100+ Growth Hacks for SaaS Startups




It is a crucial job for entrepreneurs to be able to market their products effectively and gain traction. There are a lot of obstacles in this journey, but if you want to reach your destination then "Scalability" is one path that can take you there. 


In order to reach out to a massive audience and scale your business, entrepreneurs need to adopt some effective growth hacking strategies as these play an important role for the growth of any business. These tactics are categorised as Conversion, Retention and Traffic Tactics. 


But again, this path is also not an easy one. Not every business is capable of implementing these strategies effectively.

It's a tough game but not something which is impossible.


To make it easy for startups, I have listed 100+ growth hacks for SaaS startups. 



Conversion





Beginning with the Conversion Category, we have 30+ hacks that help businesses scale their operations. 


  1. Smart Bar: Click here to view resource

SumoMe's Smart Bar sits at the top of any page you want it to appear on and can be used for many purposes. From allowing your visitors to join your newsletter to linking them to your site, you can pick exactly what you want to show on your site. A smart bar is much less aggressive and more effective than email capture exit intent or scroll boxes.


Example: our blog has a top bar that directs you to our homepage with a single click.


  1. USPs Above The Fold:  Click here to view resource

Displaying the unique selling points of your offering above the fold can increase activation. Oftentimes, the hero copy, in size 30 pt font or larger works best. This allows users to quickly determine whether the product is relevant to them before they waste any more time on your site. Alternatively, they would typically get confused and leave anyway. 


  1. Email Drip Course: Click here to view resource

Provide an email course on a relevant topic over a series of days. Include high quality content each day in separate lessons, teaching best practices and imparting expertise while building interest for your product. At the end, add an upsell for your product to sell to a qualified audience of readers who went through the course. 


  1. Reduced Single CTA: Click here to view resource

Multiple call to action buttons can confuse visitors. Try reducing the number of CTAs on any given page to drive visitors to the most important one. If your landing page is meant to drive registrations to your app, including a CTA for your newsletter alongside your registration buttons will serve to divert visitor attention away from your primary CTA.  


  1. Page Hero Image: Click here to view resource

Many landing pages have a hero image as a background as this can be a nice way to set the scene for explaining what your product does. A/B testing this image can have a very large effect on conversion rate.


  1. SumoMe Welcome Mat: Click here to view resource

Showing a large, minimalist call to action on arrival using a welcome mat can yield large activation rates. In some cases, we've seen 10%-30% conversion rates to email signup! Be sure to test different variations of design and copy as it can make a big difference to performance. If you find this too intrusive for the first visit, it can still be very effective if shown on visit 2 or on the 2nd page visited. 


  1. Remove Registration Step: Click here to view resource

Removing unnecessary steps from registration can improve signup rate. Asking a user for their last name may not be necessary to register, so leave it until the onboarding phase post-registration. Remove any steps that might slow down a person’s registration process and gather the information for fields you’ve removed after they’ve already signed up for an account. 



  1. Scroll Box: Click here to view resource

Add an email capture box that appears on scroll. Maybe you don’t want to flash an email signup form right in your visitors' faces immediately as they view your page. A kinder, gentler option is to have your signup form  exist in a box that shows as you scroll down the page-- this way they’ll see it after they’ve finished reading your post or product page. Buffer talks about how they doubled their email list using this tactic, and SumoMe has a great tool for implementing it. 


  1. Landing Page Value Proposition: Click here to view resource

A/B Test the value proposition of your landing page to convert more visitors.


  1. Shorter Landing Page: Click here to view resource

"Making the landing page shorter by removing unnecessary elements and keeping as much as possible ""above-the-fold"" can increase conversion rate. Brevity is less distracting, and therefore leverages impulse behavior."


  1. PDF Download Page: Click here to view resource

Try sending traffic to a page where they can download a PDF they may be interested in. This will build your credibility and exemplify authority on a subject. Further, it will enable you to capture email addresses for new visitors who might be interested in your product. It’s an easy way to fill the top of your funnel with qualified leads. 


