Last Updated on May 22, 2021 by Guest
Regardless of how innovative your product is, you can’t expect to make sales unless it reaches your customers. We learned it the hard way!
The fact that users need to be aware of any upcoming product or service in the market plays a crucial role in lifting your startup from the ground.
Of course, you can’t expect overnight success. Nonetheless, the good news is, you can turn out just fine by implementing a few techniques to gain traction.
It All Starts With The Product, Though
No matter what you’re trying to sell, as long as it meets the expectations of your customers, there are brighter prospects on the horizon. To put this into perspective, consider this example- Tesla does not use expensive advertising campaigns to attract new customers. Instead, it relies on word-of-mouth marketing.
As long as your product is appealing to the customers, it can practically sell itself. Of course, there are other elements at play too—for instance, the packaging and customer service. But these elements are only effective as long as your product is awesomely appealing to the customers.
Create A Brand Around Your Business
As soon as you think of branding, what comes to your mind? Is it the logo or the color scheme? Is it your business location or the building? Or is it the website and content on it? To your surprise, these are only the elements that your customer can relate to your brand. In actuality, branding is more about the experience you offer to your customers.
For ease of understanding, consider Uber’s business model. A passenger needs a cab or a taxi. They log in to their handheld device and select their destination. Within minutes a car arrives to pick them up from their location. It’s that easy and convenient. And as a result, every passenger that uses Uber becomes an ambassador for it. This is how you create a brand around your business. Think of ways that you can make your customers realize how good your business could be for them.
Hire Influential Ambassadors
You will need to define and achieve one goal in particular – influencing your target audience. In today’s tech-driven society, online influencers can help you accomplish the same.
It is indeed one of the most effective strategies that have helped many startups propel their growth. Consider the example of “Yelp”. From being a Bay Area startup to being a global juggernaut, the brand actively involved a core group of influential reviewers and bloggers. Not just that, it also gave them a first-hand chance to RSVP exclusive events. Thus, creating an active and engaging community of brand ambassadors spreading the word about the website.
Take Up Things That Don’t Scale
It could be possible that you don’t see the growth in your sales as you expect. And this is when you should think of readjusting your strategy. Instead of waiting for your product to take off on its own, you might need to push it a little.
Whether you use cold emailing or reach out to influencers, onboarding users early on could be a great way to get your startup off the ground. There are plenty of ways to do it. For example, you can “release” a press report about a new product line. Or you can also go for a dedicated column in a popular business magazine. You can also leap forth riding the podcasts and personal interviews bandwagon. The idea is to let your audience familiarize themselves with your startup’s “behind the scenes” activities.
Leverage Your Connections
During your initial kick-off, your best bet is the people around you. In other words, before you try to reach out to the customers you don’t know, try to make your friends and relatives your customers.
Connecting with new people and leveraging these connections is one of the quickest ways to bootstrap your business. Don’t believe us? Consider the early days of Facebook. During their early days, the founders invited their friends to try their product. Gradually they started sending out emails to others. And eventually built their empire around their connections and further. You can try the same with your startup too. And believe us, this is one of the easiest ways to gain traction in the market for your startup.
Seek Promising Partnerships
There are endless examples of startups that gained initial traction by teaming up with other brands. The idea is pretty simple – it gets your brand before an audience that already trusts your partner. Thus, backed by their reputation, you can quickly expect to make sales.
There are primarily two ways to partner up – integrate or syndicate your products. The former can be assumed as bundling, while the latter is more like co-creating a product. Think of the automobile industry. Renault and Nissan have been syndicate partners. One supplies the architecture, infrastructure, and technology, and the other builds the product.
Keep Track Of Your Performance
As the market experts suggest, a directionless marketing strategy is like driving around in circles. Without knowing where your marketing strategies are headed, you cannot expect to scale them or gain more traction.
Throughout the initial setup phase of your startup, and even during the growth phase, the most important thing to keep in mind is the performance. You need to keep track of how your marketing efforts are performing in the real world. Precisely, it should help you optimize your marketing plans for optimum results.
Summing It Up
Overnight success is a myth. It requires a lot of planning and hard work, besides committed perseverance, to achieve dreams. Without realizing what you’re trying to sell in the market and effectively educating your target users about your products, there’s probably no way to gain traction for your startup. However, it also does not mean that you only have to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into marketing your product. With a clear-headed approach and some basic understanding of the market, you can quickly achieve what you wish for.
On this note, it can be aptly said that all startups are the same when it comes to their initial days – they all are trying to grab a piece of the market share. And eventually, they all turn out to be just fine. The only thing that differentiates successful businesses from the failed ones is their ability to change and adapt.