Or — “How to Get Real Traffic and Real Customers in Just 1 Hour a Day!”
Wow, it’s been a while!
I know, I know!
In fact, it’s been months since the last installation of The Epic Guide.
All I can say is that I certainly hope that you’re all happy with yourselves.
It’s because of all of you super fans of The Epic Guide that I’ve had to basically go into hiding all summer long to focus on writing this damned book — while still running and growing Tamboo on top of it.
In the process of being around-the-clock heads down, I’ve grown out a mean Thor-inspired hair style and aesthetic (not to mention a growing case of agoraphobia) that I think would make even Howard Hughes himself envious and proud.
One thing of note that was actually pretty super fun is that I had a chat with the super awesome Courtland Allen on the kick-ass IndieHackers podcast. If you’re not familiar with Indie Hackers or Courtland Allen, you need to check them both out (and follow them!).
But enough about me!
Let’s have some more “fun” and pick up where we left off in Part 4 of The Epic Guide. (If this is your first foray with The Epic Guide, you may want to start with Part 1 and work your way back here — after all, it’s an ongoing epic…)
Stop pretending that whatever you’re doing is somehow going to “make you money”.
If you haven’t been making mini "fuck you money" off of your MVP yet, it might be time to step back and think about what it is that you have been doing. Because one thing’s for certain — if you keep doing whatever it is you are doing — you’re just going to get more of the same “results”.
Let me see if I can guess what’s been going on here.
You’re probably in one of two camps at this point:
- You’ve done absolutely nothing of any real or substantial value when it comes to marketing or selling your startup. Maybe you tried “marketing” your startup on Reddit once or twice, sure. But since then? Not so much. And cold emails? Maybe you thought of sending that one that one time, but you kinda just never hit send and fucked around reading up on blockchain and cryptocurrencies instead (which gave you this great idea for a brand new startup, by the way!)
- You’ve been going “transparent” with your startup and writing blog posts about all of the geeky things you’ve been wasting your time on.People seem to love your posts about how you’re still at $0 MRR and how “hard it is” to actually build a startup. You’ve been getting some pretty good “traction” on Twitter and Hacker Noon with your content, but you’re not really reaching anyone in your target market (or on the off chance that you are, they’re not forking over their credit card, so it’s more or less the same). But hey! You’re “building an audience”, right?!
What’s downright dangerous about finding yourself bunked up in either of these two camps is that — even though it feels like you’re doing something — you’re just busying yourself with bullshit.
If there’s one thing you take away from this, make sure it’s this:
If you aren’t reaching and resonating with actual people in your actual target market, you’re just “playing startup”.
To a place where the beer flows like wine.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret here.
You want to know the real reason you’re not getting anywhere?
It’s because your goals are all wrong.
No, that John Denver was not full of shit. You’ve just been looking in the wrong places.
You see, if you’re like most first-time founders, you’ve probably set some (“reasonably” sounding) goals for yourself like this:
- Get 100 visitors a day to my website.
- Add 10 new people to my newsletter weekly.
- Get 1 new trial signup a day.
(and so on)
The problem with these “goals” — and the reason that you’re getting your ass kicked — is that they are not, in fact, goals.
You cannot get 100 visitors a day to your website.
You cannot get 10 new people to sign up to your newsletter a day.
You cannot get 1 new trial signup a day.
Because those are not goals.
Those are events that are based on what other people choose to do.
And you have zero control over them.
So for you “set a goal” of getting 100 visitors a day — you might as well “set a goal” of winning the lottery (or finding a briefcase full of money).
The first step on your way out of this is to realize that you can only set goals for things you have direct control over.
So let’s fix this up a bit. Let’s say that we have goals like the following:
- Find 10 potential customers a day and send cold emails to each of them.
- Write at least 1 piece of content a day and promote it in at least 3 places.
- Promote my startup in at least 5 different places a day.
- Create and run a new ad for 1 week every week.
- Find at least 4 people talking about or asking questions about topics related to my startup a day and write them a detailed, personal answer.
Well, now.
These we can control, can’t we?
You can control whether or not you choose to screw around watching the price of Ethereum bounce around or instead find yourself 10 people who might be interested in your product that you could then send 10 emails to.
You can control whether or not you decide to slack off on Slack all day or instead find yourself 4 people asking questions about something related to your startup and write them some useful and helpful responses.
Now sure, you still have no control over the outcomes of those activities. Just because you send 10 cold emails does not mean you’ll get 10 happy customers — or even a single response. Just because you wrote an article does not mean you’ll get 100 visitors — or even one.
But that’s not the point.
The point is that rather than get hung up on things you have no control over and to expect any kind of “goals” you’ve set around such things to “magically happen” — that you’re instead focusing your energy and your efforts on things you can shape and influence — and you’re holding yourself accountable for doing actual, real work.
It’s time to do work, son.
Okay, so let’s say you’re bought into this whole “measure activities instead of goals” business.
How exactly do we make money with that approach?
First thing’s first, you’re going to have to do some work (I hear you Millennials hate that word, so sorry if I just shocked some of you off of your parents’ couch while you were reading this).
When you start out doing this, it’s going to take some time to get the hang and feel of it all. Expect to put in some hours until things start to “click”.
But once they click?
You could probably do most of this in an hour or less a day.
For reals.
Okay, so let’s get to it.
For this to work for you, you have to know what you want to get out of it.
You have to know if you want to build traffic to your website to drive trials or opt-ins or if you want to close some cash-in-hand sales.
These things are your expected outcomes.
You expect that if you do these activities right, that you will have (at least some of) these outcomes as a result.
Now, you don’t set goals on your outcomes at this stage (that comes later).
At this stage, you just need to identify the thing you want at the end of the day.
From there, you work your way backwards to determine what kind of activities you should be doing to realize those outcomes.
If you want to close some sales, you’re going to be focused on hand-to-hand sales combat activities, typically starting from scratch in the “lead generation” and “prospecting” stages, doing things such as:
- Using search engines and social networks to find businesses — and the individuals in them — who seem to be “a good fit” for what you offer and adding them to your CRM
- Building opt-in offers and lead magnets to capture leads
- Doing cold outreach (aka cold emailing or cold calling)
- Performing educational outreach (webinars, etc.)
- Generating referrals through partnerships and networking
Your expected outcomes at this stage with these activities would be:
- Get responses from people you’ve contacted
- Set appointments/meetings to talk with the people who responded
If you want to build traffic traffic or get trial signups, you’re going to be focused on marketing activities, such as:
- Using search engines and social networks to find websites, forums, Slack groups, and even other social networks where people who would use your product go for information or entertainment
- Promoting your startup on relevant websites your target market visits through educational (and entertaining!) content marketing, guest posts, recommendations, participating in forums, and even taking out ads
- Finding “related” products or services that your target market uses that you can “tie in” your offering to through techniques such as integration marketing
- Getting your product listed on relevant “lists” — such as “The top 10 best tools for X” as well as on relevant directories — such as Capterra and Product Hunt.
