to a specific category newsletter (only needed if your website has a wide range of unrelated services or products.) In figures: Cost per lead +- €6 with a conversion rate of 2% resulting in a average cost per lead of €300 with an average revenue of €4500 per sale.
2. A cleaning company has issue growing due to a lack of personnel decides to start a recruitment campaign via social. They ran hyper targeted FB ads in a specific location relevant to the client. By way of A/B testing we set up different ads, each focusing on a different company value or proposition. It quickly became clear which ads were performing and allowed us to further fine-tune the campaign. For a ‘mere’ €200 the company was able to find 2 new employees and invaluable insights into their key value propositions, all in a time span of 30 days.
3. We helped a startup healthcare company that operates in a very specific niche to claim very specific topics on Google search results. This was done by working on a custom SEO strategy based on a keyword search. The results were an overview of 3 main topics , with a recommendation for 20 blogposts. What was great for these guys is that they are so specialised, that claiming these topics had instant results. They increased the amount of visitors on their website by 260%, and generated 70% more leads than before. To ensure the momentum is not lost a report is generated every quarter to keep on top of things.

Is it always a succes?

This model is very much based on trial and error. It takes some time to get into the process, and the learning curve is rather steep. We really believe digital growth hacking is the future for any company. Make sure to invest in growth hacking, there is a lot of low hanging fruit out there which can turn into profitable leads.

💡 Not sure where to start with implementing the changes? Reach out to us, we are here to help.

4. Mobile e-commerce experience

In 2020 consumers will be expecting a frictionless e-commerce experience on mobile devices. Sounds logical right? Well studies show that the current conversion rates on mobile are lower than those on desktop. This is changing, fast! Consumers are increasingly grabbing their smartphone for their e-commerce needs. This is possible thanks to apps and services like Payconiq, Apple Pay, N26, one click buy buttons etc.

How do I make my mobile e-commerce ready to handle this new trend?

• Write code specifically for smartphones, just responsive is no longer enough.
• Sync you e-commerce website with FB, Instagram, pintrest etc. They are mobile lead generator pur sang!
• Design at least 2 website versions: Mobile + desktop.
• Speed: Build your site or e-commerce website as an PWA (progressive web app) or a native app.
• Integrate the latest payment options available to fully enable mobile payments (Apple Pay,..)
• Use a mobile friendly payment provider like Mollie
• Implement buy buttons (KBC, Carte bancaire, ING)
• Localize your payment options and show only the most used option in that region
• Enable one click payments by remembering payment details of your costumer
• Send a mobile friendly receipt, invoice and track & trace.
• Sell and promote products or services based on location and a moment in time. (app only)
• Send a sms or app notification to verify the purchase
• Implement identification API’s like Itsme (BE only)

💡 Not sure where to start with implementing the changes? Reach out to us, we are here to help.

5. Marketing Automation & Workflow

Marketing automation is booming business. As briefly mentioned in point two, the idea of marketing automation it to find a scalable model. The idea is that you can automate workflows and communicate with your customers or leads based on their previous actions.

A good example of a marketing automation tool is Mailchimp. Mailchimp connects all major e-commerce platforms and sets up automated workflows. An example of an automated workflow could be:

• You can send a user who has abandoned his cart a message with a temporary coupon code with 5% reduction.
• Retarget everyone in your mailing list who dit not open it.
• Retarget anyone who did not click on your link or offer in the previous mailing campaign.
• Retarget anyone who bought a sports-article the previous year with a sports-mail.
• Send an automated e-mail to everyone who signs up for your newsletter.

There you have it. An overview of the top 5 trends in the digital landscape you should be taking into account in 2020.

Not sure where to start with implementing the changes? Reach out to us, we are here to help.

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