The Hack - Growth Hacking with Easter Eggs

AARRR stage - Activation

Growth Problem - How to Surprise Your Users

Haxplanation:

Mystery. No, not the Austin Powers kind. We all know there's only one International Man of Mystery and he don't come cheap. Maybe when you hit that $1 billion IPO… But then you'll be too busy partying to do any growth hacking. Perhaps, even partying with Mr Powers himself. Groovy…

Anyway, let's get back to the topic at hand.

Mystery. The kind that makes you sit up and pay attention. The kind that leaves easter eggs in our apps. What? No, not the the chocolate variety you gorge yourself on over Easter break.

You knew that apps have hidden features, didn't you? That kind of easter egg.

Perhaps, this is a hangover that grey-haired developers have nursed all the way from the days of Atari's Adventure or the younger nerd generation have carried into their programming jobs from holding too many Halo all-nighters . Its a well-known fact that many startups have added hidden features into their products.

Why are easter eggs a good growth hack? Because they are unexpected. They rattle our social media-numbed brain-cages, and our brains like a good shake once in a while . So, why not surprise and delight your users into activating their subscription? It just takes a bit of imagination.

Just Hack It:

1. Ready, set… Now unleash the full power of your creativity.
2. Straight after, tell your developer to implement your genius idea
3. Word of warning: it's probably not safe to let your dev unleash HIS imagination as you may end up with some Star Wars or Dungeons and Dragons-related *surprise*. Sorry, devs…
4. Don't believe us? Type "use the force luke" into YouTube's search bar
5. For inspiration, check out these entertaining startup easter eggs (fortunately, they're not all Star Wars-related):
   1. YouTube's Snake game - press left and up keys on your keyboard when a video is playing
   2. Wistia's Dancing Employees - when on their 'About Us' page type 'dance' on your keyboard
   3. Google's Barrel Roll - type in 'do a barrell roll' into the search field
   4. Firefox's 'About' Feature - type in "about:robots" into the search bar
   5. Snapchat's Secret Filters - just read this Buzzfeed guide
6. Now that your creative juices are flowing think of how you can send your users on an easter egg hunt. They'll love you for it!

Source or Inspiration:

https://blog.captainup.com/engaging-website-design-5-unpredictability/

http://andrewchen.co/easter-egg-marketing-how-snapchat-apple-and-google-hook-you/