- Creating (and promoting!) relevant content that you can use to get backlinks and list for specific keywords to improve your site’s SEO for those keywords
- Taking out relevant ads on Google or anywhere else your target market is likely to search for what you have to offer
- Taking out relevant ads on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else your target market is likely to be and be interested in what you have to offer
- Answering questions on Q&A sites such as Quora, Product Hunt Ask, and (especially!) on “niche” forums specific to your target market.
- Finding relevant publications (old-school industry-specific ones or even just simply Medium ones) and submitting relevant content to them that educates and informs their readers about a topic they give a shit about (and which you’re perfectly situated to help them with!)
- Sponsoring relevant newsletters that your target market subscribes to
- Doing interviews on relevant podcasts that your target market listens to about topics that your target market would find useful, interesting, and helpful
- Engaging in relevant social media channels where your target market participates and consumes information and where you can naturallypromote your articles, content, interviews, posts, answers, etc. to an audience that would actually want to see and read those things
Your expected outcome at this stage of the game with these activities would simply be traffic — but not just any traffic as you’ll soon see. (You can worry about optimizing for conversions after you actually have traffic you can optimize.)
And these are just ideas to get you started.
There is so much more that you can do.
But start somewhere you must!
So now you need to pick 2–3 things that you will do daily for a month (to start; once you get better at this, add more to your plate as you wish 😜).
[Ideally you’ll want to pick activities that you think (read: wild ass guess) will have the biggest potential payoff. It shouldn’t be completely random.]
Let’s say that your list looks like this:
- Find 5 businesses a day that are a fit for my offering and send each of them an email to qualify their interest in getting/solving (this specific benefit/pain point).
- Find 3 people asking questions on a forum or Q&A site specifically related to my product offering and give them the best answer they have ever seen to their question.
- Write 1 piece of “quick” content that talks about one very specific topic my target market is interested in in under 30 minutes and promote it in at least 3 different places (relevant Facebook Groups, Reddit, Medium, “link” sites, forums, Slack groups, Twitter, etc.)
Do you think you could find the time to do that in 1 to 2 hours a day, every day?
No?
Well, if you never try, then you’re right — you’ll never do it.
Up and to the right (very slowly)
With everything you do — ask yourself — “How many outcomes can I reasonably expect this to get me?”
(A little secret? No one knows.)
So you just guess.
And you write it down.
For example, if you write a piece of content, you might think you can get 10–50 people to read it if you post it to a specific link sharing site your target market frequents.
Great. Let’s write that down and build a spreadsheet (we’re all nerds here, right?).
On the far left, you write down the “category” of the activity — such as “Content Marketing”.
Then, a cell over, you write down the specific activity you’re planning on doing — “Write a blog post about how to simply purchase ordering (plugging Startup Awesome).”
Then, a cell over from that, write down the specific place you’re going to promote that thing (if applicable). (When dealing with promoting the same piece of content in different places, create rows for each place and separate estimates for each place.)
One more cell over, write down what type of outcome you’re expecting — in this case “Traffic”.
Then, one cell from that, write down how many expected outcomes you might get (your wild ass guess).
Use one “sheet” per month and record your daily activities for each month religiously.
Then, as you actually execute on those activities (aka, that nasty word you hate — “work”), write down how many outcomes you actually got in a cell at the end of each row.
So something like this:
Category | Activity | Place Promoted | Type of Outcome | Expected Result | Actual Result
Using something like Google Sheets (free!), it’s pretty simple to get sums and totals from this information based on “Category”, “Place Promoted”, or “Type of Outcome” so you can see what’s working (and what’s not).
[Pro tip: Look for patterns.]
You’ll start to “get a feel” for how much you should actually expect from different kinds of activities and promotional placements. This is critical, as it helps you to dial in your (sometimes ridiculous) expectations. Once you’re better “calibrated”, you’ll be able to make better judgment calls about where you should put your efforts and how much you should expect from them.
Do this for a month.
Don’t expect everything you do to work well — or even work at all.
But keep at it.
And at the end of the month, pick the winners.
If you have certain Categories that are really paying off, double down on them.
If you have certain Categories that aren’t moving the needle, dump them and replace them with something else.
The same thing with Placements — use what works and ditch the rest.
The next month, carry forward the winners and mix in the replacements.
Lather, rinse, and repeat until finished.
It’s slog, but the little numbers add up (especially when you start “dialing in” your “what works compass”).
To get the sales and the marketing impressions you need to build your startup, you need to either knock it out of the park in one fell swoop (you probably have a better chance of being struck by lightning) or gradually building up hundreds and thousands of cold outreaches and marketing impressions over time.
In our example above, if you did that exact routine every day, after just one month, you will have sent 150 cold emails, have written 90 targeted answers (and plugs for your startup!), and have written 30 content pieces that you promoted in 90 different places.
And that’s just in one month.
Imagine if you do this every month.
It’s cause and effect.
If you don’t do, you don’t get.
But what if I don’t know how to sell good or market good (or do other stuff good too)?!
Ahhh!
So here we are.
You don’t know how to sell or market good?
Guess what?
I don’t want to hear your excuses! Your sales and marketing must be at least… three times bigger than this!
(Okay, okay, I’ll back up.)
Here’s the thing that I’ll tell you that the startup gurus won’t: There is no “right” or “wrong” answer when it comes to sales and marketing — the only thing that matters is what works.
And one more thing I’ll admit that they won’t: I can’t help you sell or market to your customer base — because I don’t know who they are.
There is no “standard” way to do this (even if there are “well understood” patterns and practices).
Because the truth is that all the “templates” and “case studies” in the world aren’t going to help you if you don’t understand your customer.
That’s because everything you do — in sales or in marketing — must be based on, about, and specifically tailored for your buyer.
It’s about them — not about you, stupid.
In order to craft truly effective sales or marketing strategies or tactics, you must first know your buyer.
You must know where they “congregate”.
You must know how they talk.
You must know what they’re interested in.
You must know what they give a shit about.
You must know what kind of content they like to consume — and share with their peers.
You must know who they look up to, respect, and trust.
You must know how they like to be “engaged”.
You must know what they’re trying to accomplish.
And you must know how they like to buy.
Then — and only then — can you hope to be able to “craft a message” that resonates with them.
Your goal — in any copy that you use — must be to establish rapport and to (subliminally) communicate with them that “I get you and I get what you’re trying to do and all the shit that you’ve been going through trying to get that done.”
You do that by talking like they talk.
You do that by referencing things that only an “insider” would “get”.
You do that by reaching them where they’re open to suggestion and influence— the places where they’re asking questions or trying to learn.
Then — and only then — can you offer a suggestion that they will register and consider.
How do you “learn” how to do this effectively?
You practice empathy.
You practice “putting yourself in their shoes.”
You practice “feeling” how they feel about what they’re trying to accomplish.
You practice “feeling” how they “feel” when they see and read your cold email/content marketing/social media posts, etc.
Basically, you project your mind into theirs until you “get them”.
You do this by immersing yourself in their world until you “get a feel” for “how they think” by reading their comments, posts, frustrations, and insights.
Until you somehow vicariously “become one of them”.
And then you just give them what they want.
Be an idiot (when it’s smart to be one)
Chances are, if you’re like most developers, you’re going to get bored with this.
After all, it’s basically saying the same thing over and over again.
