Get expert advice on every topic you need as a small business owner, from the ideation stage to your eventual exit. Our articles, quick tips, infographics and how-to guides can offer entrepreneurs the most up-to-date information they need to flourish.
October 7, 2014 | 8-minute read (1535 words)
This guest post by John Petersen, originally appeared on Firehawk Creative.
I often tell people before we begin working with them that we do the easy part. Sure, writing code and building a functioning app is a skill that most people don't possess, but it's what comes after development that almost everyone underestimates. The ability to attract your core group of power users is going to define your early success. Most startups fail miserably with this. Here are the 3 best techniques I've ever used to attract early adopters.
What it is:
The first thing you need to do is figure out who your core user is going to be and how to market to them. Often times, entrepreneurs think that they can just put their app out there and their users will magically find it. This isn't fairy tale land. You have to do everything in your power to convince users that you have the solution they are looking for.
If you are going after enterprise clients, you need to create a list of your 100 "best buyers" and a plan to bring them on board. This plan must include a lot more than just a cold email. If you are a consumer play, then you need to figure out what group of people will most benefit from your solution (i.e. hipsters, moms, car owners). Then get real specific about your earliest adopters. Perhaps it's hipster moms from Brooklyn who own a car. Once you have your best buyers, you go all in to bring them on board and make sure they have an amazing experience.
The Best Buyer Strategy was introduced to me by the late Chet Holmes who used it to double sales at his division of Berkshire Hathaway three years in a row. Here's what this looked like when we implemented the Best Buyer strategy for the inaugural NY Tech Day.
How we implemented it:
When we decided to do the event, we were selling an idea. People had no reason to believe us, we had no credibility, and when we started, we didn't even have a date or a venue. But we decided early on that in order to pull off a massive "science fair" for startups, we first needed to sign up our best buyers.
We called our best buyers "Featured Startups" (they really liked the idea of being "featured"). We created a list of the 50 most popular startups that we'd love to have at the event. We figured if we could get 5 Featured Startups for our inaugural event, we'd be in good shape. The first two startups on board were GetGlue and Lot18. We were thrilled. We included them in all of our marketing as Featured Startups and they loved it. So did we. By the time we were done, we had 12 Featured Startups including Tumblr, Buddy Media, AppNexus, Twilio, Boxee and Meetup. Our inaugural event pulled in 200 total startups and 4,000 registered attendees. Great success.
Moving the Free Line
Once you've identified your earliest adopters, you have to figure out how to bring them on board. There are two techniques that have been particularly helpful for me in this department. The first is called "Moving the Free Line" and was coined by Eben Pagan. Moving the Free Line is at the heart of the freemium model and is critical for gaining initial traction.
What it is:
You start by drawing a straight line on a piece of paper. This is your customer timeline that you break up into steps to move this person from a prospect to a paying customer. If you're saying that you don't have a freemium model or that you just ask directly for the sale, you're either a.) doing it wrong or b.) don't know that you are already doing some of this.
How we implemented it:
Here's what one scenario of this looks like at Firehawk Creative. At each step along the way we are improving the relationship. Steps 1-4 are all "free" (I say "free" in quotes because some of it does cost us time which certainly is not free, but that is all part of our process. We will meet with anyone to see if we are good fit. Give, give give, give, get, give.)
There are obviously many variations on this process for us, but this is how we Move the Free Line from someone who may potentially be a prospect into a paying client. We are constantly moving the prospect closer to the deal and adding value every step of the way. We are very selective about the clients we work with, so we can afford to "invest" in our prospects. If you're trying to attract massive users, you can still successfully use the Free Line technique, you just need to understand customers' long-term value and how much you can invest in them.
Stacking the Cool
This is probably my favorite technique for attracting early adopters created by the Internet marketing genius that is Frank Kern, and yes, it really is just what you are thinking. In Frank's (incredibly extreme) example, he is selling a Honda Civic. He launches a buy now campaign that says if you buy a Civic today, we will throw in a Lamborghini. And then a boat. And so on and so on. So that by the time you get back to the idea of purchasing a Civic, it is a no brainer because you are going to get the Lambo and a boat and a plane.
What it is:
I know you're thinking that this is crazy and could never work in the real world and you're right that giving away a Lambo with the purchase of a Civic is crazy. But here's how we made this work at DigitalOcean and then with Tech Day.
How we implemented it:
DigitalOcean is a cloud hosting provider. When I was doing Biz Dev with them, we had to figure out how to attract our core user base. We had one feature that we knew every developer would love -- a beautiful control panel to make it incredibly easy to interact with your server. On top of that, we let customers deploy a new server in 55 seconds (a minimum of 2x to 3x faster than the closest competitor). On top of that, we offered customers a cheaper option than any major competitor. And then on top of that, DigitalOcean started adding SSD drives standard as part of their hosting plans. If you're a developer, you know that the cool has been sufficiently stacked.
We wanted to double the size of our Tech Day event this year, versus the first year. Ambitious, but we knew we could do it if we sufficiently stacked the cool. So, from a startup's perspective, we told them we were bringing in thousands and thousands of people for the event. Add in an exclusive press and investor hour. And we know that hiring is tough, so we're bringing in developers and students from all over the country looking for jobs. Oh yeah, and we're throwing an exhibitor pre-party so you can meet all the other startups. Oh, and one last thing, it's only a few hundred bucks as opposed to similar events that charge thousands. Boom. Done. 200 startups in the first year. Over 400 for Year 2.
Don't make the fundament mistake of thinking that your product is so amazing that it will instantly go viral and everyone will share it with their friends and suddenly you'll have a million users. That just doesn't happen on Day 1. You have to work for every early user that you can get. There are plenty of other techniques you can use to get that initial traction you need, but these three are my favorite and have worked with incredible success for me in the past.
P.S. I have no formal sales or marketing background whatsoever but have learned all this stuff along the way. I realized how important these skills are to success and have been studying the game ever since.
John Petersen is CEO of Firehawk Creative. Prior to leading Firehawk, John founded NY Tech Day and the NYC Dev Shop. There he helped build over 20 startups and remains a mentor and advisor to many.
Tell us your advice on getting traction in the comments
section below or contact Early Growth Financial Services for financial support.
Liked this post? Subscribe to our newsletter to get our posts on startups sent directly to your inbox.
Related Posts:
Accounting
Finance
Learn how we can put more time back in your day.
