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As you begin to launch your MVP and embark on your lean marketing campaign, one key target group that you always want to keep in mind is the early adopter. In a nutshell, early adopters are the people that buy into your vision right off the bat. Whether it’s a supportive buy-in or a monetary one, the points are the same—this is someone that you want by your side for the long haul. Early adopters are one of the most critical target groups you can win over as a startup—don’t overlook them.
So how can you identify and target people likely to become early adopters for your startup? Well, from an individual perspective and speaking strictly to their personality, these are people that have no fear about pushing the envelope and staying on the cutting edge of progress. They are bored with the status quo and only have their eyes set on the next thing, not the same thing. In essence, they are kindred spirits to the startup mentality—ready to take a chance and make breakthroughs rather than sit back and hedge their bets. Some might call early adopters gamblers or risk-takers and they’d probably be right.
But you can’t very well go out there and advertise for risk-takers and gamblers on your landing page, can you? Well, of course you can—it’s your startup! But perhaps a more effective way to go about pinpointing your target group would be to look for positions in industry that are conducive to this way of thinking. Jobs that involve taking risk in order to obtain reward are perfect places to start looking for early adopters—even better if that job has capital or reason to make investments, monetary or otherwise.
This means looking for venture capitalists, purchasing managers, and executive or managerial recruiters. These are the people that are more willing to—at the very least—lend you their ear or time because it holds potential profit and benefit for them. And that’s something you need to take into serious consideration when attracting your early adopters—they want to get something out of it.
So give it to them! Offer your early adopters incentive to adopt—don’t just hard sell them on your idea. Provide some tangible “early bird” benefits and really lock them in. This could be financial incentives further down the line or membership benefits for an insider’s club. After all, these are the type of people that not only want to get in on the ground floor of an innovative startup—they also want to let everyone know about it and that’s what makes your growth hacking so much easier.
When your early adopters can be converted into your biggest cheerleaders, your growth starts to tumble out of your hands and begins to snowball—in a good way! These are the types of people you want on your side—they are actively sharing on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. They are blasting out emails about their latest find. They’re discussing it in the office and over lunch. Plus, if you offer them incentive to share as well, then you’ve got the makings of the perfect self-growth hacking business model.
There is one catch with this dream scenario, however—early adopters tend to be very cynical, holding long memories. These might not be the best people to try big pivots on. This means they want data, they want personalized treatment and most of all, they want results. To find out more on the best ways to communicate with early adopters, click here right now.
