You won't have much of an audience to market to during the traction stage. Not to worry. You can shortcut this by tapping into existing audiences.

In this module, we'll show you how to leverage existing audiences to acquire customers, using a combination of paid and organic tactics.

Note: Many of the tactics covered in this module are also applicable to companies in the growth stage (those who already have a customer base and are focused on scalable acquisition channels). Specifically the tactics in the "Sponsored Content" category.

This strategy is both powerful and efficient because it allows you to go exactly where your ideal customers already are. And that's especially important for the traction stage because our goal is not to acquire 10,000 or a million people. We don't need hyper volume and scale yet. Instead, you want to reach a very, very specific audience—those 100 to 1000 best-fit customers and early adopters who will provide the most valuable product learnings.

How to tap existing audiences to reach your ideal customers

Consider all the different ways of reaching an audience—you've got newsletters and email lists, blogs, podcasts, YouTube, online communities, in-person events, and many more.

Regardless of the specific distribution mechanism, your goal as a founder is always the same: tap into a relevant audience and introduce them to your product in a way that makes sense for the channel. The more research you do, the better this will work.

In a nutshell, here's what the process looks like:

1. Target people where they spend their time: The beauty of tapping existing audiences is that you reach your ideal customers where they already hang out. For example, if you sell a marketing SaaS tool, you can join a digital marketing Slack group and participate in conversations about the problems your tool helps solve, then mention your product organically when the time is right. Or, you could pay for a sponsored post on a popular digital marketing blog and promote your product within the article. The point is, you want to get in front of audiences where they already are (online or in person). This is far easier than building your own audience from scratch. We'll show you several ways to do this in the next section.
   
   
2. Leverage your partner's influence: Rather than targeting cold audiences who know nothing about you, you'll leverage the hard-earned relationship between a brand or personality. Trust and credibility have already been established, which means you get to stand in the spotlight and share some of that user affinity.
   
   
3. Build relationships: It's always helpful to have allies in business. Partnering with other companies, influencers, or thought leaders can grant you access to receptive new audiences, which is a win. And if the arrangement goes well, you can form a more robust partnership.

At a high level, there are two ways to tap into existing audiences to find customers:

• Direct sponsorship: You can simply pay for it. Direct sponsorships are formal or semi-formal arrangements such as sponsored newsletters or paid content promotion.
  
  
• Organic partnerships: If you don't have the budget for direct sponsorship, there are plenty of other ways to tap new audiences. You can write guest blog posts and pitch newsletter publishers. You can offer your product for free in exchange for reviews. You can join a community (online or off). You can be interviewed on podcasts and find speaking events in your industry.

As you can imagine, the options are endless—the only limitations are your creativity and your time. Both paid and non-paid options give you the opportunity to get in front of new audiences to promote your product. And most importantly, build trust with your market.

Here are the eight core categories we'll cover below:

Sponsored Content‍Organic PartnershipsNewslettersContent PartnershipsPodcastsOnline CommunitiesWebsites and ArticlesOffline communitiesInfluencer EndorsementsInterviews and Speaking Engagements

We recommend bookmarking this page so you can refer back to it whenever you need a quick refresher.

Sponsored content

Newsletters

The best newsletters for promoting your content should be relevant to your industry and have strong user affinity (i.e., the person behind the newsletter is heavily trusted).

Even if it only has 5,000 subscribers, a single well-targeted newsletter placement can have a big impact. Sure, it may not be scalable or repeatable, but that's the point—you're optimizing for quality, not quantity.

You may already know major newsletters in your niche—start by subscribing to these and seeing whether they have advertising opportunities.

To find other relevant newsletters, Google your niche and “newsletters.”

Lists of the top newsletters may appear, like so:

These make a good starting point for your research because the fact these newsletters are included in these roundup articles means they’re established and well-known—they probably have a solid readership.

If you don't have the budget for a sponsored newsletter placement, reach out and ask if they’d like to include your content in one of their newsletters. These companies are in constant need of new, high-quality content and may be open to collaborating.

It's time-consuming, but if you create highly personalized outreach emails and have something valuable to offer their audience, you have a chance at making this work.

