How to target an audience that is NOT a niche?
I've recently launched my MVP (www.realvoice.uk), it's to help English learners train their listening skills. It features a game and practices (for people that want to learn without the game).
Anyway, I'm struggling with how to target the audience: intermediate+ English learners.
This is an audience that is so spread out, with many using a lot of different services/ platforms, in various languages.
I've been brainstorming, thinking about the various channels to target these people, and there are plenty (language schools, universities, publications, youtube, reddit etc.), but it's quite daunting and it certainly won't be cheap.
I've started making simple youtube videos to try and gain some traction, but I understand the YT algo is going to make this a long, painful slog.
I am definitely still trying to find 'product market fit', and could pivot to something more niche, but I need to get some initial users before I can justify investing time in a pivot.
Has anyone here managed to get 'early adopters' without a direct link to their target audience?
You need to try a bunch of tactics and see what works.
You could try:
ps a lot of these ideas came from https://visme.co/blog/traction-book/
A lot to be getting on with, thanks!
Hi @perdanjam!
I think Facebook would work well for this. You could target the users of the most popular apps for learning English who live in urban areas. If you're low on ads budget you could focus on communities instead - there are lots of Facebook groups (e.g. French in London, Españoles en Birmingham) you could reach out to.
I love that you let users jump right in to trying out the product, but I think the landing page would benefit from having an explanation of what the product is/who it's for/benefits.
If you'd like to identify the other marketing channels most likely to work for your product, I'm currently offering free personalised reports at https://www.lumive.io/
Hi @FrancisH
Thanks for the input!
You're right about the landing page. I left it off after I saw a tweet from @levelsio about landing pages feeling outdated, and I kind of agreed. But I'm the kind of person who watches YT at 2.5x to cut to the chase, and tries to jump right in in everything. My target audience could be different so I've got to consider that.
It also challenges me to create a clean UX that leads the user naturally into discovering the service.
I like the idea of getting involved in those FB groups, that feels like a cheap and organic way to start.
I also checked out lumive. However I didn't submit a form because, for my site, I'd struggle to answer the questions. I'm still thinking the it could be B2C or B2B once I get the product market fit figured out.
That makes sense; you wouldn't want to lose the clean UX. Maybe there's an in-between where you could have a short section or even just a tagline at the top, that way users get some context but can still jump right in.
Anyway I hope the FB groups approach yields some useful results, good luck!
Hey @perdanjam 👋
You could get more specific with your audience. As you've mentioned, "Intermediate+ English learners" is pretty broad, so why not try to narrow it down?
For example, you could target native French speakers who have an intermediate level of English. You could even be more specific than that and target those who are looking to improve English to help them in the workplace.
Over time, you can then expand that audience if you're finding there's a need for your solution.
Yeah, I believe you're right. I'm thinking of building out the content and marketing around 'people who want to train their listening to native level'. This is a much smaller niche, and a lot of these people will either be in the English speaking country, or going there soon.
And I don't need to invest time in pivoting the product, just the marketing and content needs to be more focussed.
Absolutely. I think it'd be worth you speaking to your audience to find out why they're trying to achieve a native level of listening, what their motivation is.
If it's any help, I started learning French a few years back. I would say I was at that intermediate level (less so now – I'm a little rusty) and was in a situation where I wanted to improve speaking and listening but didn't know how. I guess you could say I wanted native level listening, but the reality is, I just wanted to be able to have conversations with people without having to ask them to repeat themselves over and over :)
Oh cool.
Yeah I've learnt a lot of languages over the years,
I worked at Disneyland Paris to learn French, having studied it for years at school, and didn't understand anything when I got there!
Later I realised the French say 'shwee' not 'je suis', and was suddenly conscious of the 'training your ear' phenomenon.
So this app combines some of the techniques I would like to use once at an intermediate level, to prepare for that in advance.
Even if it's a broad niche, try to find the ideal first customers, those who need the product the most. For listening skills I'd target expats who will work or are working in an English speaking environment. For those, improving their listening skills is very valuable. This links your idea to the "money" niche as they are looking to improve their English skills to get a higher paid job in a higher salary country.
Not dissimilar to the comment from @austerberry I think you're both right.
It's still going to require a lot of work, but it gives me a more defined path to follow!
Schedule time with 2-3 linguist or teachers in your area. Let them know you are doing research. Perhaps they would have a better grasp on demographics from their years of experience they can share.
I think one of the first things to consider is why anybody would want this, and then you're able to start narrowing things down. I always think of the big three: money, health, and beauty.
Can this thing help people with any of those?
And then go down that path and connect it to one of those three industries.
I'm having the same problem. My plan has basically boiled down to, cast a wide net. Find a few (maybe <1%) who seem interested. Really help them and learn about them, then lastly, ask them if they have any friends/colleagues that would be interested. It's kind of like a manual viral loop but it works well early on when your user numbers are effectively 0 =D
Interesting!
What's your product?
And what sort of time/ money have you put in for your initial 'net'?
I'm working on https://flurly.com.
It's basically a super simple and affordable way to sell digital products. By digital product, I really just mean any file - video, image, zip, etc.
Not too much money so far. I've used platforms that help amortize costs - Firebase, Stripe, Vercel. So because I have so little users currently, they are all effectively free. I suppose the main cost is my time, which has been 1-2 hours a day for the past month or two.
How about you?
Great idea!
Sounds like a purified version of gumroad/fiverr kind of thing.
For me, I've been working full-time on it for the last 4 months, and launched in the last month or so... lost track of time. I've not spent anything on marketing, but I'm putting feelers out to publications and Youtube channels. My main costs are hosting/ various premium translation API's/ Laravel Vapor (A painless AWS interface)/ AWS database.. actually it's all adding up... Gotta start making some money!
Best of luck to you!
Haha likewise. You too!