I've built my product. Now how do I get customers?
I've spent the last 10 months building a product to help salons manage their businesses. Throughout the development process I've been spending time with salon owners, salon managers and stylists to make sure my product does what it needs to do.
I'm now at a point where I believe my product is usable. Out of the several stylists I've been talking to, two are in my target market (my target market is one-person salons, for starters), and one of these stylists has agreed to use the product to manage her salon.
How can I go about finding more customers? At this point I'm not even charging for the product. I'm giving 10 accounts away for free.
If you're curious about my product, this is my public site: http://sniphq.com/ Thanks,
Jason
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Just a quick note: I wouldn't put the "9 free accounts left out of 10" message on the page. As a prospective customer, I'm likely to revisit your page, and seeing that no-one has claimed a free account since my last visit would put me off. Put something like "We're giving away free accounts, get yours now before they run out". – Laundro Mat 13 years ago
3 Answers
Hi Jason first ask all your present contacts whom you met to use your system .
Once they start using and they feel comfortable you can either meet directly or send an emails and show these guys as part of marketing.
FYI: My personal feeling salon is in to style and makeover sector and the UI design i feel is not very attractive and good for a fashion sector.
coming to first few users you need to convince them a lot as how this will be helpful to them. Meet as many people as possible and promote your product with man to man marketing. then get in to web and use social media and look at the saloon's which uses social media and chance of those saloons using your product will be very good.Target them
Prepare an answer first about why they should use this site and why not telephone booking which is followed now . This concept is not designed to kill pain of customers .....it only helps people to make things in a better way so lot of customers will ask why this when we are following that so kindly work as much as possible on this answer.
Should of done what Bill Gates did ... get a customer before you have the product :)
You need test cases for sure. But make sure you invoice them - but give them a credit note too for the same value. At least that way your test customers will really value what you "give" them.
Get testimonials with specifics. "My business increased by 219.65% thanks to _.
Then you buy/ build a list.. do some marketing... get some sales... rinse and repeat :)
Remember your NO:YES Ratio ... No one has a 0:1 ... If you get 99:1 Than expect 99 "No"s for every "yes". This ratio will start out "Bad" and will improve.
I would recommend reading "make your words sell" by ken envoy - Although a book about web copy , I've followed that advice on marketing many products with great success. (the book is free). http://myws.sitesell.com
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Not useful ... How ? – Sunil 13 years ago
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i dont think this is very much useful post – Bhanu Prasad 13 years ago
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@bhanu What part ? – Sunil 13 years ago
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your answer caters to only one sector of business and this business works only during bill gates time not at this moment – Bhanu Prasad 13 years ago
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@bhanuprasad What sector do you think that is then? And finding a customer before you have a product works even today... in fact that's an important mindset. People are so intent on building a better product X or Y, getting an office, stationary... spending hours doing all that when they should of built a business system to get sales. You don't have a business if you don't have sales. My comment about testimonials holds valid. My comment about invoicing customer even though it's free holds weight. The ratios are important, and the book is not about the web! Down vote away. – Sunil 13 years ago
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+1 Although perhaps not expressed as well as it could be, I think Sunil makes some valid points. I have grave doubts about Site Build It though. – Susan Jones 13 years ago
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I didn't promote site build it.. the book is awesome :) – Sunil 13 years ago
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@bhanuprasad No Answer ? – Sunil 13 years ago
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i am back just now and i am not cvonvinced with your explanation .................the app which he built is not curing anyone pain and he is just making it for free hand and whatever you are telling is not valid.for atleast this web app – Bhanu Prasad 13 years ago
The pipeline you will go through to get customers is:
- Inform customer about sniphq
- Customer visits your website
- Customer signs up for a trial on your website
Honestly I think your biggest problem right now is step number 2. I am all for launching minimum viable products, but I think your website is too underdone. I don't know if you are a designer or not, but it doesn't really matter, if you spend 1 week of your time improving the website and adding content, it will have big improvements to your conversion rates.
I am guessing you don't have much to spend on advertising, so you aren't going to have a big number of people hitting your site, you really can't avoid to have terribly low conversion rates.
As for your question, I don't think you really wanted to know my thoughts on #2, really you wanted to know how to get people to your site. I would suggest the following:
- Cold call as many salons as you can, they can only say no.
- Turn up at as many salons as you can with laptop/demo in hand, they can only say no.
- Spend whatever you can on CPC advertising
- Find forums that stylists visit and post about your product
I would really improve your website first though before trying to get eyes on it.
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I agree, I look at your site and it looks like its something that would appeal to boring male corporate programmers managing Java projects. I would get some pictures of hot women with nice hairstyles, and nice interior salon pictures. I would even go as far as having articles written about the salon business, hot new products, etc. Goto a site like Odesk and get a template done for a salon/beauty shop by a woman. You don't have to give them the idea, tell them its for a blog. Then you can use the layout throughout your site. I also suggest a facebook presence with a fanapage for your site. – Len 13 years ago
