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This  is  the  study  guide  for  Eazl’s  Growth  Hacking  Masterclass.    For  more  informaCon  about  Eazl,  visit  www.eazl.co  

Growth Hacking Masterclass Study Guide

As you participate in the course, you’ll be using three additional tools to enrich your growth hacking learning experience: • The Eazl Marketing Mastermind Group on Facebook. Paste this link into your

browser to request access: bit.ly/MarketingMastermind • Weekly Brian Boosts via YouTube. Paste this link into your browser to

subscribe: bit.ly/eazlyoutube • Spreadsheets and Docs via Google Drive. To create a copy of these templates

for yourself, click File ➔ Make a Copy (you’ll need a Google account).

Note: In order to activate the Further Reading hyperlinks, you may need to download this .pdf and open it on your device.

Section 1: An Introduction to the Course • Growth Hackers are Tomorrow’s Marketing Leaders

• Growth hacking is a growth-oriented mindset that grew out of Silicon Valley startup culture.

• The “hacking” part of growth hacking is about the smart and creative use of technology to achieve growth.

• Data is used by growth hackers to make rational decisions about tactical experiments into which they’ve invested creative time and energy.

• Further Reading: Startup = Growth by Paul Graham at bit.ly/GHstartup

Section 2: Cultivate Your Growth Hacking Mindset • Product/Market Fit and Timing for Growth Hacking

• Before product/market fit is achieved, finding it is the #1 goal of the company.

• Launching a growth campaign should come after a product/market fit is realized.

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This  is  the  study  guide  for  Eazl’s  Growth  Hacking  Masterclass.    For  more  informaCon  about  Eazl,  visit  www.eazl.co  

• After product/market fit is achieved, growth hackers should focus on creating repeatable acquisition processes and measuring everything.

• How to Use 3 MBA Marketing Concepts in Growth Hacking • Campaigns are coordinated series of tactics associated with a marketing

initiative. • Each tactic is a single mechanism designed to achieve the goals of the

campaign. • The buying center is the group of people and factors that determine whether

or not a purchase is made. • Products that are trying to solve a new problem need to create customers,

whereas products that are solving a problem that people know they have need to focus on being found at the right time.

• How to Develop Psychographic Customer Profiles • Qualitative research is especially useful for identifying “tribes” of early

adopters and lead users, while quantitative research is more useful for spotting patterns and larger-scale campaigns.

• When interviewing customers, you’re looking for information about their needs and their psychographic profiles.

• Personas describe the psychographic segments of people who use your product or service.

Section 3: Lean Analytics: Experiment, Learn, Adapt, Repeat • What is the Lean Startup Movement?

• Apply the lean framework to build, test, and learn quickly. • Start measuring all of your costs, including setup time, resource need, and

distribution time. • Don’t fall short on the debrief! Take time to gather stats, learn, and record

your learnings. • Further Reading: Eric Reis’ Blog at bit.ly/GHlessons

• Learn When and How to Use Growth Data • Qualitative metrics are about qualities that cannot be actually measured.

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This  is  the  study  guide  for  Eazl’s  Growth  Hacking  Masterclass.    For  more  informaCon  about  Eazl,  visit  www.eazl.co  

• Quantitative metrics can be specifically measured. • Make sure that your learnings are based on 1200+ observations, otherwise,

you can make a smart guess, but not be totally sure. • Use KPIs to track changes in an important part of your business, but keep it

simple! • Learn Which Metrics Deserve Your Attention

• Lagging indicators show the result of some system whereas leading metrics show the inputs.

• Growth hackers have more control over the leading indicators and should focus experiments there.

• Correlation is used to show relationships between variables, not causal links. • Further Reading: Dave McClure on Lean Analytics at bit.ly/GHanalytics

• How to Use Manual and Automated A/B Testing • A/B tests (sometimes called split tests) measure the impact from a single

change in some process you control. • If the observed difference isn’t a huge impact, move on to other experiments. • When you’re working with a site with a healthy amount of traffic to a site,

you can automate A/B testing with testing service providers.

Section 4: Learn to Analyze Web Traffic and user Behavior • How to Measure Traffic Volume and User Retention

• Sessions (formerly Visits): # of times the site was visited • Users (formerly Unique Visits): the platform’s best guess that this is one

person who hasn’t visited in the last half hour • Bounce Rate: # of sessions where the user only visited one page and then

left. Measures the quality of user visits. Needs Upgrade! • Pageviews: measures a single view of a page. Helps you gauge how one page

is doing vs. another. • How to Measure Engagement and Actions Taken

• Pages Per Session: Pages per Session measures the depth of a Session and can be a measure of engagement, depending on the content of your website.

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Pages per Session is an average, and should be measured across different user groups to help understand user behavior.

• Average Session Duration: Time on site is the amount of time a user spends on the site from the first action to the last action they take on the site (be it an event or going to the last page they visited).