  1. Content Offer: Click here to view resource

Offering a piece of content for an email address can improve activation rates. Create a PDF or eBook out of some longform piece of content you have on your blog, or write a whitepaper or special piece of content specifically for the offer. Then, gate it behind an email capture form to get visitors interested enough to want to give you their emails or register for an account to get it.


  1. Customer Referral Program: Click here to view resource

Set up a referral program to get your customers to refer their friends. This referral program can offer a discount or account credit for each friend that signs up, or can give a larger discount such as a free month of service for each milestone of new registrations. The program will give you access to friends of your current happy customers. 


  1. Work Email Filter Script: Click here to view resource

Add a script to your Unbounce pages to disallow users to submit a personal email, which gives you more qualified leads and fewer spam accounts.


  1. Left Side CTA Landing Page: Click here to view resource

Try placing your call to action on the left side of the landing page to increase activation. This will keep the CTA above the fold for all screen sizes and catch the attention of visitors. It makes the CTA more prominent and easily accessible, potentially resulting in a higher likelihood of conversion. 


  1. Optimize Product Page Images: Click here to view resource

Increase product page conversion by making your product more appealing. (i.e. use high-quality images, show customers using the product, or how it benefits those who purchase it, etc)

1. High quality

2. Own copyright: copy/paste images is bad for SEO and you can get in trouble with owner

3. Set up title tag: move your cursor over the image with a descriptive title tag which increases the chance of the user clicking. 


  1. Time Delay List Builder: Click here to view resource

Rather than the default 'exit intent' popup, you can try showing your email popup at a certain number of seconds after the user hits your site. A time-delay list builder popup is typically shown to many more people than an exit intent popup so it can be a good way to improve the number of activations. You should also experiment with how many seconds to wait, as it can make a big difference to activations and the quality of the leads you get


  1. ROI Calculator Banner: Click here to view resource

Repurpose valuable site real estate with a banner drawing them to a piece of content like an ROI Calculator. Direct their journey through the funnel to a piece of content that will move them one step closer to conversion.


  1. Remove Homepage Sliders: Click here to view resource

 Sliders might seem fun and interesting, but in reality they can negatively affect conversion and bounce rates. This is because they can dramatically lower page loading time, cause “banner blindness” and push your content below the fold. Beyond these three reasons, they also tend to run poorly on mobile devices. Remove homepage sliders to improve your site performance and bring focus to what is most important for you to display.


  1. Discount Welcome Email: Click here to view resource

When someone signs up for your email list, offering them a discount in your welcome email can inspire them to make a purchase immediately. Offer a % off coupon code for signing up to capture emails and include it in your automated welcome email. This will drive interested customers to return to your site and browse your products, eventually convincing a portion of them to make a purchase with the coupon. 


  1. Strong Email CTA: Click here to view resource

Try testing a stronger call to action within emails to see if you can focus your reader’s attention. Treat the email as a landing page and include an obvious, eye-catching CTA. This can improve the click-through rate of your emails and result in higher conversion.


  1. Preference Collection Page: Click here to view resource

Gain insights into audience preferences by sending traffic to a page where visitors must make a choice about which section of the site to visit. Offering choices can also increase conversion.


  1. Lead Capture Qualification Workflow: Click here to view resource

Add a qualifying flow into your lead capture form on your website in order to qualify leads up front.


  1. Fewer Form Fields: Click here to view resource

When creating sign-up forms, having too many fields can actually decrease sign-up rate. Optimize your forms to only ask for information necessary to the registration process. This decreases the amount of effort and attention a user has to invest into signing up and will result in increased sign-ups and form submissions. Remember that you can also ask for the information in the fields you remove during onboarding or at a later stage in your relationship with that user/client. 


