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Pre-Launch User Acquisition
The document outlines strategies for pre-launch user acquisition aimed at increasing the success rate of Asian startups. It emphasizes understanding customers, building early user bases, and utilizing various methods like content marketing, social networks, and influencer outreach to drive targeted traffic. Successful case studies and examples illustrate how effective contests, paid advertising, and relationship building play crucial roles in enhancing user engagement and achieving sustainable growth.
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Pre-Launch User Acquisition
- 1. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) PRE-LAUNCH USER ACQUISITION BKK Web Meetup @ Launchpad 7th April 2015 by Anna Rehermann (@startupanna)
- 2. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) “Flipping the success rate of Asian startups from 1/10 to 9/10”
- 3. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) • Growth Hacking ServicesGrowth Labs • Growth Hacking TrainingsGH Academy • On-demand advice from leading growth • hackers over the phoneThe Growth Hub • Monthly events for inspiration and • experience & knowledge exchangeGH Events
- 4. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) PRE-LAUNCH USER ACQUISITION
- 5. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) If I build it, they will come…
- 6. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Nope, they wont Nope!
- 7. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) 1. Get to know your customers • Who are they • Where can you reach them • What message can you convert them with • Are you solving a real problem for them 2. Build early user base: Build a userbase of early adopters you can launch to Why Pre-Launch User Acquisition
- 8. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) STEP 1: Pre-Launch Signup Page
- 9. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Simple Design Strong message Clear, contrasting CTA Only ask for email address Integrated video but not interrupting Incentive for sign up Sample Signup Page I
- 10. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Signup Page Referral Mechanics
- 11. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Simple Design Appealing image Clear message Clear, contrasting CTA Only ask for email address Incentive for sign up Sample Signup Page II
- 12. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Signup Page Referral Mechanics
- 13. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Signup Page Referral Mechanics
- 14. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Recommended Tool – Kickofflabs.com
- 15. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) STEP 2: Drive Traffic…Targeted Traffic
- 16. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) 1) Contest 2) Paid Advertising 3) Social Networks 4) Content Marketing 5) Pre-Launch Platforms 6) Offline Community Building 7) PR & Influencer Outreach Pre-Launch User Acquisition Methods
- 17. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) CONTESTS
- 18. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Contests – Case Study ”Wet Shave Club, a boutique box that delivers a range of wet shave goodies directly to your door every month.”
- 19. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Contests – Case Study
- 20. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Contests – Case Study Duration: 30 Days Contest Distribution: Twitter, Blogs, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Friends RESULTS
- 21. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Contests – Takeaways Have a compelling and product related prize Integrate viral referral mechanics Post contest engagement drives sales
- 22. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Recommended Tool – Gleam.io
- 23. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) PAID ADVERTISING
- 24. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Paid Advertising Generate signups Test pitch or tagline Test new feature ideas Test value propositions
- 25. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Paid Advertising - Mint
- 26. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Paid Advertising - Groupon
- 27. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Paid Advertising - Groupon
- 28. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) SOCIAL NETWORKS
- 29. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Social Networks (competitor followers) STEP I : Manual Following Ok Approach Good Approach Best Approach
- 30. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Social Networks STEP II : Interaction
- 31. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Social Networks STEP III : Conversion (Twitter Cards)
- 32. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) CONTENT MARKETING
- 33. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) STRATEGY: Content rich personal finance blog for young professionals RESULTS: • Blog became #1 in personal finance. By the time of launch, Mint had more traffic than all other personal finance sites combined • 20K+ email addresses collected within 9 months Content Marketing – Mint.com
- 34. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Content Marketing – Mint.com User Generated Guest Posts Blogger Interviews Email Signup after each post
- 35. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Infographics Content Marketing – Mint.com
- 36. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Content Marketing – Mint.com
- 37. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) PRE-LAUNCH PLATFORMS
- 38. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Pre-Launch Platforms
- 39. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Q&A AND FORUM MARKETING
- 40. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Q&A and Forum Marketing
- 41. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Quora in Numbers Approx. 500 views 48.5% conversion from Quora to page views 50 conversions 20% conversion from page view to signup Cost: $0; 30 minutes of searching and writing
- 42. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) OFFLINE COMMUNITY BUILDING
- 43. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Offline Community Building Meetup.com
- 44. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) PR & INFLUENCER MARKETING
- 45. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) PR & Influencer Marketing Highly Targeted (Raspberry Pi)