Podcasts

When to use podcast ads: Like newsletters, podcast ads work best when the host is charismatic and connected with their audience. Big-name podcasters like Joe Rogan and Tim Ferriss have massive influence and a portion of their listeners will buy almost anything they recommend. But an influential host alone isn't enough to get conversions. And you certainly don't need to sponsor top-tier podcasts to succeed. In fact, you'll likely have better results targeting a smaller podcast with a niche audience and trusted host. It'll be much more effective, and way more affordable.

How to present the content: In structuring the ad itself, live host reads are by far the most effective ad format. There are generally three ad slots to buy:

• Pre-roll ads play before the episode starts.
• Mid-roll ads play around 40%-70% of the way through.
• Post-roll ads play at the end of the episode.

Best practice is to purchase both a pre-roll and mid-roll package. But if budget is an issue, go with mid-roll only.

Avoid post-roll ads when you're just getting started.

Additionally, make sure the host gets a sample of the product. Listeners can tell when a host doesn’t actually care about or understand a product they’re promoting.

Finally, avoid pre-recorded or dynamically inserted podcast ads. These are often used by podcast ad platforms that are intended to help you scale your advertising across tons of different podcasts. The ROI on these types of ads will be far lower than working with 1-2 hand-picked podcasts that can deliver a highly personalized mention of your product.

How many episodes to sponsor: When testing a new podcast, we recommend starting by sponsoring 1-3 episodes depending on your budget. If your offer is a great fit for the audience, you should be able to see results after a single episode. If you have the budget, sponsoring 2-3 episodes allows you to build some familiarity with the audience that you won't get from a one-off sponsorship.

Websites and Articles

As with all the tactics we cover in this module, this one gives you a lot of precision. You'll target specific websites, blogs, and even articles or web pages and pay to get promoted.

If you can find relevant online resources (e.g., videos, forums, websites) that are exclusively frequented by your target market, you'll pay less than you would with the traditional "spray and pray" approach to banner ads, and you'll get the most bang for your buck since it's your best audience.

For example, let's say you Google a few keywords around your product and find a listicle review article comparing and contrasting several of your competitors. Since the post is ranking on page one, you can assume it's getting a fair amount of traffic. And because the content is about product reviews, you know buyer intent is high. In this example, you could reach out to the website and pay for a banner ad featuring your product alongside the article, or you could opt for a more native approach, like having your product included within the article itself.

In contrast, traditional banner ads are bought through large ad networks and shown across a wide range of different websites, or placed indiscriminately throughout the pages of individual websites. Some may be a good fit, but most won't be.

As we've been saying throughout the program, you'll gain traction more efficiently (less cost, greater results) with more precise targeting.

Promoted posts on Product Hunt

Demand Curve wrote a guide on growth that you may have heard about (it’s the precursor to our Growth Program course). We paid to get it featured on the first page of Product Hunt for about a week.

Getting featured drove about 15,000 extra impressions to the guide and provided a major boost in traffic and exposure to potential customers on our main site (separate from the guide).

The overall traffic on our site was even significantly higher than average for weeks after running the initial promotion.

We go into more detail on Product Hunt strategies in another module in this program.

Influencer endorsements

You learned about influencer marketing in the acquisition strategy module, but it's worth mentioning here because it's one of the most direct ways to tap existing audiences.

To summarize, influencer marketing is when you contact famous people with their own audiences (on social media platforms or on their own) and incentivize them to share your product with their audience, either blatantly or covertly.

For example, for $500 you can pay a celebrity to promote your startup on social media.

The most common tactic is to pay influencers via flat rate sponsorship or performance based model (pay per sale). Gifting is another common tactic where brands exchange products for influencer promotion.

Gifting generally works with nano-influencers (influencers with less than 10k followers). Nano influencers typically build small followings on social media alongside their other pursuits. This isn’t their full-time job, so they’re more likely to be satisfied with free products as opposed to cash.

Pros of gifting:

• It’s easy to get started with because it’s affordable—your only cost is inventory and time.
  
