Traction - Channels and Funnels

Traction is basically quantitative evidence of customer demand.

You can always get more traction. The whole point of a startup is to grow rapidly. Getting traction means moving your growth curve up and to the right as best you can.

A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of “exit.” The only essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth.

Traction is growth. The pursuit of traction is what defines a startup.

After interviewing more than forty successful founders and researching countless more, we discovered that startups get traction through?nineteen different channels. Many successful startups experimented with multiple channels until they found one that worked.

We call these customer acquisition channels?traction channels. These are marketing and distribution channels through which your startup can get traction: real customer growth.

We uncovered two broad themes through our research. First, most founders consider using only traction channels with which they’re already familiar, or those they think they should be using because of their type of product or company. This means that far too many startups focus on the same channels and ignore other promising ways to get traction. In fact, often the most underutilized channels in an industry are the most promising ones.

Second, it’s hard to predict the traction channel that will work best. You can make educated guesses, but until you start running tests, it’s difficult to tell which channel is the best one for you right now.

When going through the traction channels, try your best not to dismiss them as irrelevant for your company. Each traction channel has worked for startups of all kinds and phases. As mentioned, the right channel is often an underutilized one. Get one channel working that your competitors dismiss, and you can grow rapidly while they languish.

1.) Targeting Blogs

Popular startups like Codecademy, Mint, and reddit all got their start by targeting blogs.

2.) Publicity

Publicity is the art of getting your name out there via traditional media outlets like newspapers, magazines, and TV.

3.) Unconventional PR

Unconventional PR involves doing something exceptional like publicity stunts to draw media attention. This channel can also work by repeatedly going above and beyond for your customers.

4.) Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing (SEM) allows companies to advertise to consumers searching on Google and other search engines.

5.) Social and Display Ads

Ads on popular sites like reddit, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and hundreds of other niche sites can be a powerful and scalable way to reach new customers.

6.) Offline Ads

Offline ads include TV spots, radio commercials, billboards, infomercials, newspaper and magazine ads, as well as flyers and other local advertisements. These ads reach demographics that are harder to target online, like seniors, less tech-savvy consumers, and commuters. Few startups use this channel, which means there’s less competition for many of these audiences.

7.) Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of making sure your Web site shows up for key search results.

8.) Content Marketing

Many startups have blogs. However, most don’t use their blogs to get traction.

9.) Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the best ways to convert prospects while retaining and monetizing existing customers.

10.) Engineering as Marketing

Using engineering resources to acquire customers is a significantly underutilized way to get traction. Successful companies have built microsites, developed widgets, and created free tools that drive thousands of leads each month.

11.) Viral Marketing

Viral marketing consists of growing your customer base by encouraging your customers to refer other customers.

12.) Business Development

Business development (BD) is the process of creating strategic relationships that benefit both your startup and your partner.

13.) Sales

Sales is focused primarily on creating processes to directly exchange product for dollars. We also take a look at how to find early customers and have winning sales conversations.

14.) Affiliate Programs

Companies like HostGator, GoDaddy, and Sprout Social have robust affiliate programs that have allowed them to reach hundreds of thousands of customers in a cost-effective way.

15.) Existing Platforms

Focusing on existing platforms means focusing your growth efforts on a megaplatform like Facebook, Twitter, or the App Store, and getting some of their hundreds of millions of users to use your product.?

16.) Trade Shows

Trade shows are a chance for companies in specific industries to show off their latest products.?

17.) Offline Events

Sponsoring or running offline events—from small meetups to large conferences—can be a primary way to get traction.

18.) Speaking Engagements

Eric Ries, author of the bestselling book?The Lean Startup,?told us how he used speaking engagements to hit the bestseller list within a week of his book’s launch.?

19.) Community Building

Companies like Wikipedia and Stack Exchange have grown by forming passionate communities around their products.