- 46. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) PR & Influencer Marketing Somewhat Targeted (TheNextWeb)
- 47. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) PR & Influencer Marketing “You have to build relationships with bloggers and influencers before you need them, not when you need them!” Outreach and Relationship Building
- 48. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) PR & Influencer Marketing Outreach and Relationship Building 1) Identify Influencers 2) Follow them and add them to your Twitter lists 3) Set up lists as streams in Hootsuite 4) Reach out to 2-3 influencers per day
- 49. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) PR & Influencer Marketing Outreach and Relationship Building
- 50. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) PR & Influencer Marketing Outreach and Relationship Building
- 51. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) PR & Influencer Marketing Source: https://blog.gleam.io/prelaunch/ How relevant is the audience How much traffic are they likely to send Have you developed and maintained a good relationship
- 52. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) BUT…. USER ACQUISITION IS JUST THE BEGINNING
- 53. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia)@Growthhackasia (Growth Hacking Asia) The Growth Hacking Funnel Optimize Optimize Optimize Optimize Optimize RESULT: SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
- 54. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Viddy is a social video application that enables its users to capture, edit, and share videos, photos, and collages with friends. Don’t make Viddy’s mistake
- 55. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) Sole Focus on User Acquisition
- 56. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) No Activation, No Retention – No Growth
- 57. @Growthhackasia (Growth HackingAsia) THANKS Reach me at: Email: Anna@growthhackingasia.com Website: http://growthhackingasia.com Twitter: @growthhackasia @startupanna
Editor's Notes
- #3 This is where we come in. We connect you with leading growth marketing experts from around the world for advice, we train you in digital marketing and growth hacking and if you don’t have time to do it yourself, we can also do it for you. We support you in all stages, so everything from pre-launch, to launch, early stage and growth stage. So if you have a startup and are struggling with how to grow it, just grab Sky or myself later and we’ll help
- #4 Once you have a product or service ready, you face one of the biggest challenges of a startup which is “how do you actually build your userbase and retain those users?” This is where we come in. We connect you with leading growth marketing experts from around the world for advice, we train you in digital marketing and growth hacking and if you don’t have time to do it yourself, we can also do it for you. We support you in all stages, so everything from pre-launch, to launch, early stage and growth stage. So if you have a startup and are struggling with how to grow it, just grab Sky or myself later and we’ll help
- #8 Refine your pitch. It takes time and tests to generate a message that strongly resonates and converts the most customers. Validate a product market fit. If you can’t convert people to leave their email address, you’re going to have a pretty hard time charging them money. Uncover distribution channels. Try directing traffic to your landing page from a number of sources and find out which source generates the most leads. FIND CUSTOMERS. I’ll repeat… This will take LONGER than you think. Start now or face the doom of launching to crickets… especially if this is your first new product.
- #10 Include a demo video to increase conversions by 10-20%. If you can’t include a video, think about including screenshots or interactive demos (if applicable). Use directional cues (e.g., arrows) to point visitors in the right direction. Narrow the options. Avoid outbound links. Make the next step as obvious as possible. Use numbered lists over plain bullets. Odd numbers perform better than even numbers. Keep your keywords in mind and use them in your copy to attract organic traffic. Keep it simple! Don’t use big words, and don’t use a design that’s too “busy,” etc. You want the page to be “scannable”. Don’t forget about color psychology. Use visual blocking. Breaking up the page with design and color contrast helps to organize it. The main image. This likely will be the first thing your visitors will notice, so choose wisely. The call to action. This has to demand attention. It’s the ultimate conversion point. The headline. Tie the headline into the landing page referral source (e.g., ad copy, HelloBar copy) to confirm visitors are in the right place. The benefits. Always list benefits over features. Use bullet points or numbered lists here to increase readability. The proof. You’ll want to note any guarantees, security certificates, and social proof. Highlight positive tweets or your 100% satisfaction guarantee. ALWAYS A/B Test Make the first call to action clear. The sign up area should be distinctly visible from the rest of the page. It shouldn’t blend because a user is NOT going to hunt around for it. Only collect the information you ABSOLUTELY need. The longer a form users see the LESS likely they are to complete it. Limit form fields by asking only for essential information. Preferably, an email address should be all you ask for. Include an incentive. People like to know that they are getting something out of giving up their email address. You can even use early access as an incentive for signing up. Use outgoing links sparingly. Anything that takes them away from the page before they have completed the goal is an unnecessary distraction. You probably have a great blog, an awesome Facebook Page, and a lot more information somewhere… but if I start clicking around I’m not going to come back to fill out the form. Don’t put social links on the launch page… why would people share without even knowing what they’re getting? Include these, but only after they decide to sign up. No 3rd party branding. Make sure that the page is about your business. Don’t allow 3rd party links to steal visitors away from your page. Reward sign ups with more information. Once people have signed up, you can feed them more information. The thank you message and email is where you can push them to your blog, a longer video, or to a survey you want them to fill out.
- #11 Social proof of all others that want the product Create Exclusivity Ask for shares and create a viral loop Reason to come back and see how your place in line changed – Reengage users
- #13 Referral thank you page Know what social networks your customers use Know what kind of incentive they want – ideally product related
- #14 Closed Virtual Loop: We looped over referral program via e-mails; which kept the sharer/referrer informed on his progress. This added credence for us and gently nudged the user to keep on sharing. Mailer stats: Average Open Rate: 64% | Click Rate: 31% Our referral program stats: Referral Traffic: 59.68% | Referral Signups: 81.8%
- #20 He set up his campaign to take advantage of the wide range of actions that we support. These actions directly mirrored his objective to increase reach across the main 3 social networks: Facebook, Instagram & Twitter. Rohan also used our Viral Share entry method to drive additional traffic from friends of entrants, this works by giving each user their own unique trackable link they can give to friends. The more friends that they refer, the more entries they get.
- #27 Groupon started in Chicago but it would often expand to new cities based on how well the invite lists were performing. Groupon would allow users to sign up in cities where it hadn’t launched. For Groupon to be successful in a new city form Day 1, it needed enough number of consumers in the new cities to make deals tip. Hence, Groupon would closely track cities where the maximum number of consumers had signed up and would launch its marketplace in those cities, allowing it to hit substantial traction from the start. Groupon successfully expanded into a third market: New York. By this time, says an employee, "we kind of had the playbook we needed to open in another city, another city, another city." Groupon knew, for example, exactly how much to invest in advertising in order to build a sizable subscriber list in a new market.
- #28 Groupon started in Chicago but it would often expand to new cities based on how well the invite lists were performing. Groupon would allow users to sign up in cities where it hadn’t launched. For Groupon to be successful in a new city form Day 1, it needed enough number of consumers in the new cities to make deals tip. Hence, Groupon would closely track cities where the maximum number of consumers had signed up and would launch its marketplace in those cities, allowing it to hit substantial traction from the start. Groupon successfully expanded into a third market: New York. By this time, says an employee, "we kind of had the playbook we needed to open in another city, another city, another city." Groupon knew, for example, exactly how much to invest in advertising in order to build a sizable subscriber list in a new market.
- #31 communication with people who are interested in what you have to offer. Don’t let this become a rote copy-paste script – not only because Twitter will ban you, but because this is an unparalleled opportunity to engage in an authentic, one-on-one conversation with a would-be user. And there are lists and lists of them. Think about it: lists and lists of people who are probably interested in what you have to offer. Doing this we have found not only people who are interested, but people who are advocates and a little bit obsessed about the little company we’re building (have you ever had anyone tell you they encouraged their mosque to pray for your Twitter stream)?
- #32 Twitter Cards are an easy way to allow a Twitter user to perform an action without actually leaving the Twitter interface. With one click they can even create accounts on your system with one click. Or they can join an email list. Earlier I recommended tweeting “#SEO #social #socialmediamarketing #SEM#socialmedia SEO social media marketing.” I could hypothetically respond to everyone that tweets that particular tweet and give them a Twitter card to sign up for future chapters of The Hacker’s Guide to User Aquisition. Or I could push them to Amazon to buy the full book (once it’s released). Or I could just follow them, favorite the tweet, and have a cool new way to know who is actually reading what I write. I’m not doing anything with it yet, but you should.
- #34 Our app didn’t have a high viral coefficient but we had content that was. Our infographics and popular articles became regular hits on Digg, Reddit, etc.”
- #35 Trainwreck Tuesday: Featuring disasters in personal finance, readers were encouraged to submit their own What’s in your Wallet: interviews with people, e.g. what card do you use Q&As: Q&A sessions with personal finance bloggers Guest posts: personal finance bloggers wrote free posts to be published on the Mint blog for a backlink Infographics
- #36 Because of their quality content, they attract a lot of social attention. Mint’s infographics are especially popular on Reddit. I’ve listed a few of their popular submissions. Notice the “points” the infographics have generated. More points essentially means people like it and more people will see it.
