From data to growth: how customer knowledge management enhances growth hacking strategies

Purpose – Growth hacking is rapidly gaining recognition for its utility and effectiveness in helping enterprises scale their user base and overall operations. As a customer-centric, experimentation-based approach to data utilisation and analysis, growth hacking involves a comprehensive set of strategies, practices and processes designed to drive rapid and scalable business growth. However, the acquired data, in turn, lead to the assimilation of new knowledge, which must be effectively managed and exploited to maximise its benefits for the enterprise. Thus, this study aims to shed light on how companies gather, manage and apply customer knowledge to optimise growth hacking strategies. Design/methodology/approach – Based on an inductive, grounded theory research approach, qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews, open-ended essays and archival data from various companies, including micro, small and medium enterprises and growth hacking consultancy companies. Findings – Within the framework of growth hacking implementation, two strategic areas (knowledge from and about customers and knowledge for customers) have been identified on which organisations need to act, grouped under the theoretical lens of customer knowledge flows. They also shed light on companies’ methods and best practices to effectively harness and manage customer knowledge, enhancing their growth hacking efforts. Originality/value – This research links customer knowledge management and growth hacking research with an inductive grounded model illustrating how customer knowledge management flows are involved in the implementation of growth hacking.