  1. Fear Of Missing Out: Click here to view resource

Fear of missing out (FOMO) can be a strong driving point to inspire action in an individual. Showing a visitor to your site that they’re missing out on something that everyone else is buying into is an effective way to get them to buy in. Adding a deadline to the sign-up or purchase process is an additional consequence that people will want to avoid by acting. Use tools like Ryan Kulp's Fomo to set up a quick and easy social proof prompt.


  1. Calendar Link Thank You Page:Click here to view resource

 Give leads the opportunity to immediately reserve a calendar slot for a sales call. Use the Thanks for Signing Up page or email post-email capture to do so. This removes the steps of opening an email and clicking through to the calendar, thus taking away an opportunity for them to change their minds about the call. 


  1. Partners Social Proof: Click here to view resource

Listing all the tools you integrate or partner with on your site is an easy way to show social proof for your product. If your platform works with major and highly known products, including them in an integrations section on your landing page will help your product gain credibility. Further, showing you’re integrated with major players in the industry helps display the value and ease of use of your product. 


  1. Personal Sales Email Drip:Click here to view resource

Nobody wants to have a conversation with "No Reply" from your company. Add a personal touch by targeting leads with an automated email drip from a personal account to create the impression of one-on-one interaction.


  1. Premium Upsell Email: Click here to view resource

Upgrade emails drive users to switch from free to paid accounts, or from lower-tier to higher-tier accounts.  This works via the psychology of loss aversion. Basically, people feel a sense of ownership over something they possess, even if it was given to them for free. People are naturally disinclined to give up something they possess, and will pay to keep it-- and so, upselling on a product they already use can be very effective.


  1. First Purchase Discount: Click here to view resource

Extend a discount or offer to a person visiting your site for the first time to provide the push needed to turn that visitor into a paying customer.  This will help form a consumer-friendly first impression of your brand and increase the likelihood that first time visitors return to your site.


  1. Smart Default Plan: Click here to view resource

By making the option you want people to take the default plan, you can encourage the behavior you want users to exhibit, increasing revenue. Studies have shown that people are less likely to opt-in AND less likely to opt-out, thus "presumed-consent" is a more effective way to direct behavior. 


  1. Quote Testimonials: Click here to view resource

Adding a quote or testimonial from a real customer to your landing page is one of the most surefire ways to increase conversion. Make sure the quote is believable, and from a recognizable company if possible. Typically you'd want to include 3 different quotes, all covering different USPs of the product. 


  1. Twitter Hashtag Retargeting: Click here to view resource

This strategy is more advanced and requires two campaigns to utilize keyword targeting.This is a fantastic retargeting strategy for recently engaged users. An audience that has already been attentive to your brand with recent favorites or tweets from a current campaign is more likely to continue the interaction and even make a purchase. 



User Retention





In the Retention Category, we have 30+ amazing growth hacks. Some of the most effective ones are:



  1. Tutorial Email:  Click here to view resource

Many people who sign up to use your product will not be fully aware of the value it can provide. Ensure these people do not become lapsed users simply because they don’t understand what your product can do for them by sending a tutorial email. Asana designed their tutorial email to teach users how to use the product in their projects and maximize their productivity. While you should include multiple resources that display the full power of your product, focus on the one thing users must do to understand the value of your product.


  1. Top Content Email: Click here to view resource

Many subscribers to your email list have never seen the best content you've produced. Therefore it makes sense to send out an email showcasing your top content, with links to each individual piece. This should drive retention as you show your best side to people who haven't seen it, and even those who have seen the content get reminded of your value.


  1. Email Subject Line: Click here to view resource

You have an email subscribers list. Great! But how do you encourage your subscribers to read that email? Try A/B testing your email subject lines to improve your open rate.


  1. Start Here Email: Click here to view resource

Provide a list of your top content for new users who have just joined your list. This type of 'start here' email gives them a good idea of what you're about and what your content can help them with. This should increase engagement with your content and help long term retention by providing more value up front.