- #42 Approx 500 views on my answer in Quora242 views on Homepage (Organimi.com and not the landing page for the signup)48.5% conversion from Quora to page views.And 50 conversions.That’s a 20% conversion from page view to signup.Cost: $0 and 30 minutes of searching and writing.
- #44 Founders should have a list of all the big relevant events to their potential customers and be there. Don’t confuse this with being at tech events. If your product is a tool to help authors self-publish online, go to the events that THOSE people will be at. Publishing conferences. Etc.
- #46 How relevant is the readership to your target audience? Let’s use the example of the Kano, a personal computer that anyone can build themselves. They hold the record for one of the most popular Kickstarter campaigns of all time. If you look at the sites they are getting press from you can see that many are highly relevant to their product (Tech, Computers or Rasberry Pi). How relevant is the readership to your target audience? Let’s use the example of the Kano, a personal computer that anyone can build themselves. They hold the record for one of the most popular Kickstarter campaigns of all time. If you look at the sites they are getting press from you can see that many are highly relevant to their product (Tech, Computers or Rasberry Pi). Ensuring that your startup outreach is relevant to your product is crucial for early traction Tweet
- #47 How relevant is the readership to your target audience? Let’s use the example of the Kano, a personal computer that anyone can build themselves. They hold the record for one of the most popular Kickstarter campaigns of all time. If you look at the sites they are getting press from you can see that many are highly relevant to their product (Tech, Computers or Rasberry Pi). How relevant is the readership to your target audience? Let’s use the example of the Kano, a personal computer that anyone can build themselves. They hold the record for one of the most popular Kickstarter campaigns of all time. If you look at the sites they are getting press from you can see that many are highly relevant to their product (Tech, Computers or Rasberry Pi). Ensuring that your startup outreach is relevant to your product is crucial for early traction Tweet
- #48 Technorati, GroupHigh, Followerwonk Make early social media connections: Bloggers, reviewers, shout out pages Even if you’ve only got a launch page/simple landing page for email gathering, you can still begin to build media relationships. Start by either building a comprehensive directory of your media contacts, organized by channel, size, and type, or actually reaching out to them, preparing reviews/giveaways for your first month’s launch. Remember that you’ve chosen these influencers for a specific reason: they’re compelling and relate to your brand! Don’t be afraid to compliment them and point out a few things you love about their channel/blog. I always suggest building a strong rapport with influencers, not just for media purposes, but because they often are great people who will really value your brand and can be a great source of feedback and inspiration.
- #51 Comment – Share – Have Conversations If you have a blogger event coming up in 90 days, you need to start building relationships with potential invitees TODAY, not 15 days out from the event. Read the blog every day. Comment on blog posts (add value, don’t just say “great post”). Tweet blog posts. Google + blog posts. Linkedin share blog posts. Interact on Twitter with the blogger when he/she poses a humorous, semi-rhetorical question. The objective is to make damn sure that when you need to get on the bloggers’ radar for real, she recognizes your name and your avatar. Once you’ve found your bloggers, it’s time to get your flirt on. If time permits before starting the campaign, add these bloggers on Twitter and other social media profiles and stay up to date with their updates. I especially think commenting on their blog posts is effective, and Twitter and Google+ (gasp!) have been my favorite social media sites to communicate with bloggers. You can share the bloggers’ content and make comments with your thoughts. It shows you care and there’s nothing wrong with a little ego boost, especially in the beginning of a relationship.
- #54 Find process to find combination of things that work for you, not somebody else Use tactics you read and hear about as inspiration and input, not as something to copy GH is actually a long process, only looks easy once you’ve found the things that work It is a result of a sum of hundreds of actions e.g. hotmail - not enough to get people to the site, they need to sign up and stay
- #55 Instagram for Videos
- #56 Find process to find combination of things that work for you, not somebody else Use tactics you read and hear about as inspiration and input, not as something to copy GH is actually a long process, only looks easy once you’ve found the things that work It is a result of a sum of hundreds of actions e.g. hotmail - not enough to get people to the site, they need to sign up and stay
- #57 Viddy, the formerly popular video sharing app, grew rapidly by getting users to sign up using their Facebook accounts and then sharing Viddy with all their friends. However, Viddy never nailed activation. Many of the users who signed up never came back. Thus, when Facebook put a stop to their friend-blasting user-acquisition approach, they went into a tailspin from which they haven’t recovered. Problem – account created was metric for success