• Average Time on Page: If a user only visits one page, time on page is the time between the last engagement hit on a page and the time the user hit the page.

• Exits: Exits are different than Bounces. Exits occur in all Sessions, but Bounces denote only single page Sessions. You especially want to limit Exits from pages where people find other content, like your homepage or a landing page.

• Source/Medium: Where's the Good Traffic Coming From? • Source: The referral source of the traffic (e.g. Google search, facebook.com, a

newsletter you sent out.) • Medium: The way the traffic was originated (e.g. organic search, paid

advertising, email, none/direct, etc.). • Source/Medium: The the combination of source and medium that’s driving

traffic to your site.

• Section 5: Learn How to Design Efficient Conversion Funnels • Digital Funnels: Engage, then Sell

• A digital funnel is the digital pathway that you want someone to take in order to have them do something.

• Even more important that measuring the volume of each step is what happens between them. That’s conversion.

• By measuring the efficiency of the funnel, you can identify what’s weak and even reverse-engineer marketing spend strategies.

• Further study: Michael Skok on digital funnel design at bit.ly/GHskok • 5 Ways to Increase Conversions

• Make your funnels as frictionless as possible.

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This  is  the  study  guide  for  Eazl’s  Growth  Hacking  Masterclass.    For  more  informaCon  about  Eazl,  visit  www.eazl.co  

• Use the free line to allow customer to try your offering, then convert them. • Use price anchors to your advantage. • Use exploding offers to encourage leads to convert to clients. • Create bundles of products and services tailored to the needs of specific

target personas. • How to Engineer a Great User Experience

• Use customer knowledge to anticipate what information they’ll want at each stage of the funnel.

• Make action signals readable by using larger fonts and using color and size to signal importance.

• Make the funnel’s actions and messages familiar to the audience through the use of metaphors and images that they’re already familiar with.

• How to Design a Killer Landing Page • Use landing pages to optimize conversion once people are at the top of your

digital funnel. • Draw attention to the action point and make the offer you’re making easy to

understand. • Use a thank-you page to allow people to continue through your funnel if

they’re ready to move on.

Section 6: LTV, CAC, and Hacking Revenue Growth • Learn the How to Estimate LTV and CAC

• Estimate the lifetime value of a customer or target persona by using data to calculate average purchase frequency, size, and years they’ll be a customer.

• Track CAC by measuring both online and offline resource spend, including time of your people.

• Segment customers with relevant basis like acquisition channel to prioritize customer acquisition activities.

• How to Hack Revenue Growth • A basic application of LTV vs. CAC is the rule of three to one. Your budget for

acquiring a customer should be ⅓ of their LTV.

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This  is  the  study  guide  for  Eazl’s  Growth  Hacking  Masterclass.    For  more  informaCon  about  Eazl,  visit  www.eazl.co  

• An advanced application of the LTV is to reverse engineer a target funnel and calculate the customer value at each step.

• You can also calculate the value between conversion steps and use that to make smarter decisions.

Section 7: Learn How to Get ROI from Social Media • Learn to Think Upside Down

• The social web is not controlled by the marketer, but by the consumer. • Revenue ROI is often difficult to accurately measure, but there are both top

and bottom-line reasons to use social media. • Platforms change fast, so it is the perfect to run lean and learn fast.

• 5 Ways to Be Better on Social Media • Social communities take time to build, so invest wisely and be patient. • Add real value to your community and the broader community. Bad content

and hard selling will suck the capital out of your communities. • Build to your target personas and showcase them. Getting the right

influencers on your side can pay real dividends. • Take advantage of the platform mechanisms.

• How to Empower Your Biggest Fans • Leverage the social funnel by empowering your most vocal and influential

fans. • Ambassador programs can be used to build brand awareness, reduce training

burdens, or even generate revenue. • In return, showcase the success of ambassadors by giving them access to

greater resources and other meaningful perks. • Further Reading:

• The Maker’s Mark Ambassador Program at bit.ly/GHmakers • A Successful Non-profit’s Ambassador Program at bit.ly/GHnpamb

• Learn the 4 Meaningful Social Media Metrics • While eyeballs and reach are nice, measure the actions that matter for your

growth goals.

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This  is  the  study  guide  for  Eazl’s  Growth  Hacking  Masterclass.    For  more  informaCon  about  Eazl,  visit  www.eazl.co  

• Regardless of platform, think of social metrics as related to consumption, sharing, lead-generating, or sales.

• Scheduling tools can help you automate sharing and also give you good analytics about which posts are working.

• How to Use UTM Tracking to Optimize Social • UTM tracking can help you measure the effectiveness of links with

customizable parameters for better tracking. • It’s useful to test tactics across social platforms and in a variety of other

applications. • In your analytics platform, go beyond surface metrics like sessions and into

deeper analysis when gauging effectiveness.

