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Growth Hacking + Design Thinking = 75% increase of customer base

How we increased the customer base of a specific customer segment by harnessing the combined power of Growth Hacking and Design Thinking.

Jonas Kääpä

Jonas Kääpä

Growth Hacking + Design Thinking = 75% increase of customer base

The growth of Growth Experiments

There's a gang at Humblebee who have become ever so slightly obsessed with - for want of a better term - growth hacking. Perhaps 'growth experiments' is a more accurate description...

It's easy for the natives

Hacking Growth as coined by Sean Ellis goes all-in with how data-driven hacks lead to growth. Many of the case studies he cites are digital-first services such as Airbnb or Dropbox. However companies built up from Day 1 around a digital online service have an obvious advantage when using data-driven and digital growth "hacks".

But what about the rest?

Our team at Humblebee have been investing a lot of time into how the methods and methodologies of growth hacking can be applied to, for example, B2B "traditional" companies; industrial manufacturing segments etc... in other words, not digital first companies.

How can we hack growth - using digital techniques - in more traditional categories? That was our challenge and the root of our exploration groups at Humblebee.

An incredible B2B example of Growth Hacking

We carried out a growth experiment for one of our clients and harnessed the combined power of Growth Hacking, Design Thinking and business experimentation. We helped our B2B recycling client achieve a 75% increase of the customer base within a specific customer segment.

Challenge

The challenge was pretty straightforward and the target a specific customer segment of our client, namely hairdressers. The user acquisition for this particular target group had stagnated and we were asked to help out with this issue and increase the customer base in a sustainable and resource efficient way.

Solution

By researching and analyzing the target group and the existing product offer for the hairdressers we identified and made changes to the offer that resulted in a better product-market fit. We then set up a highly automated service system that would support the target customers along their entire customer journey, delivering a consistent experience that we could measure and tweak further to improve customer acquisition and retention even more.

We were able to experiment quickly using specific growth software and
methods.

Result

By combining a Design Thinking approach with a Growth Hacking mindset we were able to reach a 75% increase in the customer base for the selected target group in just a little over 6 months after launch.

If you'd like to learn more or perhaps set up a low-risk / potential high-reward experiment, just send me a email. 😀

/ Jonas

Jonas Kääpä
Written by

Jonas Kääpä

Service Designer

jonas.kaapa@humblebee.se

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