  1. Post-Purchase Follow-Up: Category: Click here to view resource

Send an email or series of emails when a customer purchases a product from a specific category. Personalize your emails knowing which product category - and segment - these customers belong to. Get customers to purchase more of the products they're interested in while your brand is still fresh in their mind.


  1. Top Tips Welcome:Click here to view resource

Send a welcome email with top tips for getting the most out of the product. This type of email can educate your customer right at the time they need it most and can help them reach that 'aha' moment which makes them stick around.


  1. Live Chat:Click here to view resource

Add live chat to your site and talk directly to potential purchasers. An ATG global consumer trend study found that 90% of consumers consider live chat helpful, 62% are more likely to purchase again from a site that has live chat, and 38% of respondents made their purchase due to the live chat itself. Ensure that every person who visits your site and wants to buy your product is able to do so by keeping a person on hand to answer questions and help confused customers.


  1. Customer Retargeting: Click here to view resource

Try retargeting paying customers who haven’t made a second purchase. Retarget them with ads that show products similar to the ones they bought. This helps to reactivate customers who liked what they purchased but haven’t thought to return yet.


  1. Resend To Unopens: Click here to view resource

Resend emails to people who did not open them the first time to increase your open rate. While it is true that you run the minor risk of a spam complaint, that risk can be thoroughly minimized. Wait a number of days before re-sending emails, change the subject line of your second email, or state in the body of your new email that it is a resend to avoid being mistaken for spam.


  1. Vector Images: Click here to view resource

Vector images scale without losing definition. This makes them perfectly suited for responsive websites that must deal with multiple screen sizes. The higher quality you get with vector images provides an overall better user experience and ultimately improves retention.


  1. Tailor Emails Vs Always Sending: Click here to view resource

Don't always send every single notification email, tailor them to the user by prioritizing the most interesting ones and capping to ensure the user isn't spammed with too much frequency.


  1. Follow Recommendation Emails: Click here to view resource

Use collaborative filtering to send emails recommending followers, connections, or friends a user would like. By offering suggestions you are helping sustain network effects and simultaneously encouraging users to stay active within your community.


  1. Testimonial Email:Click here to view resource

Send an email with a testimonial from one of your clients to remind everyone how useful your product is. You'd be surprised how few of your user base is even aware of all of your product features or use cases. These types of emails can open up a whole new world of functionality for them and therefore improve retention rates.



  1. User Group Meeting: Click here to view resource

Focus groups aren't dead... and they are often an overlooked strategy for SaaS companies looking to gain product feedback. Get a few key users together in a room and talk out issues with using the product. An in-person meeting can generate surprising insight that can't be captured online. (Tip: reward users for taking part.)



  1. Deferred Deep Linking: Click here to view resource

You can set up a deep link that carries context all the way through the app store download. This lets you create full user journeys that are contextualized for the user in question. So for example, if a user clicks on a web banner and it takes them to the app store, you can still send them the same content they were viewing on the mobile web after the app downloads. 


  1. Feature Request Follow-Up: Click here to view resource

Whenever a customer requests a feature, make a note directly in that feature's trello card / asana task. When that feature is released, email those people personally to let them know the new feature they requested has been launched. This will massively improve retention for those users, even bringing them back from dormant / churned status. It really doesn't take very long, but you can automate this process with your CRM if needed.


  1. Multifunctional Controls: Click here to view resource

Instead of multiple choices, filters, and distractions in the control set of your UI, try using multifunctional controls. This focus on ease of use and simplicity makes it easier for visitors to find what they need without being paralyzed by a flood of functions. Decrease clutter in your UI while retaining a high level of discoverability to make site navigation and item discovery a breeze for visitors.

