Where do you find customers/users?
Finding customers/users is hard!!!
So...I'm creating a free resource website that lists all the places where you can find customers. It will include places where you engage for free (like here at IH!) and also paid channels like social media ads, newsletter/podcast sponsorships, billboards etc etc.
It will be a long project and I need all the help I can get.
In short, where do you find your customers? A big 👏 if you could share in the comments below or using the Share button on the 🖥.
Offline and online? If so:
Love the suggestions! Thanks so much 👏
Rich This is a great concept but has some issues that I can help you with. Companies really don't define the ideal client profile that well if at all. This will make your site/project too general. Also the amount of clients needed are entirely different. I may only need 10 while a subscription project needs many. Also the movement of finding more 20's based on 80% of revenue generated by 20% of clients is something I focus on. hit me up! I can help.
Thanks Wally for the feedback and I agree with the comment about it being hard for the site not to become too general to be of use.
it's look like easy but it's not!!!!!!
I had the same noise in my head and day by day i learn something new, includ here.
It is hard! With all this valuable feedback, I'll be refining the idea and hope to get closer to being super useful as a resource.
Rich, The project sounds amazing and can see the value. Here is a roadblock or a snag that I can help you solve because it is the core of my business. Many companies do not take the time to create an ideal customer profile. Each business should be somewhat unique and thus have unique client base. My clients are completely different then yours and they will be in different places. So the site will be too general to really generate revenue or at least maximize the revenue. Also the amount of clients or leads needed may be different depending on the product or service. Finding 25 ideals on Facebook is different then trying to build a subscription platform. Another service that I can help you with is a product I have called "Finding 20s" Based on 80% or your revenue coming from 20% of your clients this strategy allows you to find more of the 20% while still serving and generating revenues from the 80% without using resources such as time. Hit me up to discuss this!
I am not sure if that is the best approach to find customers @richp_. It really depends on what your product is and who will be using it. For example, if you are building software for even organizers your customers live in completely different communities than if you created a CRM for enterprise companies.
Finding users indeed is hard, but it gets even harder if you don't fully understand your users, where they hang out, how they describe the problem you're solving, and where to get a hold of them. You then promote your work by adding value to those communities/channels.
That could be a good suggestion to help structure the site.
I don't want to hear "Facebook." I want to see steps to finding FB groups. I don't want to hear "Reddit," I want to see examples of what worked with the picky crowd there. Quora, etc, etc.
A good point - I've been trying to find the best way to structure the website as I could have made it quite high-level so it showed online ads > social media ads and then explained that general category.
I took it one step deeper by wanting to have online ads > social media ads > Facebook/Twitter/Reddit etc and others like offline ads > outdoor advertising > companies that sell outdoor advertising.
The part I'm trying to work out is keeping it easy to find whilst showing both paid strategies (ads) and organic/free strategies (joining communities, being helpful, answering Quora questions). To make it harder, I think most IH'ers would go to somewhere like IH or Quora with 90% of the intent to be helpful and 10% to find customers so I don't want to put across the intent of seeing each place as a sales opportunity...
Yeah, most sites prefer the free-flow option (blogs, forums) and few want to structure content. Tags could help a bit.
I'll go with tags if the resource is industry-specific. I've been listing some trade show directories that show all industries but any resources for, say designers (like https://wherethewildcustomersare.com/resource/swiss-miss-blog/ ), will get tags.
You need a mailing list! haha
I want to look a bit more, but once I close the tab, I'm going to forget about it :)
Good advice! It's very early stage but I'll spend the 30 minutes to add a mailing list subscription.
I've been thinking about it more based on feedback and I'm thinking of shifting the focus more towards the idea angle (with a single category for the specific websites, channels). That way, someone might be interested in trade shows and would see the ideas of sponsoring the show, speaking at the show, having a booth at the show, doing outreach to booth owners etc. Most IH'ers have the research skills to take the ideas and do the Google/customer research to start their experiments. Thoughts?
Sounds good, but a little vague. It's quite an undertaking, but I think it's worth doing it (not sure about path to monetization, but I never really am haha).
Seems like a good idea to brainstorm the various categories, try breaking them down, and then make sure everything you want on the site fits the model.
If you want some feedback or want to bounce ideas around, feel free to send me an e-mail - happy to help if I can :)
Thanks so much Andrew, you've been a great help already!
I hope that's what @richp_ has in mind
Listing suggestions for places people could start their search for customers depending on the category what they're building fits into.
Would likely be a lot of work to categorise everything (maybe doing it as a wiki would make most sense) but I think it would be extremely helpful for many
Thanks so much Ben! I join an elite bunch of makers who kinda suck at sales/marketing/outreach and want to offer their services/products in the most natural, non-spammy way possible.
The idea for this project was to spark the imagination for people who are looking to experiment with different channels. I've heard of advisers getting 90% of their new clients from a channel that's costing them $200 per year or consultants using job boards to subtly reach out to people needing help. I hope it helps others find potential new channels to hang their shingle 😄
The problem with this approach is usually founders don’t have time or resources to try ALL the channels and they would prefer to start from those that bring them customers with highest probability . So they need to choose from m at channels the best ones and the question is how.
Good point! The seed for the idea came from the book Traction where Gabriel talks about the bullseye method of finding channels to get traction - see diagram. I was hoping to take it one step further so you could think..."hmmm I wonder what options I have for paid acquisition..." and you'll find some options where you could do cheap experiments that might not have immediately sprung to mind i.e. Quora instead of Facebook, Dense Discovery instead of Twitter Ads etc
Google and YouTube search. In other words, I produce content.
Great strategy! I'll be including those 👏