When starting your new business, landing your first customers can be more challenging than expected. Securing those initial clients is a crucial milestone, proving there's demand for your product or service. In this post, we'll explore some practical, budget-friendly strategies to help you reach this milestone without breaking the bank.
Reach out to your network
If you already have people within your network whose problem your product solves, it's often the best place to start. Even if they are not interested in buying yet, their familiarity with you will make them more likely to offer valuable feedback during those critical early stages.
Post where your customers are
When done right, this is one of the most effective ways to acquire new customers without paid ads. Find relevant communities on Reddit and Quora and become active there. For example, imagine your business is a SaaS that helps salespeople generate more leads. You could write a comment on this post ("What are your favorite lead generation methods?") or even this ("What sales tools do you use? (Tech)") explaining what your product is and how it is better than what is already out there. Make sure each comment you leave on a post is genuinely helpful and directly answers the original poster's question. Nothing will damage your brand quicker than copying/pasting a comment on multiple posts, which can be seen as spam.
Send cold emails
Sending great cold emails still works, but it all comes down to how well-written the email is. For example, to get the very first Lynkle customers, we used HubSpot to send a short three-sentence email to real estate agents in Florida. Using HubSpot, we could track opens and traffic to our website from those emails. I will write a detailed post about writing effective cold emails in the near future.
Create a blog
You probably hear about this one all the time because it's very important. Writing a blog with relevant, high-quality content that is kept up to date for your customers is one of the most effective ways to help potential customers discover your product or service and drive traffic to your website. It usually takes 3-6 months to yield good results, so it's something that needs to be done in parallel with the other strategies. The key to success with content marketing is consistency and prioritizing quality over quantity.
Become active on one social media platform
The key here is to find one social media platform that is most relevant to your business and become active there. For example, if you're an E-Commerce business that sells women's fashion, Instagram or TikTok are the best places to start. If you are a B2B SaaS for small businesses, maybe LinkedIn is the best place for you to start. As is the case with blogs, consistency and quality of content is critical here. Select a cadence you can maintain, for example, starting with just one post per week and growing from there.
Influencer endorsements
Although I wouldn't recommend influencer marketing until you have some early traction and ironed out any issues with your new business, I find this to be a far more effective way to acquire new customers than paid ads. For example, for USD 100, you could find a collaborator to review/endorse your product or service on LinkedIn or Instagram. It could drive a lot of high-quality traffic to your website, but if you can't convert those visitors into customers, it's money down the drain. That's why you should focus on the other items on this list first.