  1. Webinar For Customers: Click here to view resource

Webinars can be a wonderful +1 for paying customers, but they can also be used as a content marketing tool to attract new customers. Webinars offer an intimate experience with potential customers that generates trust and newfound knowledge. Position your webinar around a relevant topic and don’t mention your product until the closing. A rule of thumb is to spend around 45 minutes educating and 10-15 minutes pitching your product. (Hint: to further push the value of your webinar, distill the insights into a blog post to be published afterwards.)


  1. Fear Of Missing Out Email: Click here to view resource 

Send an email to users who are missing out on platform activity. It is a well known marketing rule that activating new customers is six to seven times costlier than keeping existing ones. CarDelMar successfully re-engaged their lapsed customers by gamifying their campaign, utilizing the mechanics of fun. Find fun, dynamic ways to revitalize your brand’s image and mobilize inactive customers.


  1. Implement How-To Guides: Click here to view resource

Improve retention by providing dedicated how-to guides that show users how to get the most from your product. How-to guides help users independently solve any issues that may arise - saving headaches for your support team and the users themselves. (Tip: create multiple how-to guides if your product has a steeper learning curve.)


  1. New Follower Notification: Click here to view resource

Let users know that they have gained a new follower. This jolt of dopamine is the perfect stimulant to retain users and get them to continue interacting with others on your platform.


  1. Webinars: Click here to view resource

Show existing customers how to best utilize your product through a webinar event. By hosting a webinar, you will build a stronger relationship with your customers. You will also demonstrate that you ultimately care about your customer succeeding. (Hint: make some webinars exclusive to paying customers.)


  1. SumoMe Contact Form: Click here to view resource

Adding a SumoMe contact form to your page makes it easier for users to reach you with their questions and concerns. Strong communication with users is a great way to keep them on your platform and decrease churn.


  1. Share Like Notification: Click here to view resource

If someone likes a user's share, notify them. People share things online with hopes that their friends and colleagues will benefit from the information. Send users an indicator that what they have shared is receiving some love. (Note: do not oversend these notifications or you may annoy your most active users.)


  1. Customized Notification Page: Click here to view resource

Allow users to customize the notifications they receive. Without this functionality you risk annoying your most active users who don't want to see dozens of notifications daily. Prevent churn and keep your most valuable customers happy.


  1. Top Tips Drip: Click here to view resource

Set up an email drip campaign to regularly share top tips for your industry. This typically works best as a 10 part series with one tip per week, or a five part series with one per day.


  1. All-Hands On Deck Support: Click here to view resource

Rather than a dedicated account manager that can cause bottlenecks, have dynamic routing so that anyone from the team can provide support depending on what you need.


  1. Since You've Been Gone Emails:Click here to view resource

Email users about activity that has happened since they last logged in. This tactic will remind users of all the valuable activity on your platform. It may also give users the fear of missing out (FOMO) on future activity.


  1. Image Galleries: Click here to view resource

Try adding multiple images in a gallery to your pages. Create a gallery that depicts your product at all angles and with all features, giving a detailed visual walkthrough of what it's like to experience. This display of your product will give interested customers more information about what they will be getting for buying in or signing up.


  1. Virtual Summits: Click here to view resource

Host a summit, but do it virtually. Bring together content (typically webinars or videos) from respected individuals within your industry to provide value to your target audience. Give full-access to the summit for a specific period of time, and then ask users to pay if they would like lifetime access to the materials.


  1. Partner Product Emails: Click here to view resource

Send emails promoting partners' complementary products to demonstrate that you ultimately care about providing value to your customers over padding your own pockets. In exchange, have partners do the same for your product. (Tip: avoid cannibalizing your own offerings.)


  1. Feature Launch Email: Click here to view resource

When you launch a new feature for your platform, send out an email to your users to inform them of the news. This will reactivate many users whose use of your platform may have dropped off while informing your current active users of what they can expect when they log in next. Highlight user-requested features to show responsiveness in development and attract users that may have dropped off due to a missing or broken feature.


