The B2B Growth Hacking Myth
Rob Daleman
Helping B2B & SaaS Companies Scale and Grow I CMO I VP of Marketing I Growth Marketer | Brand Builder | Team Leader
There are few terms that I personally dislike more than “Growth Hacking”.? While the use of the term has fallen off considerably since 2020, I’m seeing it pop up more often on LinkedIn lately (including dedicated growth hacking roles) - and a quick check of Google Trends confirms the term just won't go away!
Interest over time - Google Trends for “Growth Hacking”
Why might Growth Hacking be making a comeback???
My take is that during difficult / recessionary times, business leaders look for quick wins to drive top line revenue while maintaining margins, and nothing sounds better when facing that scenario than “hacking” your way to growth to get ahead of the competition.? But this point of view is misguided - it can lead to a dangerous pursuit of short-term revenue over long-term customer relationships and a viable product-market fit.?
As Arvid Kahl discusses in his overview of the Toxicity of Growth Hacks - the challenge is that hacking focuses on speed of execution - but building audiences takes time, and building long-term relationships that develop from quality inbound leads to opportunities for your sales team requires a long-term focus.
Can you really shortcut your way to greatness???
As tempting as it is to believe that there are easy short-cuts to scalable growth, in my experience reality is very different. When we look at the top performers in any field - from sports to business - almost every single “overnight success” was built on a foundation of hard work and long-term execution.? Here are some recent well-known business examples:
Airbnb
Myth: Became successful overnight due to the viral nature of the business
Reality: It took 7 years of mistakes and hard work to get market validation.? Check out an infographic of the founders’ journey here.
Myth: Instantly popular social platform.
Reality: Pinterest was initially slow-growing and struggled to find users. Early user adoption came from relentless outreach, meet-ups, and constant iterative changes. Pinterest founders actively engaged early users personally to refine the product.
Canva
Myth: Quickly became the go-to design tool.
Reality: Canva was rejected by more than 100 investors and spent nearly three years in stealth mode, refining its product through user-testing. Extensive user education and iterative improvements ultimately drove explosive growth.
All of these businesses were successful due to the significant time and effort that was put into developing a foundation for growth -? and the same is true with marketing.? It requires an unwavering focus on understanding the value that your offering brings to customers, deep knowledge of who buys your product and why, and constant evaluation of the prospect and customers journey to ensure you are maximizing engagement at all stages.
Cited examples of successful “growth hacks” are actually just good marketing
Let’s review some examples of successful growth hacking highlighted in recent blog articles - and aligning them to daily marketing practices.? What we find is that examples of successful “growth hacks” are isolated elements of a marketing plan - referral programs, brand activations, and campaigns that drove the last touch attribution.
Are all of these examples good marketing execution?? Yes!?
Should they be called out separately from the overall marketing strategy and plan?? No.??
Good marketing requires that we understand the market we serve, help the development teams create and tune products for the customers we serve, and build the right content to streamline the customers journey - THEN create brand activation, campaigns, promotions and streamlined conversions.??You cannot have growth hacking on it's own - it must tie into the overall marketing plan and product strategy.
Focusing solely on the tail end of the process without emphasizing the work that goes in up front is like prioritizing icing over cake.?
Think about it this way - Cake is good - and icing makes it even better.? But icing without cake is a mess.?
The same is true with a sole focus on growth hacking.
Does that mean there is nothing to learn from growth hacking?
Not at all.? We can learn a lot by building a growth mindset into our marketing strategy, planning and execution.??
In her article on growth hacking in 2024, Jenna Alburger lays out a compelling argument in support of the practice.? And she rightly calls out the key value behind it - combining product development, marketing and user experience to hit ambitious growth targets while scaling the marketing budget.??
Marketing teams that work in an agile structure have likely already built growth hacking principles into the DNA of their organizations - including constant testing and iteration to drive success.
If you are not yet running in an agile mode, ensure you are setting aside time to measure outcomes against the most impactful stages of the prospect and customer journeys and work your way through the following checklist to ensure you leave no stones unturned when it comes to driving top-line growth.
B2B Growth Checklist: