Marketing News
How to generate interest in products & services
early-stage adopters
The marketing landscape is exploding with new lead generations tactics and technology, but the reality of life however – whether that’s on or offline – is that customers are becoming savvier, making it even more difficult for brands to win over customers from their competition.
How well marketers understand and take advantage of the early adopter curve can mean success or failure of any business since brands can no longer expect customers to shop the same way as they always have.
According to McKinsey & Company, 75% of customers continued to switch brands in 2021 – 90% of whom are millennials and high-income consumers. Add to that, online customers are now aware that they can turn off notifications, unsubscribe from newsletters and can say no to cookies, which means that your competitors are one click away from stealing your sales.
Why early adopters are the bridge between most customers and you
Targeting early adopters can theoretically be a goldmine as they show an apparent ramp in adoption percentages if you can secure their attention at the ‘innovation’ and ‘early adoption’ stages.
A new behavioural study published by The Marketing Practice and B2B DecisionLabs, reveals the most effective ways of engaging early-stage buyers to help convert these prospects into actual sales.
The goal of the research was to determine the best way to frame a business challenge to early-stage prospects to build interest in a B2B solution.
The results of the study of 500 B2B professionals, revealed:
- Quantification is more successful than ‘unquantified business impacts’
- Emotional language resonates more than ‘rational’ language
How is this relevant to your business?
Evidently, the research helps shape the way marketers and sales teams can frame their marketing communications, especially since brand advocacy is now leading the way as the most cost effective and authentic way to build brand value online and among a social media generation that craves community over clout.
Its relevancy is all about reality. Once marketers have secured early adopter success, this is likely to snowball as the early adopters act as brand advocates to friends, family, colleagues and their connections on social media. Brand advocacy is successful when it’s organic and when a product or service is promoted out of genuine love.
Brands like Pretty Little Thing have been early advocates of organic, consumer driven content. Earlier this year, the #everybodyinplt hashtag generated nearly twice the engagement rate (20%) as the brand hashtag #prettylittlething (13%) highlighting the success of brand advocacy hashtags and user-generated content.
Another example is Airbnb which is now one of the world’s most successful businesses. It poached users directly from competitors by giving apartment owners a new platform to list their properties and expand their reach, plus it invested in professional photography for those early owner listings. The quality images appealed to customers who were used to searching for hotel accommodation and holiday homes. And in doing so, Airbnb found early adopters who loved the product and property owners updated their own photography which in turn led to more bookings.
If your product or service solves a specific problem, find the communities and customers that their care about it – whether that’s through soft launches, exclusive events, free samples or social media campaigns.
There are lots of ways to market your product, but the most important thing is that you’re not trying to market to everyone and anyone!
Further Reading:
B2B behavioral research study reveals most effective messaging to engage early-stage buyers The Drum
US consumer sentiment and behaviors during the coronavirus crisis McKinsey & Company
Report Reveals Future of Influencer Marketing is Brand Advocacy Talking Influence
New B2B Research Reveals the Most Effective Way to Drive Leads Upland
Early Adopter Marketing – How startups get their first users Kevin Indig
