When it comes to growth hacking, most businesses still aren’t sure what it is or how it works. Because the discipline is still so new, it can be a little confusing and overwhelming to people who don’t know anything about it.
So, with that in perspective, we want to take this opportunity to look at and discuss the top growth hacking courses that can help propel your brand to the next stage. Fortunately, there are many resources out there for you, so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding the right option for your business.
How to Spot a Top Growth Hacking Course
Unfortunately, because information is abundant out there regarding growth hacking, not all data it is correct. When searching for and comparing different courses, you need to be sure that they stay focused on the core concepts of growth hacking, rather than lump it into various other marketing techniques.
Thus, when trying to spot a top growth hacking course, you want to keep these elements in mind.
Understand Growth Hacking Concepts
For the most part, these courses will teach you much technical knowledge about marketing tools like Google Adwords and others. However, while knowing a bunch of tools is nice, it won’t necessarily help get you from point A to point B.
Instead, you should pay attention to the core concepts of growth hacking, which are:
- A focus on growth above everything else
- Rapid experimentation and adoption of new ideas
- Lean marketing techniques that don’t require much capital
So, if a course doesn’t touch on these subjects, or doesn’t promise to dive into them further, it’s probably more focused on standard marketing techniques. While those can be helpful for your overall brand identity, it’s not the same as hacking your way to growth.
Building a Product or Service With Growth in Mind
When you look at the various success stories of growth hacking (Dropbox, Uber, Hotmail), they all have one thing in common – a product that went viral.
While you can try to understand the methods and tactics used by these companies to expand so rapidly, instead you want to look at why they were so successful. More than anything else, customer referral and adoption was what drove their growth and propelled them into the mainstream. Without that kind of viral enthusiasm from customers, none of these companies would be where they are today.
So, any top growth hacking course will understand the value of having a killer product or service to sell to consumers. Without that, nothing else you do will have an impact. You can employ a wide array of different tactics to try and market your brand, but unless you’re creating value for the customer and gaining traction with each new adoptee, you’ll never get anywhere.
When comparing courses, look at the ones that focus on product development as part of the growth hacking system. Then you’ll know that it’s legit.
Building Lead and Referral Funnels
Although pirate metrics are not necessarily a core component of growth hacking, they have become the go-to measurement for the success of any new company.
If you’re not familiar, pirate metrics are the following:
- Acquisition
- Activation
- Retention
- Revenue
- Referral
Overall, these metrics will help you determine the effectiveness of any growth hacking campaign, so it’s vital to learn and understand them as much as possible. While standard lead funnels are helpful to grow your business, these metrics will enable you to stay focused, as well as build on each lead to create a network of customers that are acting as brand ambassadors for free.
As we mentioned, the referral is part of the backbone of growth hacking success stories. Apps like Airbnb and Uber wouldn’t have gained so much traction if people weren’t sharing them and telling everyone about it.
The top growth hacking courses will dive deep into these metrics (or something similar) so that you can build a funnel that works.
Taking Multiple Courses
Because there are many options out there for aspiring growth hackers, you need to be discerning when choosing the right course for you. You want to be sure that you’re not wasting your time and money on something that doesn’t even cover growth hacking.
That being said, some courses may cover a lot of these elements but still be missing some of them. Other classes may only focus on one component of growth hacking, meaning that you have to take another course to learn the rest.
Thus, if you want to make sure that you understand growth hacking inside and out and can take on any challenge to your brand, you may want to take a couple of different courses instead of just one. Not only will this help you get a more comprehensive understanding of growth hacking, but it can teach you some additional tactics as well.
If you do decide to combine courses, then make sure that they don’t overlap too much. If one class is going to focus on growth tools and apps that can help you acquire new customers, then take a different one that focuses on product development.
Overall, when you combine each course, you should be able to take a deep dive into each of the core concepts of growth hacking and come out ready to conquer the world on the other side.
Top 10 Growth Hacking Courses
Although there are far more options out there, many of them are not going to add as much value as you may think. Thus, we’ve done the dirty work for you and compared the various options so that you can focus more on learning about growth hacking, not discerning between the courses that matter and those that won’t help your brand.
That being said, because each startup has different needs, these courses are not necessarily in order from most to least valuable. Instead, pick the one that looks like it will work for your business and go from there.
Considering that Sean Ellis is the founder of growth hacking and coined the term, no one is more qualified to teach these concepts than him. Fortunately, if you attend the Gimme Growth course, you’ll be working with Sean and a host of other top-tier growth hackers along the way.
Part of what makes a course valuable is understanding who is teaching it. Anyone can claim that they’re experts on a topic, but knowing that your instructors are living and breathing growth hacking concepts ensures that you’ll get the most out of the lessons.
This course is comprehensive and covers all of the different elements of growth hacking. It can be a lot to take in, but it’ll also save you the hassle of picking different classes and trying to merge the information afterward.
Building buzz around your product or service is an essential part of any growth hacking methodology. Fortunately, you learn to do exactly that with this course. That being said, you do need to have something buzzworthy already, as the instructors won’t show you how to create a viral product or service.
What’s nice about this course is that the instructors have launched a variety of successful apps and startups, and you’re learning the techniques and methods they’ve used to gain traction and build hype around them.
The 2019 Complete Growth Hacking and Conversion Course
This lesson plan is another comprehensive deep dive into the various concepts and components of growth hacking. If you’re looking for a one-stop shop to help build your brand, then this is a decent choice (much like Gimme Growth).
That being said, this course is only geared towards startups and businesses that are already formed and trying to build off of their current audience. If you haven’t even launched yet, a lot of the info that they discuss may be too advanced for what you’re trying to do.
