You’re a small company with a new product that you know is going to turn the industry on it’s ear. Everyone will want to use your product and you’ll be rich overnight…if you can just get the word out fast and effectively. Well, you have it half right. Get the word out effectively, but the fast part may not be necessary or even a good idea.
Two negatives are associated with that:
- You never want to grow your business too fast
- Getting the word out too quickly could cause a major stir and rapid adaptation of your product before you’re ready and able to support that large of a customer base
So, how do you do it…how do you get the word out effectively and efficiently and grow your customer base for it in an appropriate fashion so that you’re not overloaded? There are three key ways to do this….
1. Offer an incentive to early adopters or beta testers. If you’re confident about your product and it’s potential impact and if you already have a good customer base, then offer this new product to them for free for a period of time and allow them to help you work through some of the kinks. You’re essentially getting extended testing for free – as long as the issues that come up aren’t so big that they kill the product and damage your customer following. And if it’s your first product, you can do the same thing, but you won’t have your current customer base to draw on – you’ll have to find those customers/testers. Mainly by shopping for them from competitors…it will be harder, but you’ll find them.
2. Do the press releases and whatever news or magazine print you can garner. Offer the info to any reasonable print publication you can. Who you contact about this will depend heavily upon what industry you’re in….but if you’re in the tech industry the amount of publications and press release sites out there are more than enough to help you effectively get the word out.
3. Offer guest articles to websites and blogs…post, post, post. You can create a buzz for your product just by writing your own article in your own words and offering it as a free guest post to any relevant site that will have you…and there are literally hundreds of sites that will allow this. Start doing this well in advance – perhaps even writing follow-up progress report articles on the product as your release approaches. Create anticipation in your potential user community. And, don’t forget to post about it on Twitter….often.
I originally authored this article for Real Deal Technologies here.
Two negatives are associated with that:
- You never want to grow your business too fast
- Getting the word out too quickly could cause a major stir and rapid adaptation of your product before you’re ready and able to support that large of a customer base
So, how do you do it…how do you get the word out effectively and efficiently and grow your customer base for it in an appropriate fashion so that you’re not overloaded? There are three key ways to do this….
1. Offer an incentive to early adopters or beta testers. If you’re confident about your product and it’s potential impact and if you already have a good customer base, then offer this new product to them for free for a period of time and allow them to help you work through some of the kinks. You’re essentially getting extended testing for free – as long as the issues that come up aren’t so big that they kill the product and damage your customer following. And if it’s your first product, you can do the same thing, but you won’t have your current customer base to draw on – you’ll have to find those customers/testers. Mainly by shopping for them from competitors…it will be harder, but you’ll find them.
2. Do the press releases and whatever news or magazine print you can garner. Offer the info to any reasonable print publication you can. Who you contact about this will depend heavily upon what industry you’re in….but if you’re in the tech industry the amount of publications and press release sites out there are more than enough to help you effectively get the word out.
3. Offer guest articles to websites and blogs…post, post, post. You can create a buzz for your product just by writing your own article in your own words and offering it as a free guest post to any relevant site that will have you…and there are literally hundreds of sites that will allow this. Start doing this well in advance – perhaps even writing follow-up progress report articles on the product as your release approaches. Create anticipation in your potential user community. And, don’t forget to post about it on Twitter….often.
I originally authored this article for Real Deal Technologies here.
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