In a hundred different places.
But that’s what you have to do.
I do it, and so should you.
Never assume people “get” or “understand” what you can do for them.
Spell it the fuck out.
And yes. You’re going to be repeating yourself. A lot.
Get used to it.
Every article, every post, every answer — they’re all meant to reach new people who never heard of you before.
So you have to tell them who you are and what you do.
Every time.
Here’s an example of an answer I posted on Quora for a question that I felt Tamboo would be able to help with:
Now, there’s a few things going on here that I think I should point out, as I think they’ll help you “grok” how to sell and market “better”:
- Use some form or varient of an AIDA construct with whatever you write.
- Use visuals where you can and where it makes sense. Humans are inherently visual and their attention will go where they pretty pictures are. Make sure you have pretty pictures to show.
- Show proof. Don’t just tell — show.
- Use a conversational tone as if you were talking to a friend — don’t be overly “professional”. Professionalism is for amateurs.
- Be yourself, but be unique — don’t “blend in”. You must have a different “voice” than everyone else. You must “stand out” in some way. Don’t be a robot.
- Be clear about what you’re saying — explain it like they’re 5 (without being patronizing). Don’t assume they know as much as you do, and don’t make it intimidating to follow along. Also, don’t assume they’re total morons at the same time.
- Don’t be pushy — just be suggestive. Craft your CTAs using “recommendations” and “suggestions”. Don’t tell them what to do — simply suggest how they can take what you’ve said to the next logical step.
- Don’t be skimpy —whatever you say must be something they care about and must be better than everything else they’ve been reading. You must one-up everyone else in some way — always.
- Don’t ever forget — IT’S ABOUT THEM. Answer their question. Give them the information they came for. And only after you’ve done that, go in for the soft “ask”.
One more secret: You don’t want “traffic”.
Are you crazy?!
Don’t get me wrong — traffic is important.
Without it, you’re not going to go very far.
But you can have a lot of bad traffic and it’s not going to get you anywhere.
Pop quiz: Would you rather have 1,000 visitors at a 1% conversion rate or 100 visitors at a 10% conversion rate?
On the surface, they’re same thing: You get 10 conversions at the end of both.
But the second one (100 visitors at 10%) is easier to grow.
To get to 20 customers, it’s the difference between having to get 2,000 visitors as opposed to just 200.
Ahhh!
And that’s the dirty little secret — you need targeted traffic.
You don’t want just any traffic —after all, visitors != conversions.
You want traffic from people who give a shit about what you’re offering.
Not people who are just “curious” because they saw your latest startup blog post.
You want people who you resonated with — who think “you get me!” and are genuinely interested in your offering.
So how do you do that?
You find ways to send warm traffic to your homepage (or if you’re super slick, to a custom built landing page specific for the type of traffic you’re sending it).
Basically, you don’t try to sell on your marketing site. You try to close.
And you can only do that if you’ve already had a conversation with the people going there.
Whatever article, blog post, forum discussion, podcast interview, or Q&A answer you put out there needs to warm up your prospect for your offer.
You need to “hook them” with that “external” content — and then — and only then — do you encourage them to go to your marketing site to take the next logical step.
This is warm traffic.
They are primed. They are ready. Because you’ve done the work to get them to that state — and that’s why they’re more likely to take whatever action it is you want them to take.
A lot better than just “spraying and praying” with whatever traffic you can get your hands on, right?
And with that final thought for you to ponder on, I’m going bring this installment of The Epic Guide to a close.
In the next Part, we’re going to go in depth about why your website sucks and why it’s costing you customers (enjoy!).
I almost forgot!
If you love The Epic Guide and want even more down-and-dirty, no-frills, battle-tested startup warfare strategy and tactics, be sure to check out The Epic Guide: The Book!
Or, if you want to hear my voice inside of your head (I’m not judging!) in what could only be comporable to Samuel L. Jackson’s character in Pulp Fictionreading you startup bedtime stories, sign up for my upcoming podcast (aptly titled) SaaS In Gear!
And of course, if you’ve been working hard on building your startup or online business but need a little “help” to understand what your website visitors are really doing, don’t hesitate to give Tamboo a try on your website. You’ll get all the secret tools marketers like me use to increase conversions and create even more potent sales pages — including funnels, visitor recordings, and heatmaps.
And last but not least!
Be sure to follow me on Medium and on Twitter at @cliffordoravec and give me a shout out if you like what I’m doing here!
You are focusing a lot on what not to do. Can I buy just the second half of your book? ;) Just kidding.
Very informative article! Thanks for that.
Those days I'm looking for an idea to work on. Something that I have found out pretty quickly is that most good ideas are already "taken." The rational part of me is saying, that it doesn't matter - even though there are some similar products I still can do something a bit different and take a market share. On another hand, it's super disappointing to see some well-established players on the market, because it means that you are just starting something they have already been doing for a year or more.
Back to your post and your product. When I saw Tamboo, my first thought was "Yeah but there are CrazyEgg, Hotjar and bunch of others doing the same thing, and they are own this market for years (CrazyEgg for sure). But you still were able to capture a share of this market.
I have three questions.
Thanks!
Well, in order to understand what to do, you must first understand what not to do 😉
BTW, this is a fantastic question.
For the uninitiated, there's often this perception that you have to invent something or be first in order to have a chance of being successful.
I myself fell into this trap (more than once).
I'd get a great "idea", have a quick look on the Googles, and then be all "FML" because someone else had already beat me to it (again!).
So I'd ditch that idea and then go wrack my brains for the next month (or three) to try to come up with the next "game-changing" thing that would make me rich. (Because that's how it's done, right?)
Oh, what an idiot I was.
You want to know how I got past that mindset?
Foot cream.
Years ago, my hour long stop-and-go commute (not to mention my worn out dress shoe soles) left me with a nasty painful callus on the ball of my foot from riding the brake for hours day after day.
After limping around for a few weeks, I broke down and went to the store to look for something that might help soften up the skin and hopefully just make it go away.
It took me a while to find the "you have old people feet" aisle, but when I did, I saw that there were a number of different options at my disposal.
They had some weird looking insoles and bandages that I could try to use (meh) or they had some topical creams that I could apply.
I opted for the topical cream method and narrowed my search down to the options in that category. There were two similar looking products from the same company for two kinda-similar descriptions of what I was experiencing.
Trying to figure out the difference between the two, I looked at the drug facts and active ingredients in them.
And guess what?
THEY WERE THE SAME.
Not similar. The. Exact. Fucking. Same.
The only thing that was different between them was the packaging they were in and the messaging they used.
It's been a while, and I don't remember the specifics, but I think one was for "calluses" and the other was for "corns".
But aside from that messaging, everything else about them was the same.
I was like "Huh."
I looked around, and I saw that there were other products from this same company in kind of similar packaging, but targeting different things like "athlete's foot" and whatnot.
So I looked at what was in those products.
Literally - they were exactly the same things.
And then it dawned on me.
This company was selling the same chemical compound - essentially the same "product" - but was positioning it to appeal to different market segments.
After all, they could have just created an "All-In-One Foot Cream for Athlete's Foot, Calluses, and Corns!" and have called it a day.
