Growth Hacker: Job Description, Salary, Examples

It’s the new trendy job : Growth Hacker. In this article, we take a closer look at :

• What is a growth hacker?
• The skills required.
• The tasks of a growth hacker.
• Career development.
• Salary.
• A little bonus: an exclusive interview with Chloé, Waalaxy’s Head of Growth!

As you can see, this article is actually a job description with a few minor improvements 😉.

Are you ready? Here we go! 🚀

What is a Growth Hacker?

To be able to carry out growth, you need an expert in the field, namely a growth hacker! It’s like developing a website, you need a developer, well, here it’s the same thing. 😇

The aim of a growth hacker is therefore to put in place strategies that will promote development effectively and efficiently.

But his work doesn’t stop there because he also has to find new ways of attracting potential customers and therefore sustaining the business and building customer loyalty. 🤝🏼

Growth hackers need other resources to carry out their tests.

His role is therefore to manage cross-functional projects by getting everyone more or less involved in this rapid experimentation process, and of course, the CEO must be in total agreement with the “Growth hacking” mentality. 👀

With the expansion of social media and web marketing, companies need to implement inbound marketing levers. Such as a digital marketing strategy, a marketing plan, a communications strategy, landing-page, Facebook adwords or even the use of natural referencing (SEO) to reach more customers. 🎯

If you want to become a growth hacker, you can apply to companies, usually startups related to the following areas:

• 🟣 Application.
• 🔵 Blog posts.
• 🟣 New technologies.
• 🔵 Digital marketing.

Regarding the type of job, this is generally done independently or with a small team (you don’t need 10 people to do growth). And, it is essential to work closely with several departments such as traditional marketing, development or even SEO.

The skills needed to be a Growth Hacker

In general, to qualify as a growth hacker, you’ll need a bachelor’s or master’s degree from a business or web marketing school, in online-marketing, business development or commerce.

There are no specific training courses for becoming a growth hacker. You will learn all the technical and marketing skills involved in growth through other training courses, as described above.

In terms of experience, a company is mostly looking for one year’s successful marketing efforts or growth experience.

However, if you don’t have any, don’t panic, create it by showing the company the test ideas you have for their development and how to carry them out. Let’s move on to the skills you need to be a good growth hacker, and for the occasion we’ve pulled out a little chart for you! 🎁

If you don’t meet all these criteria, don’t panic, you’ll acquire them in time! 😇

The tasks of a Growth Hacker

As you’ll have realized, a growth hacker can carry out a wide range of tasks. Here are just a few of the types of tasks a growth hacker can carry out! ⬇️

Inevitably, growth means acquisition… 🧲 That’s why the growth hacker will have to develop strategies to increase qualified traffic to a company’s website or application in your marketing tactics, such as:

• 🔹 Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
• 🔹 Content marketing methods.
• 🔹 Online advertising.
• 🔹 Influencer free marketing.

Next, you’re going to need to design strategies and effective marketing campaigns to encourage users to take specific actions, such as:

• 📝 Signing up for a newsletter.
• 🤳🏼 Creating an account.
• 🛍️ Purchasing a product.

Step one of the most important and not the least, it involves monitoring the marketing activities 👀 of competitors and identifying growth strategies in order to always remain competitive. 💪🏼

What does a growth hacker earn?

Let’s get straight to the point, the average salary for a growth hacker is around €37,000 a year, when you have experience.

There are several factors that go into defining a growth hacker’s salary. Firstly, their skills and years of experience. Then the type and size of the company they work for will have a significant impact. His past experiences and successes will also have an impact on the negotiation of his remuneration. 💰

To go into more detail, a junior growth hacker will earn around €35,000 gross per year, compared to a senior where their salary will be between €40,000 and €50,000 gross per year. Certain ‘expert’ profiles, which are highly prized, will earn up to €65,000 gross per year.

Career development for a Growth Hacker

Career development can evolve according to experience, skills, results and, above all, availability. Here are a few possible career paths:

• ◾️ Growth Junior hacker.
• ◾️ Growth hacker.
• ◾️ Head of Growth.
• ◾️ Director of growth.
• ◾️ Consultant in Growth.

2 Examples of companies hiring Growth Hackers

In reality, “growth hacking” is a growth marketing strategy that uses innovative and unconventional marketing techniques with the aim ⚽️ of accelerating a company’s growth.

Companies of all sizes can make full use of growth hackers to accelerate their growth. 📈

Some companies have used it successfully, such as Airbnb, Dropbox, Uber, and even Spotify! 🎶

Nevertheless, today we’re going to focus on two other companies, and it’s happening here. 👇🏼

Gmail: Acquiring millions of users fast

I’m sure you’re all familiar with Google’s famous email campaigns service… 🥁 Gmail!

In fact, Gmail has used a number of growth techniques to quickly acquire ⚡️ millions of users.