  1. Better Luck Next Time Email: Click here to view resource

Most people that enter contests don't win them. Send out emails to the contestants that did not win and offer them a discount on your product. This tactic works particularly well if the contest was for a specific product because the CTA can be aligned with the user's interest.



Traffic





Next  comes the Traffic Category which has 30+ growth hacks for scaling businesses. 


  1. Social Proof Ad Copy: Click here to view resource

Incorporating social proof into your copy can drive conversions by strengthening the validity of your offer. Social proof can be demonstrated by mentioning experts, celebrities, or groups of people that love your product. Another way to demonstrate social proof is stating the sheer amount of users of your product. Regardless of your strategy, make sure to connect your offer to people or groups your target audience cares about. Examples:“Most popular growth hacking tool in Silicon Valley.” “Used by NFL athletes.”“Trendy purse that all celebrities are carrying.”


  1. "Central Commercial Areas" Targeting: Click here to view resource

You can target central commercial areas (places with high business presences i.e. restaurants, offices, malls, etc...) to quickly segment high traffic areas of a specific geography. This lets you exclusively target tightly packed, narrow geographies that might be more relevant audiences for your ads.


  1. Quality Score Optimization: Click here to view resource

Quality Score has a major effect on ad performance. A poor quality score will cause impressions and ranking to drop, and CPC to rise (as you'll be paying a premium to be seen). Increasing your quality score (best practices are platform specific) can drastically help you campaign and your budget.


  1. Benefit Ad Copy: Click here to view resource

If your product or service solves a problem, its benefits--that is the outcomes or results customer will (hopefully) experience by using your product or service--in your ad copy.


  1. Novelty Ad Copy: Click here to view resource

Run an ad touting the novelty of your product offering. Whether it’s standout because it’s new and original or you provide the latest new product lines from other suppliers, novelty can be a powerful way to get people to click an ad. Examples:“Check out our new line of razors.”“Winter is coming! Try our new designer winter jackets! ''Get all the latest email marketing tools on one platform.”


  1. Google Shopping Ads: Click here to view resource

Google Shopping allows you to show a price and image of the product in your ad. This often dramatically increases performance as people are more likely to click on an ad when they know the price up front. It helps you set expectations for an item’s price immediately rather than allowing the ad viewer to assume your product is too expensive.


  1. Uniqueness Ad Copy: Click here to view resource

If a major selling point of your product is its uniqueness compared to anything else on the market, you should be using that point in your ad copy. Promote your products with a copy that depicts its unique features, comparing it to your competition.Examples:“The only razor with 3 rotating blades.”“Rated the warmest winter jacket on Earth!”“The only email marketing software to allow subscriber segmentation.”


  1. Subscriber Retargeting: Click here to view resource

You will have many subscribers to your email list that haven't yet purchased from you. These people potentially have high intent and definitely have high brand recognition - by using custom audiences on Facebook and Twitter you can target these people and convince them to purchase your product.


  1. Optimize Search Position: Click here to view resource

The vast majority of SEO traffic comes from links in the top 3 positions in any given search results page. If you can crack the top 3 by optimizing anything in position 4-5, you'll see a big boost in traffic. This works regardless of whether you’re on page 1 or page 3, so even if you can’t crack the top 10 for a search, put in a bit of effort to make sure you’re top of the specific page you’re ranking on.


  1. Highly Specific Ad Copy: Click here to view resource

If you offer multiple products, or a broad category of products, test honing in on just one specific product or aspect of your product offering. You can target a different product or category to each audience. For example, if you’re a fashion retailer, target men who love watches with ad copy and creative showcasing men’s watches.


  1. Question Ad Copy: Click here to view resource

Try rephrasing your ad copy as a leading question to give your customers something to respond to. The answer should indicate why your service is valuable to them! i.e. "Want more customers?" "Need higher conversion rates?"