But they didn't do that.
They created separate "products" in order to appeal specifically to people with specific problems.
It was at that point that my eyes were opened.
If I hadn't looked at the back of the package, and let's say that I had a callus and athlete's foot, I may very well have bought two of their products - one for each problem I had.
It was insidiously clever and showed me just how little I understood about branding and marketing. It changed the way I look at everything in the marketplace.
So to get back to your question.
Part of the answer is: You can have two products that are exactly the same and still differentiate them in a meaningful way just by way of your marketing and messaging.
Another part of the answer is by looking at what's not there: In the story above, I mentioned that I went to a store to get something for my foot and that I saw some products there that advertised that they could help me.
But what you don't see there are all of the other products on the market that could do the same thing but that that store didn't stock.
Just by going to that store, my options were limited to whatever products they carried. I couldn't even be aware of any other options - because they weren't there.
Tying this back to your question, if you can "own a channel" - much like this company owned this store's "foot cream" shelf space - you become "the obvious choice" - because there are no others.
So, a combination of differentiated messaging and channel domination are one way that you can have two identical products in a marketplace that can still "compete" with each other (even though it's less of a competition per se, and more of a "co-habitation").
Okay, so let's get to the meat of your question: How do you know whether or not you should give something a go if there appear to be existing competitors in a marketplace that have a head start on you?
The first thing you need to realize is that as a developer (I'm guessing) and as someone who's into startups (I'm also guessing), you are much more keenly aware and informed of "what's out there" than 90% of the general business population. (Not to mention better able and equipped to find that information.)
So yes, you are aware of CrazyEgg and Hotjar. Probably because you've run into the marketing they've created that is geared towards you being a "technical" person. To them, you are an influencer. So they're going to market to you to try to get you to "influence" people in your company to use their products. (Ooooohhhh, did I just pull back the curtain on the Wizard there? Sorry, but that's how it works.)
Now let's take Jane Smith who just recently started up a WordPress blog or a Shopify store to build her own business. Her background is not in tech. She doesn't know what Hacker News is or who Neil Patel is or any of that.
The game is on to get in front of her first when she comes to the realization that she might need some tools to help her understand what's going on with her website, which isn't getting as many sales from her traffic as she would otherwise expect.
Whoever can help her first stands a good chance of winning her business.
And so whenever you are considering entering a market with existing competition, you first must understand who has what mindshare.
You need to talk with people in your target market and ask them who they would use to solve a specific problem.
If I were to ask 100 people what I could use to search for information on the internet, probably 99% of them would say "Google". (There's always an odd Binger out there somewhere.)
That right there is an indicator that Google owns the mindshare of the "search" market. Probably an indicator to stay away. They're the de facto choice and solution. Definitely not a solid bootstrapper play.
But if you ask 100 people and you get a bunch of different answers, including a bunch of "I don't knows", then you are looking at a fragmented market. And a fragmented market is one that you can snag a piece of.
And that's exactly how it happened with Tamboo. I actually - without knowing there were any other companies doing it - came up with the idea to record what people were doing on my websites.
I did some Google searches, but (at the time), didn't see anything that screamed "here's the winner" in that space. So I started talking to people. What I found was that there were enough varied responses from enough segments in the market that it was clear to me that this was actually a fragmented market with no clear winner. Sure, Crazy Egg and Hotjar are out there, and they're pretty entrenched in some market segments, but who says I have to go head-to-head with them?
There are lots of places that I market (very successfully) where they are nowhere to be found.
Because my market is not their market (even though it kinda is) :)
Now sure, I would love it if they and every other "competitor" I had just kinda went away so I could have a pure monopoly on what it is I'm doing - but that's not reality, and you can't hope to find that. As soon as you are successful in any way, people will copy you. There will always be competition.
So you just have to find where and how you can compete and then go and do it.
I hope this helps to answer your question? Let me know what you think or if you have any other follow up questions. Again, thanks for asking - this one was 💯 !
Wow, Thanks for the answer!
I have even highlighted some points to my Evernote.
What you have written here is super valuable, and it requires not just the surface understanding but the whole mindset switch.
You are right; sometimes it seems that when you aware of a solution (CrazyEgg, HotJar) than everybody does, but maybe they are not. Even most successful startup baked by VC may own some fat channels, but they not usually own all of them, and their solution doesn't fit everybody's needs. It's like putting a ball in a square-shaped box - you always have some free space in the corners :).
Thanks again for your answer, I need to "meditate" on this new mindset :D
💪🔥
I hope you all enjoy the new installation of The Epic Guide - now on Indie Hackers!
Feel free to ask me anything about startup sales or marketing that you're looking for help with or that you might just have questions about - now's the perfect opportunity to talk about your particular situation and how you can use the above framework to start moving the needle on your project!
Awesome post Clifford, lots of very actionable advice.
I am faced with a conundrum, that I would love your advice on figuring out how to solve. For every SaaS startup or app that is targeted at some specific industry, generating traction for that app is relatively straightforward (as in, you take all of your super-helpful tactics outlined above, and do it within that industry). i.e. if you are creating an app to help architects create blueprints faster, then you figure out how to reach architects, and then do hand-to-hand combat/sales that way (one at a time), until you have identified a repeatable strategy (algorithm??) that you can codify into a sales process that can be done by other people (or technology).
My issue is, I build MVPs for people. The bulk of my existing business to-date has come from referrals, but I would like to expand my marketing efforts to be more systematic, repeatable, and eventually automated. This question is more centered around the systematic & repeatable aspect, and less the "automated" because I can figure that part out once the former is solved.
So my question is, how do I systematically (even in a non-scalable, hand-to-hand combat way) find and identify people that may be interested in building MVPs? These people tend to be scattered across industries (from architecture, to finance, to construction, to healthcare, etc.).
Given that they come from many different industries and many different backgrounds, I haven't found a repeatable algorithm that allows me to identify people that have "been bit by the entrepreneurial bug and have deep industry experience".
My best clients have been ones that have deep industry experience, they see a need for some new product that their industry needs (or they can easily sell to), but they have very limited tech experience. I then, for the purposes of that project, become their "tech co-founder for the project".
How do I discover more of those people, in a systematic way, to close more sales?
I hope I have explained it properly. If not, please ask questions and I will do my best to clarify.
Hey Marc!
This is a great question!
There are two big things I see from what you've written that I think you could focus on and start getting some really good direction and results.
The first thing is more narrowly defining your target market.
What you do is that you build MVPs for people.
Who those people are is your target market.
You've alluded to this a little bit by saying that the people you've worked with to date seem to be scattered across industries (architecture, finance, construction, healthcare, etc.) and have deep experience in those industries, but have limited technical experience.
One of the biggest mistakes that (many) early stage entrepreneurs make is thinking that everyone is their market. Given, when you're first starting out, you might need to take whatever customers you can get your hands on, but you need to eventually come to the conclusion that your target market is "X" - and then work to target them.
There are different ways that you can define your target market.
One of them, as you've alluded to, is by industry. So people interested in building an MVP in the architecture, finance, construction, healthcare, etc. industries.
Another way to define target markets is to use demographics, such as "small businesses owners who run companies doing $5mm or more a year".