Let’s find out what they are: 👀

• Invitation-only sign-up ➡️ launched as an invitation-only app. This created a sense of exclusivity and encouraged people to ask for invitations.
• Unlimited storage capacity ➡️ offered unlimited storage capacity, which was much more than other email-marketing services at the time.
• Simple and intuitive user interface ➡️ simple and intuitive user interface, which made it easy for anyone to use.
• Integration with Google Apps ➡️ integrated with other Google applications, such as Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Drive. This allowed users to manage their email, calendar, documents, and files from one place.
• Viral marketing ➡️ used viral marketing and sales to get its users to recommend its service to their friends and family. For example, Gmail offered a storage bonus to users who invited their friends to sign up.

Thanks to these growth techniques, Gmail was able to quickly acquire millions of users and become the world’s most popular email service. 🌍

Netflix: World leader in streaming

Toudoum… There’s no need to introduce this world-famous company, which makes for a great Saturday night in front of our favorite series under a cozy blanket. 💟

Netflix knew perfectly how to use growth hackers as they quickly reached millions of subscribers. Here are just a few of the growth methods: 👇🏼

• Free sign-up ➡️ Free 30-day trial period, which allowed users to try out the service risk-free.
• Simple and intuitive user interface ➡️ Netflix’s user interface is simple and easy to use, making it easy for users to find the movies and TV shows they want to watch.
• Go viral in marketing ➡️ Use of virality in marketing to get users to recommend the service to their friends and family. For example, Netflix offered rewards to users who invited their friends to sign up.
• Use of social media marketing ➡️ Netflix uses social media to promote its service and interact with its users. Netflix has a strong presence on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
• Original content creation ➡️ Creates its own original content strategy, such as films, TV shows and documentaries. This allows Netflix to stand out from its competitors and attract new users.
• Partnerships with brands ➡️ Partnerships with brands such as Coca-Cola, Nike, and Samsung. This enables Netflix to reach a wider target audience and generate additional revenue.

• Use of data science ➡️ Uses data-driven science to better understand its users and offer them content that interests them. This enables Netflix to improve the customer experience and reduce churn.

Thanks to these growth techniques, Netflix has been able to rapidly acquire millions of subscribers and become the market leader in video content streaming. 🎥

Meet Chloé: Head of Growth at Waalaxy

We’re not doing things by halves here! In fact, as well as explaining the job of a growth hacker in detail, here’s an exclusive interview with Chloé, our beloved Head of Growth at Waalaxy! ✨

Question n°1: For you, What is growth Hacking?

Chloé Dalger:

I often say that growth hacking means everything and nothing because, everyone can have a different definition.

Do you have an example to give us?

Chloé Dalger:

“For example, we’re going to release a new feature, so we’re going to have data that shows us that users aren’t using it at all, so we have an activation concern about the feature and, all our work is going to be about: How do we get people to use the feature? 🤔

And there are a number of solutions available to us:

• 🥇 Watch tracking to see if it teaches us anything.
• 🥈 Talking to our users.
• 🥉 Test our initial ideas and intuitions.

Some people say that growth strategy is a cycle based on the “AAARRR” matrix, i.e. you start by focusing on customer acquisition, then activation. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re doing that, your business doesn’t have any problems, and you’re just looking to optimize. ✨

Just for information, here I’m talking about the matrix for growth funnel and not for marketing strategies because, it’s not quite the same thing, here are the differences in these infographics! ⬇️

We’re going to have a focus phase on retention, so we’re going to try to come up with a few ideas and then implement them with my team. To do this, we’re releasing some data before we go live, and we’re giving our changes time to have an impact, and we’re changing the focus to the one that needs it most at the time. 🎯”

Do you have anything else you’d like to share with us?

Chloé Dalger:

“There’s one important thing that I think deserves to be made clear, and that is that in the word “hacking”, there’s “hack”. People often think that the job is to find quick (and sometimes ethically questionable) little hacks all the time.

In my opinion, it’s certainly good to find little hacks that will boost your growth, but the truth is that they’re quite rare, especially if your company has been working on growth for a long time. 🕰️

The reality is that my team and I regularly work on projects that take us one or two weeks, and sometimes even a month, if necessary.

Finally, the advantage of my team is that we are multidisciplinary: ⬇️

• 🖥️ A developer.
• 🔎 A data analyst.
• 📊 A growth developer who looks after everything to do with landing blocks and tracking.
• 📈 Soon a business developer to increase referrals.
• 🧑🏼‍🍳 And finally, me, who manages all the technical and business aspects.”

Question n°2: What are your main tasks?

Chloé Dalger:

“My job often involves asking myself the right questions, coming up with ideas to solve them with:

• 🔵 The users.
• 🟣 Tracking.
• 🔵 My team.
• 🟣 The people at Waalaxy.
• 🔵 My own head.

So I choose the priorities my team focuses on, I also bring the growth vision into strategic decisions and products to be as proactive as possible.