  1. Scraped Email Drip: Click here to view resource

Scraping emails of businesses from company data aggregators can help you regularly fill the top of your sales funnel with potential highly qualified leads. Use tools like Import.io or Kimono to scrape data on relevant businesses. Get really narrow with your scraping to target specific businesses by geography, size, funding, and more. Once you have your list, create an email drip campaign pitching your product or service.


  1. LinkedIn Lead Ads: Click here to view resource

LinkedIn recently introduced a new Lead Gen Forms system where you can run lead ads similar to Facebook. "Lead Gen Forms make it easy to collect leads from the nearly 500 million professionals, influencers, and business decision-makers who use LinkedIn. When members click on one of your ads, their LinkedIn profile information automatically populates an in-app form that they can submit instantly -- without having to type in their info by hand." - LinkedIn


  1. New Ad Platform: Click here to view resource

Different advertising platforms take different approaches to the way they reach audiences. Targeting the same audience with the same creative across multiple platforms can be a good way to determine relative volume and efficiency. You’ll be able to see how your audience on each network responds to your creative and adjust your ad spending and copy.


  1. Dynamic Retargeting: Click here to view resource

When retargeting users who have visited your site in the past, try using a dynamic creative that’s based on the products they’ve browsed through. Doing so directly reminds them of the awesome products they saw and encourages them to return. Each ad impression will be relevant to the individual that sees it based on prior interest rather than generic for all viewers.


  1. Informal Ad Copy: Click here to view resource

Some audiences react well to a friendly tone. When creating ad campaigns, first understand how your users would respond to a more informal approach. Speak to them the way they speak to others and they will respond.


  1. Email Subscription Confirmation: Click here to view resource

When you get a user’s email address, prompt them to give you a confirmation. Double Opt-In email marketing sounds like it shouldn’t be more effective: after all, you’re asking a user to go through a two-step process when giving you their email address instead of one. However, a two-step process is crucial for weeding out spam signups. Email marketing is not just about the breadth of your email list, but also about the quality of the leads.


  1. Quality Ad Copy: Click here to view resource

“Highest quality razor on the market”Comparing the quality of your service against the alternatives can be a good way to position your product. Whether comparing on price, customer service, ease of use, or quality, a favorable comparison against your competition can drive customers to buy from you instead. A great way to do this is to target alternatives to your service based on their negative customer feedback i.e. 'tired of lousy service?'


  1. Transcribe Video/Audio Content: Click here to view resource

When you create audio or video content (podcasts, explainer videos, live talks, etc…), transcribe them into text and publish them alongside the video. This is a simple and easy way to get keyword-rich content. The transcribing process can also be outsourced easily via freelancing sites like Fiverr or UpWork.


  1. Repost To Medium: Click here to view resource

From 500 Startups (500.co):Medium has horrible click throughs / email signups, but solid domain authority and built-in mechanics to distribute your content to more people through notifications and more.What should you do?1. Publish on your own site first2. Wait 3 days then use the Medium Import tool to bring it into Medium (so Google will know your version is canonical)3. Consider submitting to a Collection for better / new / untapped reach 4. Write in a call to action: go to the full site for more



  1. SumoMe Share: Click here to view resource

Adding Social share buttons to your website makes it incredibly easy for your users to share your content with their social networks. They create benefits for your brand on a number of key marketing fronts including brand exposure, site traffic, user experience, and SEO.



  1. Find Email Partners: Click here to view resource

You read a lot of newsletters in your field and follow a lot of blogs that promote best practices and news in your industry. You could reach out to those newsletters with an offer to promote their product to your list in exchange for a promotion of your product to theirs. This mutual exchange of sponsorship is a free and low effort way to increase your reach.


  1. Buzz-Building Email: Click here to view resource

As you’re gearing up for a big launch, send an email in the week leading up to it informing your users or waiting list subscribers of the launch. This gets them excited about what’s to come and reminds them about your product.



