Product Engagement and Traction — Chiedozie Ike
Chiedozie Ike is curious about traction and how business development intersects storytelling and marketing. He is currently doing amazing stuff at Eden Life.
Why is traction important for any product?
Traction means momentum. And with businesses or (startups), it is the significant (or little) progress that happens. Interestingly, traction means different things for different businesses. For some, it could be app downloads, for others, it could be several users or revenue.
Basically, traction means different things for different businesses. Also, the definition of traction changes at different stages of the product cycle. In the beginning, it could be the number of interactions and with time, it could mean another thing.
Now, why is traction important? It is important because the traction goal you set will give you an idea of how the average user sees your product. Simply said, traction testing is a litmus test of some sort. It solves for “do people want this product?” “What can I build better?” “Is my product good?
A common mistake often made is not building product traction when building. It’s best to employ a 50% rule where you build a little and test the strength of the product with consumers. Your friends might not give you the best feedback, but a neutral will and you will be glad they did.
What channels give your product traction?
There are many channels that can move the traction needle. However, I cannot tell which will work for your product because you will have to do that through a series of channel testing. So, the question should not be “what channels give your product traction,” it should be “what channels are available to test for traction?
To our delight, there are several channels that can work for your product. I will list out a few that have worked for startups:
1) Paid and organic social media marketing.
2) Google search and banner ads
3) Targeting blogs with ads
4) Blog partnership
5) YouTube ads
6) Public Relations
7) Viral marketing:
8) Email marketing
9) Content marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
10) Telemarketing
11) Paid partnerships
12) Affiliate marketing
Above is a list of channels you could use to gain traction for your product. You are probably asking “how do I know which one to use?”
You do this by skinny-dipping at first and you test for the channels with the best traction. When you identify a channel that works, you can now optimize and pump in more traction efforts.
Always understand that not all channels will work for you. And when one doesn’t work for you, you test the others until you get one that works. If none works, then you might have to tweak the product, so it’s not leaking.
Also, you want to check out similar products and how they achieved traction. You will learn a lot. Reach out to marketers who have solved the same set of problems too, they will have a lot to teach you.
Interested in traction channels? Please read this book — Traction: How Any Startup can achieve explosive customer growth by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares (https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer/dp/1591848369).
What skills should Product Managers have, to be able to work with their communications and marketing team to achieve engagement and traction goals?
Empathy. Product managers should understand that when testing channels, it could go either way. And if it goes south, understand that it might not be the marketer but could be the channel. Product managers should not just be “how far” guys to the marketing and communications team. Understand that selling is an experiment and you have to keep hitting walls until you git gold. Don’t be the PM who is rigid and not willing to reason. Ha-ha.
Second, always follow the data. Biases are good but when data is proving your bias wrong, don’t be scared to change methods. Your motto should be “in data I trust.”
Also, if possible, learn how to use tools like Mixpanel and Google Analytics. These tools help you track what users are doing on your app or website.
After the discussion session, we had questions from the members of the community, here are some of them.
I’ve been able to expand my knowledge of channels for gaining traction. you mentioned a trial and error approach to deciding the right channel.
do you think the user persona can influence our options and how can we optimize for this? for example if we are dealing with low tech, baby boomer users. what do you advise?
Yes, user persona definitely influences traction channels. So what you can do is make research and sell where the boomers are. For instance, boomers will most likely be offline. So you could target your marketing effort to the offline world. You could also target their communities. But in the end, data should be your greatest companion and tool.
How does viral marketing work?
I will give 2 examples of viral marketing that has happened in Nigeria.
First, the one PiggyVest used years ago. The referral link marketing where everyone kept sharing their PiggyVest links. I remember that some people even put it on their social media bios. That’s an example.
Also, when MMM was in Nigeria, they used Peer to peer marketing where one person would invite several people and get their money doubled.
And it’s like a viral loop where for each person sold, they sell to at least 2 new people. Now imagine what 500 people would do and how many users they could get you.
