OK here’s a juicy growth conundrum

[louna]

I have a client that needs to see growth fast.

It’s a B2B and B2C marketplace.

The tech is about to launch in beta and they’ve got roughly 12 months to get their first customers.

They don’t have budget for Google ads or a highly experienced marketing guru.

It’ll most likely be just one person (me) working on growth, combined with maybe some help from an intern and help from our CEO.

What tactics/channels/methods/magic tricks would you suggest?

P.R hacking? Start a podcast? Cold outreach? Run around Times Square naked?

All suggestions welcome.

 

[saisigh]

@louna Cold calling.

Cold email.

Write unique and insightful content.

Tiktok/other potential viral platform

 

[drschools]

@saisigh Cold email? How do you get cold emails without creating your own email list of some sort? One that people sign up to.

 

[redcrambler]

@drschools Phantombuster or similar

 

[drschools]

@redcrambler Cheers

 

[caterine]

@louna Is the marketplace on web?

 

[louna]

@caterine yes

 

[caterine]

@louna SEO it takes awhile but it works for the long term

 

[smithe7]

@louna Have they validated their approach to GTM yet?

 

[annaboleyn]

@smithe7 What does that mean?

 

[bugpowder]

@annaboleyn Go to Market. Asking if they've done anything to validate that their marketing channels are viable - limited-run ad campaigns to check keyword cost/CTR, identifying relevant online communities and evaluating their interest, responses from existing mailing list subscribers, research and surveys etc etc

 

[smithe7]

@bugpowder Exactly this; you cannot grow unless you know who you're trying to grow with.

 

[veyhenlo]

@louna They are launching in beta and trying to get their first customers, they should not be running paid ads even if they had the budget for it! Need to validate PMF.

 

[runningwithfire]

@louna You said this is a marketplace. Do you mean a multisided marketplace where you need to both attract the supply and demand side? This is a super hard problem and you should do some research on it if you even want to stand a chance. Even then growing a platform from an early stage is super hard because of the chicken and egg problem - why would suppliers join your platform if there are no customers, and why would customers join your platform if there are no suppliers. Most platforms grow through targeting and owning a small niche and expanding from their (Facebook and Harvard, AirBnB and San Fransisco). Also, they often subsidise or provide one of the sides to "cold-start" the platform (Reddit and the founders using multiple accounts to feed the suuply-side, Uber and massive investment into advertising to build the demand-side)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_economy could be an interesting place to start. But I don't have any great recommendations as I got in the hard way through reading academic papers. Tiwana 2013 is a seminal book in the field - but it's more related to software platforms (where you sell software like on Android, iOS, Windows) and less on transaction platforms (where you sell products or services like Ebay, Amazon, Fiverr).

Keywords:

• Platforms
• Platform ecosystems
• Transaction platforms
• Innovation platforms
• Platform strategy

Or you're just using the word "marketplace" colloquially and I miss the mark completely.

 

[louna]

@runningwithfire It will have a small range of suppliers to begin with. So we'll be open for business from day 1. From what I've been told by the client, the goal is to grow the supplier base first.

 

[waverly]

@louna Without knowing much about what the product is...here is some general advice:

With little to no budget, my suggestion for outreach is cold emailing and Linkedin prospecting (sending connection requests and messages).

However, outreach won't matter if you don't have a great offer. Since you're starting off, I'd think of an offer they can't refuse.

After you you've built an irresistible offer, you'll need to work on a short pitch (USP) to catch prospects' attention.

Hope this helps.

 

[louna]

@waverly thanks!

 

[worshipguitar]

@louna Give us a bit more info and I guess we could help more.

Like what industry?

As other have said, B2Bwise LinkedIn and a scraping tool like Phantombuster + Lusha/VoilaNorbert will help.

For both B2C/B2B, if you're short on money, SEO can be your go-to strategy, but it's not usually a growth hack (though many gurus claim it to be), it will take time and good content production (or a lot of editing on AI generated content). Also this really depends on the industry, as I wouldn't take as granted that your leads are on organic rather than other channels. If the latter was the case you would be spending your few resources on the wrong channel.

 

[louna]

@worshipguitar It's in the NFT space. Yes, a tricky industry right now!

It's B2B and B2C in the sense that both institutions and individuals would be using the platform.

They've already published a few blogs so the SEO game might be slightly easier since we'd be focusing more on backlinks/distribution.

 

[worshipguitar]

@louna Mmmm, indeed a tricky industry it is. Especially after the latest crashes (Luna, FTX, etc., not to mention Logan Paul's debacle with his NFT project).

I worked in the NFT space for a while though (it's been almost a year so I may be a bit out fo the loop).

Back when I was working with this NFT agency (I guess you're into building some kind of NFT platform, so smart contracts etc., what blockchain? Ethereum? Solana?) we got leads in 2 ways:

1-Twitter (B2B+B2C) + Discord (B2C)

2-organic, content related to the NFT space, such as Gas prices, interviews to successful creators. We also had some decently converting service page that was ranking well for "NFT agency" so that's how we got most of the traffic.

3-To understand what keywords you want to target right now for B2C NFT space, I'd say Reddit and Twitter + Discord are good places to carry out customer research and then extract topics to cover. B2Bwise it's more difficult...I'd need to understand what exactly you're planning, based on that you would have to create a good product page that ranks for the main product keyword, such as "NFT platform" (which, btw, it's super difficult to rank for, so you'll need time to work on topical authority while ranking for related low hanging fruits in the meanwhile).