Around the time I was making my final edit to the chapter on building a marketing department in The Professional Marketer, I happened to be part of a number of conversations on the “growth hacker,” aka “growth hacking.” The job title “growth hacker” wasn’t in the chapter, and I wondered if it should be.
For those not familiar with growth hacking, it is “a marketing technique developed by technology startups that uses creativity, analytical thinking, and social metrics to sell products and gain exposure.” The term was coined by Sean Ellis, and popularized in a blog post by Andy Chen called, provocatively, “Growth Hacker is the New VP of Marketing.”
Most marketers looking at the above definition could not be blamed for wondering what’s new. Growth hacking is marketing. The primary tactics of growth hacking are SEO, social media, A/B testing, direct marketing, and viral marketing. These are all well understood by marketers and marketing teams, and depending on the organization, live in the online marketing and demand generation teams. So why a new role?…
