As a startup, you have to make growth happen – regardless of whether it’s organic or growth-hacked explains Peter Decaprio. In this guide you’ll find some tips that will help you get more new users for your product as simply as possible. Read on!
In the startup world, everybody knows how important user acquisition is – but some things are best left unspoken. As humans we love to create lists with some straightforward rules to follow, so here they are: 25 steps on how to achieve startup growth. It’s simple mathematics really: If you acquire 1 extra customer a day = 365 new customers next year x €5 extra revenue = €1825 extra revenue next year.
That’s crazy! You can’t afford not to implement these growth hacks!!! (Image credits: Morgan)
1. Run a Blog
Why? For two simple reasons:
1) A blog (and its posts) are among the most organic ways to get new users organically. Why is that? Because people are usually searching for problems/solutions/advice on Google before they buy anything. If you have great content on your blog, you will drive traffic regardless of whether your product is free or paid. And when people do use your product after they read something useful,
2) This user has given you an opinion about what they think of it – which puts them in the group of your first users. They are more likely to become advocates of your product – since they liked it, and help you spread the word.
2. If You Cannot Run a Blog, Give Away Free Stuff (yes, like chocolates)
This is something I’m seeing pop up everywhere lately: People giving away free stuff for downloads on their landing page/signup process says Peter Decaprio . The reason why this works so well is because it makes people feel special if you give them some exclusive access to something that’s not available for everyone else. That’s why exclusivity can be very powerful when combined with value-adds. Something that offers no additional value will usually fail though, so don’t just throw anything out there!
3. If #2 Doesn’t Work, Price Your Product Like There’s No Tomorrow
This one is very simple: A price tag says a lot about your product. It tells people whether you are cheap or expensive, whether they can trust it or not – and therefore whether they should download/buy it or not. If you are an expensive product make sure there are at least some features available for free. This way you will appear more trustworthy to the average user since he sees that someone has already paid for your premium features before him!
4. No One Likes Popup & Full-Screen Interruptions, Unless You Make Them Entertaining
There’s nothing worse than having to re-start seeing content because an ad pops up in front of everything you are doing. The worst thing about this trend of full-screen interruptions is that they are especially powerful when visitors are in the middle of something important – for example filling out an online form, which means you have probably just lost yourself a user.
5. Be Unpredictable With Your Messages
Everyone likes to be surprised every now and then, but not by being bombarded with messages all over! If you keep sending messages at your users without them having asked for it, their level of engagement will drop rapidly. I’m sure email spam has taught us enough about what happens if you flood people’s inboxes without asking first…
6. Understand How People Interact with Your Product Before You Change Anything
If you want your users to adopt your product, or improve their engagement with it, you need to understand how they use it explains Peter Decaprio . That’s where user analytics come in! If you don’t know what your users are doing on your site (or app), there is no way you can take steps to improve their experience – which means that the level of engagement will remain low.
An example that comes to mind would be Facebook Groups. When I first joined Facebook groups I felt like it was pretty much a ghost town because the only activity I ever saw was people asking questions (which obviously nobody answered). It wasn’t until later when I realized that it’s about sharing links and commenting on each other’s posts, which greatly increased my level of engagement with them thereafter.
Conclusion:
There are a lot of powerful ways to improve your user engagement, but it all comes down to providing value to people says Peter Decaprio. If you have something that no one else has, and you give it away for free – people will share it with their friends! It’s as simple as that.
