I have been consulting with several small and mid-sized business since launching The Marketing Sage Consulting in July. One of the most frequent pieces of advice I share is an idea I think of as marketing to 10 people. It is a simple way, especially for startups, to think about marketing.
Instead of trying to reach everyone in your target audience, start with ten people. See if your product or service successfully meets the need of just ten customers. Give yourself 100 days to sell, reach and talk with 10 customers. Create a continuous loop of information from this base of customers to help guide your product or service.
Marketing to Ten People
- Starting with ten customers (in a reasonable time frame like 100 days), allows you to stay focused.
- It provides you with a chance to get deep market knowledge first-hand from real, live human beings.
- You can offer them something extra and special to share a little time with you, but you must get their objective feedback.
- Is your product easy to use?
- Did it solve the problem they expected?
- What did they do before they found your product to solve this problem? (What are you replacing?)
- What’s wrong with the product (service)?
- How would they describe this product to someone else who might have a similar need?
- Was the product priced right- was it what they expected to pay for this type of solution?
- Would they share this information with friends? How? Why?
- If they could make this product even better, what would they do differently?
Continuous Loop
Ten conversations are a manageable number of individuals to help you get first-hand feedback. If you are truly honest, you are listening to what is said NOT to what you want to hear. This real-world focus group of users will help you know if your product will succeed with the next ten people. If the product is for both men and women, young and old, single and married, you should try to get a representative sample in your first ten customers who you interview. But, this is just a first step to learning if you are onto the right idea. This qualitative research can be augmented with quantitative research at a future date when you can survey hundreds of customers who may be even more representative of the target audience.
You also don’t want to do this when the product is perfect. The MVP (minimum viable product) allows you to get market feedback quickly even if it is with an imperfect prototype or sample. It gets you insights quickly and can help you refine your product by removing features, simplifying the order process, rethinking a feature or making a change that allows the product to fit your customer’s lifestyle or needs.
Start with ten people. Put a timeline on the research and keep adapting to the feedback.
A continuous loop of input is an invaluable need for a business startup, a new product launch or to take a brand to a new level.
Need help getting your new business or product launch off the ground? Let’s go for a ride together on the loop di loop. Call or text me at 919 720 0995 or email me to chat at jeffreylynnslater@gmail.com
Photo credit: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/det1994012667/PP/