There are also psychographics involved at times. Like maybe these are well-to-do business owners that are past the age of 50 and are looking for "a new challenge" in life or are "thinking of developing an asset that they can retire on".
The trick here is to look at the best customers you've had to date and to try to find the commonalities. Are there common traits or characteristics that a majority of them share? Again, don't just think "industry" per se (although that's important), but also think about what other things describe who they are and the kinds of activities they're involved with or the various psychological factors at play.
The trick now becomes to combine these different characteristics to create your own set of narrowly-defined, hyper-targeted target markets, such as:
"Successful owners of small architectural firms (2-4 people) making over $2mm a year who are looking to 'transition from' running an architecture firm into a business that will allow them to travel and spend more time with their families."
"Successful owners of small medical device companies (20-50) people making over $10mm a year who are excited by new technology and what's going on in Silicon Valley and 'want in' on it."
"Successful owners of small financial advisor firms (2-5 people) making over $5m a year who are 50+ years and are looking to build a new business that they can run part-time in retirement."
Now these are pretty damn specific, right?!
That's what you want to try to eventually get to.
Because you most certainly find ways of locating and connecting with these kinds of people. (You can find business lists, you can target them via Facebook, you can do Google searches on a region-by-region basis, you can search business publications like Crain's, etc.)
Now, you'll also want to narrow down your list of target markets to 1-3 of them.
There are three reasons for this.
The first one is so that you can go to a guy who runs a medical device company that fits your profile and you can show him how you've done this exact thing for another guy just like him in the exact same situation and show him how it's worked out beautifully.
People want to buy results.
And they tend to think that if you've gotten someone like them the results they're after, that you can do the same thing for them, too.
What's more is that they want to work with people who they think "get" what it is they want to do and have some experience with that. By having historical success in a given market, you can demonstrate that.
You become a "known quantity" - someone who "gets" how to build solutions in their market - and not just another clueless developer.
Not only do you want to be able to go to a prospect and say "here's my referral" - you also want to be able to use their testimonials in your marketing and have those testimonials resonate because they're from people just like them.
The second reason is you will need to market and sell to these markets. If you have 10 markets you're trying to reach, you're not going to really ever fully understand any one of them.
You want to narrow the list down to the point where you can completely understand who your market is, what they do, where they hang out online, how you can reach them online, what they're looking to achieve, etc.
You're going to want to be able to create some kick-ass content for them that will help you rank in Google for keywords that they'll use to learn about how to build a software company of their own.
You'll want to know what psychological drivers are specific to people in these different industries. You'll basically want to become an expert in these markets. And you can't do that if you don't narrow your focus down to just one or a few.
The third reason is that you want to become "the go-to guy" for people in your target markets through word of mouth. You want to be able to receive referrals from people within your target market to other people within your target market.
These people most likely know other people just like themselves through personal and professional connections. You want them talking about you to each other. You want them to refer you to each other.
You want them to know that you are the shit when it comes to this kind of stuff and that you are the first person they should call when they're ready.
Once you have your target market narrowed down like this, it becomes much easier to find and engage them.
In your particular situation, I think that a healthy mix of marketing and sales are needed.
Your marketing should be about your success stories and about things relevant to business owners who fit your profile such as "How you can turn your decades of business experience into a technology company" or something like that. Something that these people would be genuinely interested in reading about. And then get that in front of them wherever they are. If they're online, great. Find out where. If not, you've got to find a way to get it in front of them (physically if need be).
The goal of your marketing should be to create demand and to perform lead capture.
You'll then need to do sales leg work on those leads.
You'll also want to generate leads from referrals - I can see this being a huge channel for you.
Finally, you'll want to do some direct outreach. Yep, cold emailing and cold calling for the win. And seriously don't skimp on this step. This is a sure-fire way to connect with someone. If you've done the work to directly identify a potential customer, you should reach out to them directly about how you think you can help them achieve their goals. Don't skimp on this.
There's probably more, this is just off the top of my head and based on speculation at this point. The best way to find out what works is to find out what works :)
I hope this helps give you some ideas about how to get started.
What are your thoughts? (I'm here and open to discussion!)
Hi Clifford,
So after having gotten a chance to digest your response, here is where I am at. I fully agree that I should be looking across industry. I also agree with you re: trying to get to some specific customer type like "Successful owners of small financial advisor firms (2-5 people) making over $5m a year who are 50+ years and are looking to build a new business that they can run part-time in retirement.".
All of my best clients, the only characteristic that they all shared is that they tend to be experienced entrepreneurs with 15+ years of running their successful business and they are looking at the next chapter. Either they want to exit what they are doing, and move into a new industry, or they want to build a product they have always wanted to build, etc.
Who I think I want to target though, are "successful business owners that would like to develop an asset that can provide comfortable retirement income". Not necessarily someone looking to create a new Facebook and raise VC or anything like that.
Given that's who I am thinking, where do you think I could get access to some sales leads that fit that customer type? Or do you think I need to refine it some more? If so, how?
I was initially thinking about trying to write an article in say Inc or Entrepreneur, but those magazines have been tough to get an article in. That would be to generate in-bound leads, but I don't mind doing cold calling/emailing in the immediate short term. The question though is, how do I source leads that match something as vague and generic as "successful business owners that would like to develop an asset that can provide comfortable retirement income."
I can't even think about where to start finding such targeted leads for such a vague target (if that makes any sense ).
Look forward to your thoughts.
Hey Marc!
Hey, I'm super sorry I went AWOL there - I got buried under some emergency support requests and had to divert my attention and energy there (yep, I do "do it all").
So one place that stands out to me as an "obvious" channel would be LinkedIn.
The first way I'd use LinkedIn would be to look for people who seem to fit that profile that you just described.
(As an aside, I know they're going to try to sell you on their "Pro" offering. I would not just jump in and pony up the money for that until I've seen it work as a channel using whatever is available for free first.)
So like I was saying, I would use that as a way to find people who look like they would be a fit. You can find owners of companies this way, find out how big their company is, how long it's been in business, see what their background is like, even estimate about how old they are based on their experience and/or profile picture.
Then what I would do is go find their company online.
I would not reach out to them through InMail.
Rather, I would find their company online and read up on their website and learn more about them. I'd research the person I'm going to contact and see if they are in any kind of charities, business or professional groups, etc., and make notes of those (could be good other places to look as well).
Once I had a good feel for who I was going to be talking to, I would reach out to them directly through their personal email (again - NOT InMail; you should be able to find their email on their website or just guess with [email protected]) with a personalized email. No templates here.
Your email should show that you've done your homework and that you "get them".
Don't make the assumption that they want to do this, either. You want to just "put it out there as an idea", as it were.
So something like (don't quote me) "I've worked with a number of financial adviser firm owners such as yourself and helped them <outcome>. I don't know if you're in this position yourself or not, or if this type of thing has crossed your mind before, but if so..."
You do not want to try to sell in this email.
You merely want to see if they'd be interested in talking and seeing if there's a good fit or opportunity for what you do and what they're looking to accomplish themselves (aka, "setting an appointment").
