> Growth hacking (to me anyway) is a subset of marketing activities too.
I've always thought that it was the other way around, i.e. marketing is one of the things you can do in growth hacking, but not everything. To me growth hacking means doing/focusing on things that help grow the business, and marketing is just one of the things you can do. Other things that you can do to help growth include actually improving the product and reduce friction, which are not marketing. Maybe I've misunderstood the term "growth hacking" then.
The act of improving your product is not marketing, but deciding to improve it and what to improve is marketing. The same applies to reducing friction.
I've always thought that it was the other way around, i.e. marketing is one of the things you can do in growth hacking, but not everything. To me growth hacking means doing/focusing on things that help grow the business, and marketing is just one of the things you can do. Other things that you can do to help growth include actually improving the product and reduce friction, which are not marketing. Maybe I've misunderstood the term "growth hacking" then.