What is Data-Driven Growth Marketing?

What is Data Driven Growth Marketing?

Data-driven growth marketing focuses on attaining the right data, and analyzing it to create customized, laser-focused marketing campaigns that lead to brand loyalty. Growth marketers are hyper-focused on experimenting with different channels and are constantly tinkering with setups to get the most robust data possible.

Attracting, engaging, and retaining customers requires thorough experimentation, which is why growth marketers are essentially data analysts at their core. A big part of data-driven growth marketing involves properly allocating budgets and executing campaigns: loyalty campaigns, referral campaigns, onboarding/drip campaigns, and brand awareness plays in search. 

Data-driven marketing requires figuring out how to hone in on the right messaging for each customer through A/B testing and cross-channel marketing, and then using the data to concentrate on what works— personalizing the messaging to meet customer needs, increase loyalty, and reduce churn rate. 

How is growth marketing different from growth hacking? 

Growth hacking is hacking (or engineering, depending on who you ask) your way to accelerate growth using the smallest amount of financial resources possible. There are no long-term strategies or plans for the future, rather it’s about using easy-to-track methods to improve your acquisition at all costs, expand the user base, and get your brand out there for the world to see. 

Growth hacking is quantity over quality at its most extreme. It can be overwhelming for some, but others actually thrive on it; the only thing growth hackers are judged on is growing the user base by a certain percentage every quarter, and there are clear numbers to hit. It’s ideal if you’re a hardcore, fast-paced kind of marketer who loves unusual marketing strategies and nonstop A/B testing in a mad scientist kind of way. 

Growth marketing is different and, in our opinion, far more effective. When numbers are all you are after, it’s easy to cut corners, and the quality of your actual customers decreases. Growth for growth’s sake doesn’t produce long-term results. Instead, growth marketing focuses more on the quality of marketing so that retention rates grow. It’s a holistic, all-encompassing approach that is far more sophisticated and produces excellent long-term results. 

What are the goals of growth marketing?

The overall goal of growth marketing is to build a highly-engaged audience. You’re looking to attract, engage, and retain customers via personalized marketing, while also reducing as many acquisition costs as possible. There is a significant amount of testing involved to improve your relationship with the customer, and in turn, to improve customer lifetime value. This testing allows you to boost retention and reduce churn rate.

What makes data-driven growth marketing successful? 

To build that highly-engaged audience, and for growth marketing to be successful, you need to set the stage for your customer and introduce your brand in a thoughtful way. This can come in the form of onboarding campaigns that welcome your customer and essentially reinforce who you are as a brand. 

The method for communicating with your customer also has to be right as well. A cross-channel approach, for example, comes in the form of paid search, social, email, SMS, mobile push, and tinkering with each of these channels until you find what works and pushes growth. Using these channels via A/B testing is another big part of what makes growth marketing successful. 

Using data thoughtfully in cross-channel campaigns, shows customers you’re paying attention to them and their wants and needs. 

When brands use data responsibly and in innovative ways the interaction with customers goes beyond the transactional to feel like a more 1-to-1 conversation, generating more engagement and loyalty. 

Customers like receiving messages that are both fun and helpful for them, and they’re more willing to share data with brands that provide them with a benefit for having done so. Using data in your growth marketing campaigns to create immersive, personalized cross-channel experiences, increases conversions, builds your customer base, and boosts their willingness to spend with your brand.

Common A/B testing types 

A/B testing is a highly effective growth marketing technique. Some of the most successful A/B testing lets you monitor granular changes in a product and its reach. Take email subject line testing, a common A/B growth marketing technique in which you change minute details— even just a single word— of a subject line and track the differences in click rates and opens. 

Image testing in emails is another common type of A/B testing. It involves sending different email header images to two different groups and studying click rates and open rates. These images can also be A/B tested in other channels to verify and bolster existing data. 

The more specific you are able to get (the less you change between the two groups), the better data you’ll get. Performed in volume, this type of testing not only produces more data but also more decisive data for marketers to then apply to more personalized strategies down the line.

How MessageGears helps run growth marketing strategies

When it comes to running growth marketing strategies, MessageGears’ clients have a leg up on the competition. Cross-channel personalization is a big differentiator; it’s our bread and butter. Personalized data is paramount to successful growth. If your data isn’t tailored to you and your target market— if it’s old and stale and unusable— it will be a challenge to develop the right strategies for growth. 

Growth marketing is all about speed, and real-time data is crucial. Data-driven growth marketing is heavily contingent on the speed of the data. Effective growth marketers aren’t known for being patient— they want to be directly plugged into the data so they can make changes quickly and personalize strategies at the simple click of a mouse. MessageGears is data-first in our thinking and we are able to apply this data to help you personalize your messaging fast, reduce churn rate, and create a loyal customer base. 

Looking to kick off or upgrade your growth marketing? Every day, we help brands market themselves with unique advantages for the biggest senders. Find out how!