Another thing about this course is that it teaches you a bunch of marketing tools along with growth hacking concepts. Thus, it’s mostly a standard digital marketing lesson plan with growth tactics added in.
Growth Hacking With Digital Marketing
This course is much like the one above, although it’s better suited for brand-new startups that need to build an audience quickly. This lesson plan does also include a bunch of standard digital marketing tools, but it also helps you understand how those tools can be utilized for a growth hacking mindset.
One thing to consider, however, is that students should have a decent understanding of most digital marketing terms, such as SEO and email marketing. If even those concepts are above your skill level, then you’ll probably want to start with a basic marketing lesson and build from there.
The Complete App Marketing Course
Although your product or service doesn’t have to be an app to grow rapidly, it certainly helps when you don’t have to build or maintain much in the way of infrastructure. Thus, knowing how to promote your app and have it go viral are essential components of any growth marketing campaign.
In this course, you’ll learn the more delicate points of going from zero to thousands of new users for your app, no matter what it’s about or what it does. Fortunately, you don’t even have to have anything built currently – the instructors and lesson plan work for both current and future apps that are in development.
The Ultimate Guide to Funnel Optimization
As we mentioned, pirate metrics are a perfect way to focus your attention on the various growth hacking elements that matter most. This course reinforces these concepts by showing you how to build killer funnels that work.
Best of all, this lesson plan includes strategies for experimentation and adoption of new techniques, which are essential to the growth hacking mindset. You’ll not only learn a massive amount of tactics that have already been proven to work, but you’ll figure out the fundamentals of funnel optimization so that you can come up with and test your ideas.
Although speed is not necessarily a deciding metric for growth hacking, it’s almost a requirement if you want to experience the same level of success as the titans of the industry.
No matter what, though, you probably don’t have much time to be spending on trying different tactics, which is why this course is so helpful. Here you will learn actionable advice to help you grow within the next 30 days. Having such a tight and focused deadline will ensure that you’re always on target.
Startup Growth Hacking: 19 Actionable and Advanced Tactics
If you’re planning on taking multiple courses, we highly recommend that you save this for last. To benefit the most from this lesson plan, you need to have a decent understanding of growth hacking concepts, as well as standard digital marketing techniques.
What’s nice about this course is that it helps propel you forward by giving you both the tools and the action items necessary to make them work. It’s usually not enough to understand why something works – you need to put it into action to see how it happens.
Overall, this is a fast and intensive course, and it can be the fuel you need to move forward with your growth hacking campaign.
Social Media Marketing Strategy
Depending on whom you ask, social media marketing is either a fundamental part of any growth campaign, or it’s a glorified way to pat yourself on the back.
While we don’t have as glip of an assessment of social media marketing, we understand that getting thousands of likes and followers isn’t going to guarantee any monetary gains. That being said, this course claims to help you reach 1,000,000 followers who are not a number to scoff at, let alone ignore.
Overall, please don’t put all of your efforts into the social media basket, but don’t ignore the tangible benefits it can provide. If you can build buzz on social platforms, you should be able to do so elsewhere as well.
Business Branding for Growth Hacking
Branding your business is an integral part of any marketing campaign, whether it’s focused on growth or otherwise. This course helps you not only cultivate a brand that works, but that’s already geared toward growth hacking methods.
Overall, if you want to be sure that your brand is stable enough for rapid expansion and growth, then this course will help you out.
And more courses to consider
Growth hacking specific courses
- The Ultimate Introduction To Growth Hacking | Growth Hacking University | $85.56
- The Ultimate Guide To Funnel Optimization | Udemy | $11.99
- HypeBomb – Growth Hacking for startups | Udemy | $34.99
- Growth Courses | GrowHack | $69/month
- Growth Master Training Course | GrowthHackers | $370.76
- Startup Growth Hacking: 19 Actionable and Advanced Tactics | Udemy | Free
- Learn How to Get Your First Million Users | Udemy | $19.99
- Learn To Explode Product Growth In Just One Month | OneMonth | $199
Digital marketing specific courses
- An Introduction to Marketing | Coursera – University of Pennsylvania | Free
- The Fundamentals of Digital Marketing | Google | Free
- The Complete Digital Marketing Courses | Udemy | $199.99 (usually at a discount)
- Quick Sprout University | Quick Sprout | Free
Coding specific courses
- Code Foundations | Codeacademy | From $15.99/month
- Intro to Computer Science| Udacity | $599 – Free Course included
- Web Design for Everybody | Coursera – University of Michigan|
- Computer Science | Codeacademy | From $15.99/month
- Web Development | Codeacademy | From $15.99/month
Data analytic specific courses
- Google Analytics for Beginners | Google Analytics Academy | Free
- Google Analytics Advanced | Google Analytics Academy | Free
- Google Analytics for Power Users | Google Analytics Academy | Free
- Google Tag Manager Fundamentals | Google Analytics Academy | Free – Open for registration
- Lean Analytics Workshop | Udemy | Free
- Intro To Data Science | Udacity | Free
- Data Analysis with R | Udacity | Free
- Introduction To Databases | Stanford University | Free
- Data Science | Codeacademy | From $15.99/month
Bottom Line – Learn as Much as Possible
Because growth hacking is all about experimentation and escalation, you should be learning whatever you can from a wide array of sources. Even if one course promises to teach you everything you need to know, adding a specialized lesson plan can help propel you a little further towards your goals.
Get your copy of bestselling book
“Ready Set Growth Hack:
A beginners guide to growth hacking success”
Click here to learn more about the 10x growth narrative
