How to get first customers (developer learning marketing)
I recently stopped being a wanapreneur and launched a chrome extension that helps people pick up new followers on Instagram. It's a tried and true method - Follow for Follow. I originally started working on this in Sept. helping my brother grow out his comedian account. We went from 2-3 new followers per day to 100's per day. So I have experience with the product working.
However, I launched it recently and have only picked up 2 new customers. Both of whom are friends and family.
Things I've tried:
Launch to friends on Facebook
Launch to friends on Instagram
Replied to comments on Youtube videos about Growing Instagram accounts.
Results:
I've gotten 2 friends to use the app and sign up for the $1.99 subscription.
Impressions on Google Analytics consistently in the single digits
I am a developer trying to learn marketing. Ive read many books on the topic. I have an active subscription to Inc magazine. I've perused this forum for years. I am now trying to make the switch. What could be a good way to begin. (PLEASE help)
Launch on product hunt. Partner with influencers grow their accounts for free if they give you a S/0 [ Shout out]
I would really be interested in exploring this as an option. thank you.
Hey Arnold (no pun itended),
To have a successful product you have to make it stand-out from the others. A key concept of marketing in USP: Unique Selling Proposition. How is your Instagram Auto Follower different from tens if not hundreds of similar, often free, with more features alternatives?
I would recommend you find a way to differentiate your product from the rest of the market so it caters to a very particular niche. For instance, you can make it "The best tool for comedians to grow their audience". Once you have picked a niche, written content helping new comedians and developed features to get them to find an audience, getting them to find you will be surprisingly easier.
A couple easy readings I like on this topic:
Background: I'm in charge of marketing at an automation SaaS company called Phantombuster. We do Instagram automation among many other things and our USP is to gather in one place all the automations useful to growing a business (Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, GMaps, Craigslist, Slack, &many others).
Good luck on your path to marketing!
Hey Jules,
lol about Hey Arnold. thanks for the reading references. I just read 1000 true fans. That seems to be a good frame shift for me.
I am going to check out USP positioning. I like to think of my very little extension as a quick way to pick up hundreds of new followers while not opening a company up to getting blocked on Instagram. A general tool if you will. But I will do some more inquiry.
I really wish I would done a bit more research to see what other solutions were out there that were similar. However, I think there is still room for a small solution, I just will need to tweak.
Great landing page for Phantombuster by the way. Really appreciate your Feedback! :)
Here, in B.C., we get a free Lynda.com subscription with library cards. I've found some good stuff around sales & marketing.
I just recently finished Peter Gruber's Tell to Win book and found that really valuable. I find as developers we tend to communicate focused on data & numbers. Tell to Win made really good points and provided examples around telling a story to communicate the point. Stories elicit emotion, which is a much stronger call to action than data, unfortunately.
I am currently reading Lean Startup and it's great for outlining experiments. Eric Reis uses examples from his own startup and talks about how they essentially did A/B testing using Google Analytics as one of the measures of success/failure. Essentially, tweak your web content, wait a specific period of time, then check if your analytics are better or worse. Then tweak again, and again, and again until you see growth.
Finally, ask those existing customers, even if they're friends & family, why they bought and what value they see (not always the value you're selling).
Oh and get on all relevant social media channels and setup searches for key words your customers might be talking about. Then you can [nicely, appropriately] inject yourself into those conversations.
Hope that helps,
Oh, and add your product here on IndieHackers and everywhere else to get more inbound links to your website.