  1. Industry Audience Targeting: Click here to view resource

Targeting people who work for companies in the right industry can be a great way to segment your traffic. Be sure to test multiple audiences as performance can be very different depending on how they're bucketed by the advertising platform. This tactic works particularly well in B2B advertising.



  1. Fan/Follower Targeting: Click here to view resource

When you want to reach your current audience of fans with ads on Facebook, target them by choosing “People who like your Page” in the Targeting section of Facebook’s ad creation. You can go a step further by targeting the friends of your fans to further expand your reach.


  1. YouTube CTA: Click here to view resource

Pull people back to your site with a CTA on your YouTube videos. Add an annotation link, a link in the video description, or directly reference your site and URL in your video.

 

  1. Data Blog Post: Click here to view resource

Content around interesting data you have on your users or industry is a great way to get attention and PR for your business. You collect a lot of data and insights about your customers that can shine a revealing light on different parts of your industry and your own business’ performance. Sharing that data with the world as content is sure to grab attention with journalists and in your industry.


  1. PR Email Outreach: Click here to view resource

Get press by scraping emails from journalists and emailing them to write up an article about you. Ensure you're only targeting journalists who write articles relevant to your business/products. Draw their interest with a highly catered email referencing a specific article they wrote and why they and their audience would be interested in hearing more about you.


  1. YouTube Description Link:Click here to view resource

Add a link back to your landing page or to a page specific to the content of the video in the YouTube video description. It serves as a great way to direct an audience of interested viewers that want to learn more right back to your page. 


  1. Direct Private Messages: Click here to view resource

When trying to reach specific individuals who have indicated that they need something similar to your product, try reaching out to them in direct private messages on social networks or aggregators like Reddit. They’ve already expressed an interest and informing them of your product is a great way to introduce yourself and let them know it exists. As you see people talking about the needs your product covers, send them a quick personal introductory note.


  1. Send Email By Time Zone: Click here to view resource

When you send emails at "3pm" you aren't really hitting your users at that time - for some people in earlier time zones it's early morning, and late evening for others. Using something like Mailchimp's Time Warp or Intercom's advanced time zone feature, you can make sure it hits them at the right time.


  1. Number Of Hashtags: Click here to view resource

Experiment with the number of hashtags you add to your social posts to find optimum engagement levels. Readers on different social media platforms respond differently to hashtags, so be sure to vary your approach based on what works best for each platform. If you normally use only one hashtag, try two or more. If you use a lot of hashtags, try toning it down. Use whatever works best for each platform to increase click rates and social sharing.


  1. Keyword Only URLs: Click here to view resource

Another SEO best practice for all blogs, instead of having random strings or the blog post title as your URL, use the keyword you’re trying to rank the blog post for as your URL slug. This both helps you have a clean URL that’s easy to understand for your readers, and whenever the link is copy-pasted, it acts as anchor text, which is great for retaining the SEO benefit of your link.


Example: Instead of https://blog.ladder.io/144-actionable-growth-strategies-for-your-business/ We use: https://blog.ladder.io/growth-strategies/


  1. Publish Every Work Day : Click here to view resource

And last but not the least, Publish 5 posts a week, monday to friday.



Conclusion





Growth has always been a challenge for many businesses. In such a competitive environment businesses can expand only by adopting different growth hacking and marketing strategies. These were some of the tried and tested hacks that are helping SaaS startups all over the world scale their businesses. Although, there is no single hack that resolves all the pain points but businesses should not hesitate to practice new strategies everyday!

Samantha Paul
Samantha is a SaaS fan who is always on the lookout for great software and lifetime deals. Always up to date with what's going on in the tech world, Samantha prefers Windows to Mac and Android over iOS. You will see her articles here and we hope that you find them useful and informational.
100+ Growth Hacks for SaaS Startups 100+ Growth Hacks for SaaS Startups Reviewed by Samantha Paul on 8/06/2021 06:25:00 PM
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