Then, I’ll take care of making and feeding the cards to be made, ie:

• We need to create a design ➡️ I’ll take care of that.
• I’ll take care of the translation ➡️.
• I’ll take care of the email ➡️.

But also, choosing and defining new marketing tools to put in place, making sure to track words, digging into our data to support my ideas.

It’s an exercise where you ask yourself why you’re working on this or that and why you’re doing it. 🤔”

Question n°3: What are your day-to-day issues?

Chloé Dalger:

“Our biggest problem on a daily basis is the lack of resources. We want to do everything but we don’t have enough little hands. 👋🏼

But that’s going to change because we’re currently in the recruitment phase, so we’re going to have several angles of approach and a better strike force. 🥊

Alternatively, there may also be a sense of urgency, which means we have to stop everything we’re doing to focus on something else. 👀”

Question n°4: What’s a typical day’s work as a growth hacker?

Chloé Dalger:

“At the start of the week, we discuss the issues, we make decisions with the other teams on these issues. 💭

Then pass on the information to my team and see if we can eliminate 🏹 certain topics if they have ideas.”

Question n°5: Have you taken any growth training courses? If so, which ones?

Chloé Dalger:

“I was well supported when I started out. I didn’t know what growth was, and I was offered a job as a growth engineer when growth had just started in the Netherlands, so it didn’t really exist in France. 🇫🇷

However, my marketing manager and all my team had taken training courses and showed me everything (in terms of marketing team and business, where I knew very little). So I adapted that to my skills as a developer. 🖥️

However, here are 3 training courses that I think may be relevant:

• 🥇 “Growth foundations” from Udemy: it provides a comprehensive introduction to growth, and you’ll learn the fundamentals.
  
  
• 🥈 “GrowthX Academy”: training focused on learning essential skills.
  
  
• 🥉 “Growth Tribe Academy”: opportunity to work on real-life projects to apply the knowledge.”

Question n°6: Which part(s) of your job do you prefer the most?

Chloé Dalger:

“I have to admit that I miss coding a bit, which is why I try to find projects where I can get back into it a bit. 👀

Sometimes you put in months of effort before you start to see results, for example in SEO or product development.”

Question n°7: Do you follow people on LinkedIn who are Growth Hackers? If so, name 3

Chloé Dalger:

“I’m more of a newsletter type rather than someone who hangs out on LinkedIn. However, I do know 3 people I’m particularly fond of:

• Camille Cocaud ➡️ she founded “The gals of growth”, which brings together numerous women in France in the growth sector, to give each other good tips.
• Nicholas D’Hont ➡️ he regularly publishes content related to growth techniques.
• Neil Gursahani ➡️ he doesn’t publish often, but he’s my former colleague and when he comes out with a topic it’s very high quality, he’s taught me a lot.”

Question n°8: Do you follow any forums/media/sites that talk about growth? If so, name 2

Chloé Dalger:

“Yes, here’s my top, just for you: 🎁

• Growth design ➡️ this site will help you improve your skills and learn about growth strategies.
• Pedro Cortés ➡️ lots of free 5-minute reports on different topics.”

Question n°9: Would you have any advice for someone who wants to become a growth hacker?

Chloé Dalger:

“Today, you have everything you need to have fun, even if you don’t have any skills because you have many tools that you can use to do anything and everything. 🛠️

But, the best advice I could give you is that, growth, it’s not very restful, you constantly have to ask yourself questions. 🤔

So if you want to be cushy, this isn’t the job for you. 👀”

Question n°10: For you, is there a difference between a growth hacker in a company and self-taught?

Chloé Dalger:

“Mhh, for me yes, let me explain! 👇🏼

I was talking about the little hacks that almost always win the day. You also hire a company that sells you this service (I almost worked for a growth service company).

You start from scratch all the time, you try to make their little hacks work, little tricks that win you lots of visitors, new customers, or even fewer people cancelling their subscriptions.

Then you go to another company and do the same thing all over again.

What counts is finding the target 🎯 and the value proposition of the product-market fit or service so that these hacks work.” ✅

How about a quick recap?

Now I think you know more about the job of growth hacker and all that it entails!

As a reminder, we’ve seen:

• What is a growth hacker?
• The skills required.
• The tasks of a growth hacker.
• Career development.
• Salary.
• A little bonus: an exclusive interview with Chloé, Waalaxy’s Head of Growth! (Thanks to you!)

We’re not going to leave you there, we’ve got a few more resources to share with you. 📖

Growth hacker translation

The translation of a growth hacker is, quite simply, a “Hacker” or, Pirate of growth. 🏴‍☠️

How do you become a growth hacker?

Generally speaking, a growth hacker has a 5-year degree in digital strategy or marketing strategy and is experienced in SEO, IT development and B2b marketing. However, you can also take the online training courses we suggested earlier in the article. ⤴️

And that’s the end of the article about the growth hacker profession! See you soon. 🦋