It’s reviving to see that brands are utilizing alternative channels for growth.
There could be many ways to get your first customers, particularly your first 10.
But you’re going to want to focus on only 1 or 2 ways, simply because you won’t have the time or energy to do more than that well in your initial days. Content marketing (like with articles, eBooks, webinars, and SEO are my least favorites for beginners, especially for someone who is looking for CUSTOMERS. These can waste much time in trial and error to be effective in short span of time.
Here I am sharing 6 hacks to help you get your first customers. Though I would advise to pick one or two and focus:
- Quick win list – Lincoln Murphy at Sixteen Ventures did a lot of the hard work for you here. He introduces formulas quick wins that won’t necessarily bring in a ton of customers, but it’ll bring some SaaS marketing plan which will make conversions. ’
- Cold emailing– “old school”, but it works. I will not go into deep because it’s covered well in other expert’s answers around the web. It is one of the best strategies for generating new leads and landing more sales. Many people underestimate how powerful a strategy cold emailing can be—at least at its full potential.
- Growth hacks – Admittedly a pretty vague thing to add to the list. But many, the most popular startups used growth hacks to grow. Growth hacking is lean, efficient marketing based on data driven approach and experimentation. Basically, this process is all about to come up with innovative ideas then compare them to see what works best. Accordingly, startups repeat the process over and over to drive potential growth.
- Referral programs – Once you get your first 3-5 customers, see how quickly you can get a referral program up to encourage those customers to invite 3-5 more just like them. Just a small advice doesn’t spend much time in building your first iteration of a referral program, because it can “never be right”.
- Advertising– Don’t know your budget, but this is almost a requirement today, sadly. There are a lot of noise out and to get through the clutter, sometimes you have to pay. Google Ads, Facebook ads, Twitter, and anything else can help. Just make sure you measure everything and start off in small. You can lose a lot of money in a short amount of time if the strategy didn’t work.
- Create a feedback loop – Once you get those first few customers, make sure you get feedback. Don’t rely just on analytics + watching user videos (even though you should do that) make sure you ask questions either by email or survey. You can run exit intent surveys or add surveys in your email.
These hacks I’d recommend to someone starting out. The few that can bring the good results in the least amount of time. Word of mouth marketing will always be king. Talk to at least 3 people in a day about your business.