To sweeten the deal, you should be able to "offer" them something they find valuable in order to have that conversation, such as you'd be willing to share insights about some of the things your other customers have done that have worked well and how they've been successful at this type of thing.
That's "lead generation" and "prospecting" - AKA sales.
The other way I'd use LinkedIn is for content marketing, much like you were thinking of using Inc and Entrepreneur.
I would find groups on LinkedIn where these people are members and I would develop content specifically for the people in those groups.
I'd also join the groups and try to participate in a meaningful way if possible.
And of course I'd read the conversations in those groups to learn about what people seem to care about the most so that I could deepen my knowledge/come up with content ideas/identify new pain points or benefits/etc.
So I would start there and use what I could find there to learn where else I should "branch out" to expand my marketing and sales efforts.
And don't be afraid to ask for referrals!
Ask the people you've already worked with.
Ask them in the emails you send "If this isn't a good fit for you, but you know someone who would be interested..."
I hope this helps give you a little better direction and sorry for the super late response.
This is a great, actionable response.
Thanks Clifford. This makes a lot of sense.
Wow...pretty comprehensive reply. I haven't gotten a chance to digest all of it yet. Will reply with any questions/thoughts when I do. Thanks for taking the time!
💪🔥
Hey clifford,
Just bumping this in case you missed it on the first time around. See my other reply below.
Thanks!
Way to follow up! I have been bumped and have responded :)
Hey Clifford. I enjoyed your post! I don't fall into the categories you mention as I am fairly active on marketing and I am generating revenue, but I still found it useful and particularly found the advice on setting daily goals helpful (it's sometimes the simple things that help). I read the article yesterday, setup my tracker sheet in Google Speadsheets today and began in earnest. I sent 2 out of my planned 5 daily cold emails and before I got to number 3, I had already received responses from the first 2 asking for a meeting next week! (this was all within the space of an hour).
So yeah, not a bad start! Wish it was always that easy, but I'll take it when I get it.
Thought I'd share my success story:)
Thanks again, and keep that good advice coming (even if it is detrimental to you happiness!)
Action FTW! 👊💥
That's awesome - congrats!!! And thanks for sharing!
Aside from sending cold emails, what other activities did you choose to add to your sheet?
(And no worries, I actually enjoy this stuff or I wouldn't be doing it 😉 )
Yeah baby, I am all about taking action :)
Well, I am trying to achieve sales conversions, so I picked the following items:
There's plenty more I can do, but I decided to focus on these for 4 weeks and see what works, and then I'll switch out the ones that don't with some other channels/activities.
I also added a column to your suggested sheet called 'Tracking', which I have noted the method I will use to track my achievement/results. This includes things like:
...and so on.
keep on keepin' on :)
Now that's a great list!
I love that you're tackling things physically like distributing leaflets and fliers in person and I love that you're partnering up with bike clubs and workspaces! That's some very nice targeting indeed!
Awesome hustle! 💪 🔥 👏
Fantastic article Clifford, super actionable content and a great writing style.
Focusing on habits and process vs a goals is always a winning tactic, but going that step further and suggesting the exact actions that people should take pushes it over the edge.
Brb, creating my daily activity to-do list 👍
Thank you! 🙏
Awesome to hear that you enjoyed it and found it helpful but especially that you found it actionable!
Action for the win! 👊💥
Out of curiosity, which of the tactics did you choose to start out with?
Great thing with goals, it generally a framework described in Traction/BullsEye framework. I used it a lot during last year.
However there is one thing, if you hire less experience marketing guys they might not know what they can do, and iterate /adjust(normal feedback loop), so it takes your time to deep dive into each thing/channel why it doesn't work.
Hi Clifford! What an awesome article! I felt fairly lost about how to PRACTICALLY preparing my site for launch and this is such a godsend since I love making lists for measurable things I can do to check off. I do have a quick question about your recommendations of doing things for 1 month and regroup and eliminate. How did you come up with that time frame? I have read different things on the length of conversion and some users need more time to nurture and will only convert after few impressions from different sources.
And also from your own experience, does that time frame differ for different channels? Such as perhaps running ads on google/facebook have fairly consistent results and you don't have to wait for a full month to decide its effectiveness versus paid blog posts may take longer as contents need time to be digested and spread within networks?
Thanks a ton!
Great question!
So yes, there are times when it takes multiple (multiple!) impressions in order to "warm" someone up to giving your product or service a try.
Typically, that's when you're dealing with people in the TOFU and MOFU (top of funnel and middle of funnel) stages. Your goal at those stages is to make people aware that you (and your solution) exist and to educate them on how it can help them while building up their demand for it.
Campaigns focused on this type of strategy can run anywhere from 3 months plus and usually involve techniques such as retargeting.
While you might want to eventually consider using a more complex and nuanced strategy like this, it's not usually necessary to go to this length to get up and running.
Typically, you can get fairly good short-term results by focusing your marketing and sales around buying triggers and events and the BOFU crowd (bottom of funnel).
What's a buying trigger or event?
It's the thing or the event that triggers buying behavior.
It's the thing that happens to someone that makes them go from "this is nowhere on my radar" to "I need this right now".
It's the reason behind why they buy.
By focusing your marketing and sales efforts to connect and resonate with people who are hitting these "buying triggers", you can usually side step having to do the long and drawn out "awareness" and "nurturing" campaigns that you've probably read about (at least until you're ready to "grow" some more).
The truth is that - even in B2B - when people experience a buying trigger - their purchasing behavior switches to that of a consumer behavior. In other words, emotions start to influence their purchasing behavior. And when there is a sense of urgency on their part to fulfill an emotional need, they are more likely to make a transactional sale in a (much) shorter timeframe.
So by focusing on buying triggers and events, you can usually cut down the time it takes to go from first impression to purchase.
Now, back to your question about timelines.
Keep in mind - per the article - at this stage, your goal is just to get qualified traffic. I didn't delve into the dark art of converting that traffic just yet.
Your goal is to see if by marketing relevant messaging to a specific channel, if you can get a reaction from that channel in the form of qualified traffic - meaning getting people to click through who are likely to need what you are offering.
[Getting traffic from Hacker News (unless your customers are developers and angry wantrapreneurs) does not count as qualified traffic.]
Once you're able to get qualified traffic, you can usually find ways to convert it - either by modifying your messaging when marketing to that channel or by optimizing your landing pages or website - or a combination of the two.
So if we're looking for traffic, we should be able to know within a month whether or not our marketing is bringing us traffic from a channel. With paid advertising, it's even less time than that - typically with a week or two.
Once we understand which channels are giving us the most traffic, those are the ones that we will want to focus our conversion efforts on next (that's going to be in Part 6 - give me a follow if you want to get an alert when that hits).
I recommend a month for each "test" based off of my own experiences.
Let's say that you want to develop Medium as a channel (and that you're doing something with it daily during that month):
The first week or so you're going to be trying to figure out how to make this whole thing work. You don't really understand it fully. You're just kinda throwing things against the wall to see what sticks.
By week two, you're starting to get a basic understanding for how things work and you're more aware of how other people are using it themselves.
By week three, you're starting to get the hang of it and you're starting to understand "the big picture".
