What is “growth,” and why do you need to focus on it and its emerging trends even if you’re not a growth professional?
The "growth” field refers to the interdisciplinary study and practice of driving growth in organizations, businesses, and startups. The field encompasses various aspects of business and management, including marketing, product development, sales, customer engagement, and data analysis. Growth experts aim to help organizations identify new opportunities for growth, optimize their processes and operations, and increase their revenue and market share. This field draws on expertise and knowledge from various fields, including economics, psychology, marketing, and technology, to provide a comprehensive approach to driving growth in a rapidly changing business environment.
In the fast-evolving business landscape, staying ahead of the curve is crucial for companies looking to grow and succeed. As technology continues to advance and disrupt traditional business models, it's more important than ever to stay informed about the latest trends in growth. This article will explore some of the most promising and innovative trends and provide insights into how companies can capitalize on these opportunities to drive their success.
Growth Trend 1: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Why AI is so promising
AI is increasingly used in growth to automate various tasks and to make better, data-driven decisions.
In some cases, AI becomes the essence of the company’s product; in others—one of the tools that helps drive growth.
Examples of AI-Based startups
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Replika: A company that provides AI-powered personal chatbots to individuals, allowing them to have personalized conversations and build emotional connections with the chatbot. It uses AI (including GPT-3) to generate human-like responses for the chatbots, improving the overall user experience.
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X.ai: The company provides AI-based personal assistants to help individuals schedule meetings. With the help of machine learning algorithms, they process email exchanges, understand natural language, and automate the scheduling process, making it easier and faster for people to find mutually convenient times to meet.
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BenevolentAI: A company that makes use of AI to help pharmaceutical researchers discover new treatments for diseases. By analyzing vast amounts of scientific data and knowledge, it is able to identify potential new drug candidates and improve the efficiency of the drug discovery process.
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Cogito: The company uses AI to help call center agents improve their customer interactions. Its machine-learning algorithms analyze the emotions and behaviors of both the agents and the customers during phone calls and provide real-time feedback and coaching to the agents to help them improve the customer experience.
But the most interesting thing about AI is that the technology not only becomes the key feature itself but also enhances all the other potential in a company’s growth—you’ll see that we’ll continue mentioning it in the other trends as well.
Growth Trend 2: Customer Data Platforms
What is CDP, and What Was Used Before?
A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is a technology that enables businesses to centralize, consolidate and manage their customer data in real time. It provides a single, unified view of customer data, which can come from a variety of sources, including website interactions, marketing automation, CRM systems, and more. By leveraging this data, businesses can create a more personalized and seamless customer experience, increase customer engagement and loyalty, and drive growth.
- The worldwide customer data platform software market will grow at 19.5% CAGR from $1.3 billion in 2020 to $3.2 billion in 2025. (
IDC Worldwide Customer Data Platform Market Shares, 2020: The Flight to First-Party Data Is On, and CDPs Win Big, 2020 ), source: https://cdp.com/articles/basics/cdp-industry-statistics/
CDPs are considered an innovation in the field of growth and customer engagement because they allow companies to manage and leverage their customer data in a way that was previously impossible. Before the emergence of Customer Data Platforms (CDPs), businesses typically used a variety of separate systems and technologies to manage customer data. This included Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to manage customer interactions, marketing automation tools to manage campaigns and email communications, and analytics tools to analyze customer behavior and track performance metrics. However, these systems often operated in silos and did not provide a unified view of customer data, which made it difficult for businesses to gain a complete understanding of their customers and create personalized experiences.
To overcome these limitations, businesses often relied on manual processes to consolidate and integrate customer data from different systems, which was time-consuming, prone to errors, and often resulted in incomplete or outdated information. This made it challenging for businesses to make data-driven decisions and deliver personalized experiences that could drive growth. The advent of CDPs has addressed these challenges by providing a single, unified view of customer data, which can be used for better decision-making and ensuring the success of a business.
Examples of companies using CDPs for growth
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North Face: A leading outdoor clothing and equipment retailer, The North Face has used a CDP to increase its marketing efficiency and enable growth. By integrating customer data from multiple sources, The North Face has been able to gain insights into customer behavior and preferences and use these insights to create targeted marketing campaigns that drive sales and engagement.
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Spotify: A CDP is used at Spotify, a popular music streaming service, to improve its customer engagement and enhance growth. The unification of customer data from various sources has enabled Spotify to create a more personalized user experience, increase customer retention, and significantly grow its business.
Examples of CDPs
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Segment: A startup that provides a Customer Data Platform (CDP) that helps businesses collect, unify, and manage customer data from different channels. By using Segment's platform, businesses can create a single view of their customer data, which can be used to create targeted marketing campaigns, improve customer journeys, and drive growth.
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Tealium: Another startup that provides a CDP to help businesses manage and leverage their customer data. The company offers a suite of tools and services, including data collection, management, and activation, to help businesses succeed and improve customer engagement.
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Lytics: A CDP startup that provides a comprehensive solution for customer data management and activation. The platform collects, unifies, and manages customer data from various sources and provides businesses with tools to activate this data for personalization, marketing automation, and growth.
Growth Trend 3: Personalization
Why personalization is so important
Personalization is becoming increasingly important in driving business growth because customers today expect tailored experiences that are relevant to their interests and preferences. Personalization allows businesses to create more meaningful and relevant interactions with their customers, which can result in increased engagement, customer loyalty, and lifetime value. The technique is on the rise, and more and more startups are using data and technology for these purposes.
Examples of Products Based on Personalization
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Stitch Fix: Stitch Fix is a personalized styling and clothing subscription service. By using data and algorithms to provide customers with personalized recommendations, Stitch Fix has been able to drive growth and establish a loyal customer base.
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Warby Parker: A prescription eyewear company that uses personalization to improve customer experience. Its customers can try on frames virtually, thus enabling the company to provide a more personalized and convenient shopping experience, which has empowered growth and made Warby Parker a leader in the eyewear industry.
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Personal Capital: Personal Capital is a fintech startup that provides personalized financial advice and management. By using data and algorithms to provide tailored advice and recommendations, Personal Capital has been able to drive growth and establish itself as a leading provider of financial services.
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Glossier: Glossier is a beauty and skincare company that uses personalization to grow its business. Thanks to personalized product recommendations and experiences for customers, Glossier has established a strong brand identity and expanded its customer base.
AI in Personalization
One example is Netflix's use of machine learning to personalize its content recommendations.
Here's how it works:
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Netflix collects data on its subscribers, including their viewing history, ratings, and preferences.
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The company's AI system uses this data to create a personalized experience for every subscriber by recommending content that it believes they will enjoy based on their individual preferences.
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The AI system continuously adjusts its recommendations based on the success of previous recommendations, learning from each interaction to improve future ones.
This personalized approach to content recommendations has been a key factor in Netflix's growth, helping it retain subscribers and attract new ones. By providing a personalized experience, Netflix has been able to differentiate itself from its competitors and create a loyal customer base.
Conclusion
To wrap it up, AI, CDPs, and personalization are becoming more and more popular as growth trends in the business world. AI makes it easier for companies to make smart, data-based decisions that lead to growth and efficiency. CDPs give businesses a complete picture of their customer data and allow them to personalize their interactions, leading to increased customer engagement and loyalty. And when it comes to growth, personalization is key. By giving customers what they want, companies can build stronger relationships and ultimately drive long-term growth.
By jumping on these growth trends, businesses can stay ahead of the curve and succeed in today's fast-paced and ever-changing business world. These trends are here to stay, and businesses that invest in AI, CDPs, and personalization will be able to take advantage of future opportunities and challenges to achieve lasting success.