Converting subscribers to believers
by ChrisFrantzThe first 100 people who care enough about something you’re working on can be incredibly validating, especially if you’re working in a new audience. Turning that into growth and distribution is the key and the way to move it forward is through talking to those users.
With 100 users, it’s not time for newsletter distribution and large scale pitching of your idea. If you have 100 people on your list, it’s time for interviews.
Each one. For people with a name, address them by it, don’t use merge tags. For those without a name, start the conversation by introducing your self then asking them to do the same. At 100 users, you can have conversations and not newsletter subscribers.
For example, here’s what you shouldn’t do:
- Add them to mailchimp
- Write a long email as your first contact that dives way too deep into what you’re working on
- Forget to follow up in the near future, then blast them with another email next time you want something.
- Realize you need customer input after you launch and mass email everyone with a calendly link. This shit is weak.
What I’ll be doing:
- Emailing each person individually
- Thanking them for joining for updates on what I’m working on
- Introducing myself
- Asking if they have some time to chat for 15 minutes some time in the next week
I forgot to do this the last time and ended up pivoting myself into a hole, working at 1/5 my contracting rate a million miles away from the reason I started the company.
Time to get ahead of the curve and find out what exactly people need before I overcommit to an idea without a passionate audience.
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1
Great advice, thanks for sharing!
Looking forward to hear about the feedback you get.
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1
Great advice Chris.
Absolutely one of the most productive things you can do is get on the phone and talk to them.
Find out questions related to:
--> their goals (what are they looking to accomplish) -- this will help with product dev and marketing
--> why they purchased/chose to use the software -- this helps get an idea of product differentiation from the user's perspective which may highlight use cases you never thought of (then use that in your marketing)Have the calls transcribed to really dig into the data collected. (to learn more about how to create questions that get the best answers, what questions to ask and when to ask them, refer to part 3 in this guide: http://anitatoth.ca/crush-your-churn-guide).
Collecting feedback and understanding why users choose a product and what their hoping to accomplish is insanely valuable for marketing, sales, customer success and dev.