By week four, you should be seeing some kind of results. If not, it might not be the best place for you to put your efforts - maybe it's not a good fit for your market or maybe it's just not a good fit for you and how you think/market. Either way, move onto something else. If it is working, great, now you double down. You take the knowledge you've built up in the last month and use that to take it even further (and learn even more!).
The basic goal here is to see if you can attract and resonate with people, measuring that response via the number of them who actually come to your website.
Once you've built up traffic and have identified your top channels, then you focus on converting and optimizing each of those channels (we'll go into that topic in detail in the next couple of articles).
Let me know if you have any other questions about this - this was a good one! 👊💥
Thanks for the super detailed response, I really appreciate it! Are there some good marketing articles/books you would recommend checking out for bootstrapped and early staged startup? Also I checked out your book page, looks like it's still in pre-ordering stage right now and perhaps it would be helpful to see a Table of Contents so people like me will know how much you might cover on specific topics such as marketing? :) Just a thought!
Not a problem - I'm glad you found it helpful!
I'll be honest, I have been (and continue to be) completely unimpressed with whatever marketing books are out on the market.
I have yet to really find one whose aim is to take the reader from "So you have no clue about how to market?" to "Here's how it works - and here's how you can go about making this work for you."
In part, that's because most of the marketing books out there tend to be for B2C marketing. B2C marketing tends to be very emotionally driven and uses (sometimes very) different strategies and tactics than B2B marketing.
So when you're reading a "marketing" book, you really have to ask yourself if this is for B2C or B2B.
I honestly have no real "solid" recommendations in this space. (I do when it comes to B2B sales, ask me if you want me to expound on those recommendations).
I know some people love them some Godin (https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=seth+godin). I haven't found much of anything that he's written useful or applicable to running my businesses (just being honest).
Moore (https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=crossing+the+chasm&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Acrossing+the+chasm) I also found (mostly) unusable. "Entrepreneurial marketing" is not the same thing as "marketing for entrepreneurs".
Cialdini (https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=cialdini&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Acialdini) is good if you want to understand some of the psychology that you can apply and incorporate in your marketing, but it's very often not a direct mapping to actual techniques you can apply.
Ries and Trout (https://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Al-Ries/dp/0071373586/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1509244892&sr=8-2&keywords=positioning)'s Positioning is actually not half-bad and is definitely one you should have a passing familiarity with.
In the same vein, their 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_9?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=22+immutable+laws+of+marketing&sprefix=22+immuta%2Caps%2C164&crid=5IEY3E9ZC6Y1), albeit a very short read, is a good one to start getting a mental model and framework for "how marketing works".
Dan Kennedy (https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=dan+kennedy&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Adan+kennedy) is pretty well known in the B2C space. He's a bit of an oddball (he refuses to use email and requires you to fax him if you want to get in contact with him, no joke), and some of his tactics may make you feel "icky". Putting it out there for completeness.
I know a lot of people swear by Made to Stick (https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=made+to+stick&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Amade+to+stick), and it's not bad, but I found it a bit winded and vague.
Gary Vaynerchuk's Jab Jab Jab Right Hook (https://www.amazon.com/Jab-Right-Hook-Story-Social/dp/006227306X/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1509245096&sr=8-4&keywords=gary+vaynerchuk) is not a bad book for understanding social media marketing dynamics.
It's a little bit dated and definitely one that's been mostly overlooked, but Meyerson (https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Online-Marketing-Strategies-Internet/dp/1599181517/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1509245816&sr=8-3&keywords=mastering+online+marketing)'s book I actually found to be a pretty good introduction to online marketing and one I would recommend for those starting out. (Rob Walling turned me on to this one.)
Justin Jackson (justinjackson.ca) has an e-book "Marketing for Devs" that I've heard fairly good things about that might be something to check out (I've never read it, so this is second hand).
There's more, but these are the ones of the top of my head.
It's actually because of this "void" in the market as I see it for entrepreneurs like us trying to fully understand and apply marketing for results that I plan to spend a good amount of time on the practice of marketing and sales in the book (https://cliffordoravec.com/the-epic-guide).
I haven't included a comprehensive table of contents yet because I'm still exploring how I want the book to flow, and I don't want to be "pinned down" to following a rigid up-front waterfall design that "breaks down" as I make my way through.
Right now, I'm updating the "active" table of contents as parts and chapters are completed and released, so it will flush out over time.
But yeah, I haven't found "the book" when it comes to marketing. Most of what I've learned I've had to learn in practice and by observing others and taking (really good) notes and then trying it out for myself.
How about you? What books have you read so far and what were your thoughts on them?
I've always hesitated to purchase marketing books as they are often 1) focused on theoretical stuff, not enough direct, executable steps 2) they become outdated very fast. Because marketing/social media landscape changes fairly fast and new tools come out often, I feel it's usually faster to follow blogs.
Some blogs I enjoy reading with real stories and no-bullshit attitude + actionable steps are:
Absolutely agree!
Lots of theoretical fluff out there, as well as lots of B2C-geared books that make you feel like you need to take a shower after you've finished reading them.
☹️
Thanks for the great pointers, Clifford. I've already started creating my list of activities and attempting to measure them. What gave me a fresh perspective was your views on goals and outcomes.
It almost feels as if your product, Tamboo, would apply to a broad audience similar to mine (CRM for small businesses) so I'd love your take on how to narrow down the target audience and be really specific. How do you find your niche when there's so much competition and noise? How do you compete when your competition is working essentially every single marketing channel in the book? Not to mention that they have a huge salesforce behind them as well.
Hey Teren!
Awesome question!
Let's see if I can help.
The basic ingredients behind "nailing a niche" typically require that you:
Be able to define and describe - in meaningful terms - who your target market is (and who they are not). Typically, this is a combination of industry, demographic, and psychographic characteristics. And usually, you're talking about a "subset" of a larger market (e.g., "Ruby on Rails developers" vs. just "developers").
Be able to demonstrate to your target market that your offering is "the best available option" for them in a unique and meaningful way - one that they actually "give a shit about". This typically requires deep "insider knowledge" of how people within your target market think and perceive things, as well as knowledge of how they view and value other existing solutions in the market.
Be able to reach them in a predictable, cost effective manner. Where can you find these people? What specific channels can you use to reach them? How much do those channels cost to use (in terms of money and/or time)? What specific messaging can you use is meaningful to them?
Now that being said, let's use this as a roadmap to see how we can achieve just that.
When it comes to "carving out your niche", there are a few ways to go about this.
The first way is to "segment" an existing market that already uses solutions in your product space. You can typically find out what markets use products like yours by doing Google searches for things like "CRM for" and seeing what autocomplete and recommendations come up. You can also make a running list of all the markets your competitors list on their websites that they serve.
Let's say that you find out that there appears to be a market for freelancers using CRM software. Great! From here, you want to "niche down". What types of freelancers are there out there? What industries do they work in? What demographics do they fit into? What psychographics do they display? Typically, this requires that you either have some insider knowledge or have done some research. For example, instead of "freelancers", how about "Ruby on Rails freelancers with families coming from an agency background who are currently doing freelancing part-time but want to be able to go full-time with their freelance work and spend more time traveling with their families." That's pretty narrow and specific, no?
