This document provides strategies for early customer growth. It recommends researching influencers to get in front of real people, then tracking contacts and doing personalized outreach. The key is getting that first sale, then using email marketing to encourage repeat purchases through upsells, cross-sells and flash sales. It also advises talking to initial customers to learn how to improve the offering and encourage growth through referrals and social connections. Resources from the Shopify blog and manual are recommended to accelerate skills.

1. Growth Strategies
Early traction strategies
that make sense

2. HOW DO YOU PLAN TO ACQUIRE
YOUR FIRST CUSTOMER?

3. WHAT’S YOUR OVERALL CUSTOMER
ACQUISITION STRATEGY?

4. For early growth, you need to answer
a handful of questions…

5. 1. How can I be guaranteed to get in front of real people?
2. How am I going to get that real person to buy from me a
second, third and fourth time?
3. How can I get them to buy from me that second time as
quickly as possible?
4. What else can I do with the customer relationship that will
encourage growth?

6. How do I get in front of real people?

7. Get comfortable with 5 things
1. Researching people with reach (bloggers, reviewers, social media
"influencers", group admins, etc) & figuring out their contact info.
2. Reaching out and figuring out a way to work together.
3. Hearing "no"
4. Being ignored.
5. Going back to 1.

8. How can we do this?
‣ Google search
‣ Sonar.bottlenose.com
‣ Topsy.com
‣ reddit.com/domain/www.blahblah.com

9. Start a spreadsheet…
KEEP TRACK OF THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION
Domain, contact info, whether they reply and the
offer you’re making together
BUILD THE INITIAL SPREADSHEET TO CONTAIN AT
LEAST 50 CONTACTS
Bonus points: create a "secret" list on Twitter that
tracks their activity.

10. Do outreach
‣ This is where it comes down to your own
personal experience and style.
‣ I can't tell you the "best" way to do outreach,
because that's like saying what's the "best" way to
telephone. There is no one right way.

11. THE MORE RESEARCH YOU DO,
THE BETTER EQUIPPED YOU’LL BE

12. TRY AND GET A SENSE OF THE
COMMUNITY’S DYNAMIC

13. DON’T BE AFRAID TO BE HONEST
ABOUT BEING A NEW BUSINESS

14. Example: Hello Matcha Tea

16. THERE WILL BE PEOPLE WHO TELL YOU “NO”,
BUT SOME PEOPLE WILL SAY “YES”

17. How do I get the second,
third and fourth sale?

18. (WAIT, WHY AM I NOT FOCUSING ON
GETTING THE FIRST SALE?)

23. SO HOW CAN YOU GET PEOPLE TO COME
BACK AND SPEND SO MUCH MORE?

24. 1. HAVE AN EMAIL MARKETING STRATEGY THAT GIVES PEOPLE
A REASON TO BUY AGAIN
‣ Up sells
‣ Cross-sells
‣ Logical second purchases
‣ Flash sales
2. TALK WITH YOUR INITIAL CUSTOMERS TO LEARN ABOUT WHAT
THE LIKE/DON'T LIKE ABOUT CURRENT PROVIDERS.
‣ What about you?
‣ What almost made them not buy?
‣ Working with your existing customers will help you to further
develop your offering

25. What else can you do with the customer
relationship to encourage growth?

26. THIS CAN INCLUDE…
Refer a friend program
Encourage them to connect to social channels
Ask them for feedback on a content strategy

27. Resources

28. Shopify Blog
“How to Choose an Ecommerce
Business Model”
“The Importance of Focus for Your
Ecommerce Business and How to
Achieve It”
“3 Ecommerce Trends You Need to
Know for a Profitable 2015”
Free tools and resources to accelerate your skills and success

29. Shopify Manual
A collection of useful guides to help you use Shopify

30. Shopify Experts
Browse our top experts: Designers, Developers, Setup
Experts, Marketers, Photographers

31. Shopify Support
support@shopify.com ● 1-888-shopify ● live chat
A dedicated support team - available 24/7

32. Q&A