Section 8: Viral Marketing, Influencers, and Media Funnels • Viral Math and Jetpacks

• Think of the virality factor as a mix of the chances that a post will get re-shared, the reach of each re-share, and the likelihood that the newly-exposed folks will convert.

• Research shows that true virality is the result of influencers and media outlets to dramatically increasing the reach of viral content.

• You can increase the likelihood of a re-share with great content, appeals to people’s aspirational sides, and smart broadcast timing.

• Further Reading: The Science Behind Viral Marketing bit.ly/GHviral • How to Work with Journalists and the Media

• When you’re seeing some viral success, think about a media outlet and audience that would find it interesting.

• Connect your media outreach with a structure that will connect additional traffic to your growth goals.

• Ready to reach out to media, short and well-structured press alert that respect busy journalists’ time.

• Keeping media quick lists will enable you to communicate with media, lead users, and other stakeholders fast.

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This  is  the  study  guide  for  Eazl’s  Growth  Hacking  Masterclass.    For  more  informaCon  about  Eazl,  visit  www.eazl.co  

Section 9: Keyword Research and Easy SEO Wins • How to Be More Discoverable with SEO

• Link to your important pages with HTML links so that search engines can find them easily.

• Choose keywords based on their competitiveness vs. popularity relationship and sometimes, what they say about the user’s proximity to purchase decision.

• Keyword optimize your on-page images, headlines, and to some extent, your copy.

• Ask search engines to crawl your site when you launch big website changes. • 5 Point SEO Checklist for Inbound Marketing

• The best way to have discoverable inbound content is by investing in quality content with at least 500 words in the body section.

• Apply keyword research skills at the page level for content that appears as a webpage.

• Use keywords in image tags, titles, copy, and URLs. • Use rich snippets to show searchers important features of the content right

from the search page.

Section 10: Learn to Tell Compelling Stories • Learn to Write Smart, Authentic Copy

• Simplify your approach by giving each component one job in your writing. • Be more authentic by talking about your organization’s history, how things

are produced, and your specific niche. • Integrate what your customers say about you into your copy and leverage

social proof. • 5 Ways to Tell a Better Story

• Aim to create a specific emotion. • Create truthful, authentic storylines that follow a crisis narrative structure. • Build characters people will root for by showing their suffering.

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This  is  the  study  guide  for  Eazl’s  Growth  Hacking  Masterclass.    For  more  informaCon  about  Eazl,  visit  www.eazl.co  

• Leave people hanging by chunking stories and leaving people wondering what will happen next.

• Learn to Use the RIFE Content System • By reviewing content analytics, understand which topics, sources of value,

and/or emotions are working with your audience. • Find and highlight content from your users that builds on these patterns. • Build your strategy around what will enhance your audience’s experience

with your brand based on what you know.

Section 11: Learn to Make the Most of Email Marketing • Learn the Fundamentals of Email Marketing

• Design your email strategy around useful benefits that you can deliver to your customers.

• Invest in your design typography and create emails that are roughly 600-800px wide.

• Email service providers are worth it because they’ll help you A/B test, segment your list, and provide useful analytics.

• 6 Hacks for Growing Your Email List Fast • Identify your most important and active digital touchpoints and invest in

optimizing them for sign ups. • Give people a reason to forward your emails to their friends. • Increase the likelihood that people will opt in by giving them choices that are

relevant to your business case. • If you create a really valuable piece of content, require people to opt in order

to access the full version. • 3 Ways to Grow Through Email Marketing

• Businesses with existing customer should invest heavily in retaining and activating their existing customers.

• Event-triggered email marketing is an excellent way to automate interactions with your community.

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This  is  the  study  guide  for  Eazl’s  Growth  Hacking  Masterclass.    For  more  informaCon  about  Eazl,  visit  www.eazl.co  

• Drip email programs are an excellent way to give personas what they need to move down a well-designed funnel and increase conversions.

Section 12: Paid Acquisition Strategies • The Structure, Channels, and Metrics of Online Advertising

• You can think of online advertising as a short cycle between impressions, clicks, and actions.

• Search ads are sponsored search results whereas display ads pop users some kind of image or video that they can click.

• A small fraction of viewers will click on an ad and precise, valuable targeting costs more than advertising to a broad, unspecified audience.

• How to Organize and Create Effective Online Ads • Organize your campaign around your budget, location, and ad distribution

preferences. • Create ad groups to increase the relevance of your ads to the searcher and

drive down your CPC. • Take advantage of keyword matching parameters to make sure you’re not

wasting money. • Think of your ads as a mini landing page and keep it simple!

• How to Be a Remarketing Ninja • Almost all organizations should allocate budget for remarketing to

customers who already know them. • You can create remarketing lists based on website events like visits to a

particular page or interactions with the site. • Segment your remarketing campaigns based on what they say about the

user’s place in your funnel.