Another way is to brainstorm all the different types of people and markets who could or should use your solution. Often, this is how you find "hidden niches". Make no mistake, if you go this route, it will wrack your brain. It's hard work.
One other way is to take an organic approach and find where people who currently use products like yours hang out and talk shop about products like yours. Think forums, review sites, Slack groups, etc. Immerse yourself in their feedback, comments, and thoughts and look for meaningful patterns. Maybe you'll find that there are people who want to use a CRM for a specific purpose that none of the existing solutions seem to do well. There's gold in those hills.
Once we think that we've found a market segment we want to target, we now need to make sure that we can demonstrate to that market - in a meaningful way - why our solution is "the best available option" for them.
Now here's where most people go wrong.
They think that specific features are how you go about demonstrating this kind of thing.
And sometimes, they are.
If you can create a feature that appeals to a specific market segment in a meaningful way, then that's definitely useful.
But really - it's your messaging and your marketing that must communicate specifically how you're the best fit for the niche you're targeting.
Typically, you can achieve this by demonstrating (in a way that your niche gives a shit about) how your solution helps them achieve the jobs and outcomes that they care about most the best.
In order for your product to really "stand out", it must address those jobs and outcomes which are most important to your target market and which they feel are currently being underserved by existing solutions in the market.
That being said, when you're dealing with a "commodity" tool like a CRM, how do you pull that off?
With your marketing, of course!
Let's say that you show our sample "part-time Ruby on Rails developers with families coming from an agency background" how to use your CRM to achieve the results they need in order to achieve the goal they have of going full-time and getting to spend more time with their family?
It doesn't really matter if your CRM is feature-for-feature the same as Billy Bootstrapper's down the street - because these RoR developers aren't going to "connect the dots" on their own and see that. They're going to go with the company that helps them achieve their goals - because that's why people buy software - to do a job for them.
Help your market do that job (whatever that job is) the best.
Once we've figured out how to communicate and demonstrate why we're the best fit for our niche, we need to get that message in front of them.
It's actually a lot easier to find people once you narrow down the types of people you're looking for.
Looking for developers? There are tons of websites out there. JavaScript websites, Java websites, shell scripting websites, .NET websites, HTML websites, etc., etc., etc. - too many to count. It's difficult to figure out where to start with so many "broad" options.
Looking for Ruby on Rails developers? Still a lot of websites, but not as overwhelming. Definitely "easier" to start to market to.
Ruby on Rails developers interested in freelance work? Yes, there are websites for and about this. And guess what? Chances are the only people on those sites are RoR developers interested in freelancing. Awesome!
Having a well-defined niche helps you focus your marketing efforts.
You win by going to these people and helping them achieve their goals.
Do some forum hacking. Network on the socials. Do some content marketing. Build up your SEO. Take out ads. Basically, your standard marketing fare.
Now, I would say - don't just market and cross your fingers.
You need to sell, as well.
That means, find RoR developers (in our example) who have a freelance profile or who look like they might (they work at a small agency or something like that - use LinkedIn, it's your friend) and reach out to them to see if they'd be interested to learn how you can help them go full-time freelancing and share some of the awesome ways they can achieve that (using your product, of course!). 😉
Okay, so I think that covers my initial thoughts.
Does this help answer your question, or do you have any other thoughts you want to dig into?
Wow. What an incredible response. Thanks for the great feedback. I really appreciate your thought out response. It's never been clearer to me especially when you've inserted the example of RoR developers.
Are there any tips/resources on how to get the messaging for these RoR developers right? I've read all about focusing on benefits and yes, as you said, outcomes but I'd love to learn a thing or two.
Hi Teren!
I'm glad that helped clarify things for you! 🙏💪🔥
So how to get the messaging "right"?
That's really where the "art" and the "magic" comes into play (and where most others would cop out - but not me!)
So let's say (and I'm not saying do this - this is just an example) that you're going to market "a CRM for RoR developers who are currently doing part-time freelance work but who want to go full-time to spend more time with their young families."
First of all, that's super specific - and that's a beautiful thing.
Second of all, we've touched on a number of important things - industry, demographic, and psychographic - which makes this much easier.
The first thing you have to know is that your messaging must be believable.
If you don't understand RoR culture, values, or the personality types of the people who are RoR developers, you're going to have a difficult time connecting and resonating with them.
If you don't understand freelancing and the difference between being successful part-time vs. full-time - you're going to have a problem.
And if you don't understand what it's like to want to spend more time with your young family after having worked in a corporate job or an agency for years - you're also going to be in trouble.
Basically, break down each of the components that make up your targeting and make sure you understand each of them (from a functional level as well as the emotional drivers that accompany them) individually as well as holistically.
If you don't really "get it" - immerse yourself in each of those separate areas. Find forums, books, websites, TV shows, etc. that can help you understand how people in those circumstances think and feel and what's important to them. In other words - build empathy. Reach out to people in those situations and sit down with them for coffee or Skype with them (you'd be surprised how many people are willing to do this, especially if you say something like "I'm working on building a CRM that will help RoR developers doing part-time freelance work go full-time so they can spend more time with their families and I'm looking to talk with people who are interested in discussing something that can help them with that."
After you've got a good understanding and "feel" for all of this, you need to find the "pressure points" - the things that they think are holding them back from achieving their goals.
You want to find the "If only I could X, then I could be there" thought processes going on (there are a number of these, so don't just stop at one).
As well as the things behind the "I don't know what I need to do to get to where I want to go" thoughts and concerns.
It's then your job to connect the dots for them (using your solution as the bridge, of course!)
So let's say that they don't know how to get more clients for their freelancing business so that they can go full-time.
It's your job to help teach them how to do that - ideally using a CRM solution like your own.
But you can't just stop there.
That's better than nothing, but it's still amateur hour.
For this to resonate, you MUST make it specifically tailored for them.
Using our RoR example, you would show them how to specifically find more RoR freelancing clients (using your CRM - which is "built for RoR freelancers").
The magic in the messaging is that it's "for them".
You and I both know that a CRM can be used in just about any industry, in any profession.
There's nothing "RoR-specific" about your CRM in reality.
A PHP freelance developer could use your CRM.
A Perl freelance developer could use your CRM (if there are still Perl jobs out there).
But when you position yourself as the CRM for RoR freelance developers, and have the marketing and the messaging that supports that claim, then you magically are "the CRM for RoR freelance developers".
When all of your marketing helps RoR freelancers, when all of your messaging drops cues that you "get" the RoR culture and values, when you make the claim "The CRM for RoR Freelancers" - you become that.
And that's the dirty little secret.
Your marketing is your differentiator - not your product.
Do the same thing with RoR developers looking to spend more time with their families - tie in your messaging to hit those pain points, to help them navigate how to work essentially "two jobs" while they build this thing out - and all the while show them how your solution helps them do just that - and that's how you win that mindshare.
I hope this gives you some ideas on how to maybe get started - what do you think? Would love to get your thoughts and continue the conversation if you're game :)
This definitely gives me ideas on how to get started.
Let me know if there's anything I can help you with your startup and side project. Thanks very much.
👊💥
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