Being a startup, creating credibility among your target audience to try out your product is a big challenge in itself. Hence, you need some early adopters who will take the pain to test and try your product, give valuable feedback for you to develop and help in making your business graph soar higher and higher. But the question is how to get those early adopters to your side in the startup phase. Fret not; here are some easy and useful tips to make early adopters follow you for lifetime.
Design a viral launch page
Going viral is one of the most sought after method that any business would look up to get recognized in the market. So utilize it from your startup phase only. Design an easy to use viral landing page. All you have to do is keep minimum signup details like name and email and generate a URL for the user to share among his/her social community. The most active referrer gets honoured with a gift hamper. Are you finding it too good to believe? Check out Launch Effect for free WordPress based viral landing pages.
Welcome bloggers to promote your business
Getting close to real time journalists to get your business covered is hard bait. Not because they are difficult to reach but convincing them to cover your startup story is very challenging. Yet, getting mentioned before diverse public is absolutely required to scale high. So what to do? Here’s your golden chance to leave your business open before bloggers. With citizen journalism being a big thing these days, bloggers have received a great recognition among all spheres. Use them for your advantage. Make sure you offer bloggers an early inside access to raise your chances of getting covered. Never forget to follow them up with tailor-made emails.
Introduce interactivity
The more interactive your apparently dull B2B product is, the more are the chances of it getting close to people than just getting lost in the web mesh! Pioneer game mechanism tactics to hold on interest of your early adopters to tap them for a long term relationship. For example check Foursquare, you keep winning every moment you do something with the app. This creates an interest among the early adopters to go ahead and propagate the product, while at the same time remaining loyal with you.
Get physical to meet up
You may be selling an online app or a product but it necessarily doesn’t mean you should not meet people physically! Participate in meet ups that keep happening close to your locality. Interact, spread and collect feedback about your product, while you party with your folks. You can even host a party for your top 100 users and treat them over wine and dinner.
Compliment and not compete initially
Well, you are just a startup and you need to believe in the adage “Slow and steady wins the race”. You have got to be ‘slow’ in the sense do not hurry! But ‘steadily’ make your move, pairing with other similar non competing startups to promote and benefit mutually. Meet some other startup entrepreneurs with similar interests and together make an impact.
Be transparent in your approach
It is a common human tendency to like people and products which are transparent in their work. Don’t put in false promises. Plan and make a move. It helps to connect with your users better. Just don’t let your instinct run you for anything and everything.
Your early adopters are your true friends who will never flatter you. Since you are a startup, they will point your flaws but with a forgiving attitude. So they are your real gems. Keep them happy and enjoy at bay!
Debarati Mukherjee is an accomplished blogger, journalist and communicator, with over five years of media writing experience. She has written on diverse subjects ranging from entrepreneurship and small businesses to human rights, beauty, fashion and fitness. There are more than 100 articles credited to her name. Presently she is working as a Communications Specialist with Idyllic Software, a Rails consulting company which aims to help startups grow up in business.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.com
