Our main target group are researchers in life science &
biomedical research. Right now we have been live (as a beta) for couple of months and relied purely on organic growth (google search traffic) and didn't invest a dime into marketing, because we wanted to make sure that platform is stable.
Now, we want to turn into more aggressive marketing and not sure what strategy to embrace. We have two options (though, maybe not mutally exclusive).
Option 1: Posting information about our platform (maybe in a form of QA session) on reddit
Pros: get more visibility; speak to influencers in the field; get costractive criticism and opinions, get twitter re-twits (many reddit users are super active on twitter too); maybe get potetial customers contacts
Cons: competitors may find out about us and copy some of our know-how/features before penetrate market enough; it may not add any sales, because buyers (less techsavvy people who are our potetial customers) are not on reddit and likely are not on twitter (so we would waste time and efforts on not directly selling)
Option 2. Directly contact potential customers, do demo for them, get feedback and ask them for people they know who might find our platform useful.
Pros: direct interaction with potential customers; get customer requirements; higher chances of sales; competitors don't know about us before we are strong on the market
Cons: slow growth; slow market penetration; little awareness of our service
What do you think guys?
Anna
I would go for the direct client contact-approach for several reasons:
- It sounds like you are still searching for exact client requirements. You will get those from talking to the clients directly.
- You are not sure, whether your clients are enough tech-savvy that redd-it makes sense. This puts a significant downside to approach no 1, where you would let your competitors understand your product but risk having no clients.
So unless you need to create cashflow quickly, and therefore need to scale fast, I would go for the safer solution and interact with clients directly. No problem assessing their tech-savviness, so you can move to an electronic platform, where growth will be faster after you have made sure, that your clients will be there as well.
Let me note here, that the direct approach probably works best for b2b. b2c is hard work directly, so probably the webbased marketing would work there. But still the clients must be there, so you could start of with a b2c-test directly to gain knowledge.
Good luck with approaching your target group. If you would like more dialogue on this, I will be happy to talk more.
Best regards
Kenneth Wolstrup
Anna,
Love ❤️❤️❤️ that you've thought about the pros and cons of each option. I'd love to chat with you on this.
My question to you is why can't it be both? I don't see finance or money invested the issue listed. Both options time is the variable.
I noted that there's an assumption that Reddit option will just take off. Hopefully it does, but maybe it won't. In the event it does not go as plan (lack of engagement), I'd recommend doing both.
If for any reason, both is out of the question and either/or is our final opportunity. I'd go direct and be patient with organic growth. It will allow you to properly care for each and every one to one opportunity and address concerns on an individual basis.
I'd also recommend with this strategy that when you receive a big win (testimonial) I would video record the customer OR get a picture of them with a statement you can use and repurpose that win on a blog, social media, Slideshare etc. I would put those on as many FREE platforms that bandwidth can handle.
Feel free to call me or connect on my LinkedIn if you'd like more help.
Frankly: You're looking at this backwards.
Both of your approaches are based on interrupting a prospective customer rather than delivering value upfront and letting them knock on your door.
Not knowing your product, platform, or purpose, I assume that you offer some sort of solution to a problem facing customers?
Go out and answer every question on Quora, Clarity, MosaicHub, LinkedIn, Twitter and every forum where people are asking about the problem you solve. Answer their question and watch your traffic grow exponentially.
It is not about finding customer for your product, it is about offering the solution to their problem.