  
• Brands get their product directly into the hands of creators, giving them the chance to try it without them having to discover it on their own. If they like your product, they’ll potentially share it with their audience for free—and they might even give you better rates on paid sponsorships. Because they’ll be promoting something they authentically care about.
  
  
• Content that influencers make as a result of gifting is usually authentic and genuine, since they’re not obligated to post to fulfill a paid sponsorship. This quality content may be repurposed into ads or other marketing collateral.

Cons of gifting:

• It’s harder to do with bigger influencers—they generally only work with you if you agree to pay them, since this is their full-time job.
  
  
• You might wind up competing with brands that do offer to pay their nano-influencers.
  
  
• It takes a lot of time to find creators that’ll agree to promote your gifts.

We cover influencer marketing tactics in depth in another module.

Organic partnerships

Direct sponsorship deals tend to be pretty well-structured since money is changing hands. Organic partnerships require a little more finesse and creativity because you'll need to figure out ways to provide value that don't involve cash payment.

You want to make it as easy as possible for a potential partner to say "yes." And if you do your research, pick great targets, and put in the time to craft your pitch, you can gain traction in all kinds of ways.

Here are a few we recommend you start with:

Content partnerships

Guest blogging

A guest blog is a type of blog post created by your brand for another site, and usually includes a link back to your site. Guest posts are often used for SEO-based content strategies because Google considers links from reputable sites as a ranking factor. Since SEO isn't a priority during the traction stage, your goal with guest posting is to create valuable articles that help the reader accomplish something tangible. If the content is high quality, and you position your product as the natural solution, you can convert a portion of readers into paying customers. For example, the social media tool, Buffer, famously grew almost exclusively from guest posting in the early days.

Mentions

A mention is a link to your brand’s content on another website. Brands can get mentions through outreach to websites, influencers, and journalists. You can also use platforms like HARO to connect with journalists interested in your industry.

Curated posts

Some websites compile original content from multiple contributors into a single blog post. Brands can pitch their content to be included, though some websites also independently select content to feature in these roundup posts. Others invite people to contribute.

Not all websites accept guest posts from outside contributors. Those that do often have a page of writing guidelines describing the guest posting process.

To find them, Google the topic or industry you’re interested in writing about, plus keywords about guest posting and writing. For example, your search strings might look like:

• Personal finance “write for us”
• Personal finance “submit guest post”
• Ecommerce “become a contributor”
• Ecommerce “writing guidelines”
• Email marketing “guest posting guidelines”

Use quotation marks to ensure that their enclosed words appear as an exact match—the phrases used in the examples above are commonly used in the context of guest posting.

Here’s what you might see in search results:

Some sites may not be relevant; others may have very stringent guidelines and require more time and effort.

Also enter these sites into Ahrefs to find out their organic traffic and Domain Rating (DR). This metric uses a scale of 0 to 100 to measure a website’s quality based on its backlinks, with higher numbers indicating higher-quality sites. Ideally, you should focus on guest posting for sites with DRs above 50.

Online communities

These are interactive platforms where users can post content, discuss it, and even vote on content, including:

• Reddit
• Quora
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Product Hunt
• Hacker News
• Growth Hackers
• Relevant Slack groups (find them on Standuply or /r/SlackHangouts on Reddit)

Join online communities in your industry and become an active participant. Over time, you’ll build new relationships that you can then use for content distribution.

But like social media groups, don’t overtly promote your content. For example, Reddit’s guidelines advise a 9:1 ratio, in which “only 1 out of every 10 of your submissions should be your own content.” Add value first, then share your content.

For example, Eric Bandholz, the founder of Beardbrand, used Reddit to build a community of around 300 members for his blog and YouTube channel before even launching an ecommerce shop.

Since then, he’s consistently been active on Reddit, sharing his personal experiences building Beardbrand and other business ventures on r/entrepreneur. Although he talks about Beardbrand, Bandholz doesn’t do so promotionally—instead, a lot of his content is about helping other entrepreneurs, e.g., his post on what it’s like to go on “Shark Tank.”

Posting on Reddit not only helped spread the word about Beardbrand, it also developed a network of readers interested in Bandholz and his work.

You’ll need to do some digging to find these communities. This means manually searching for topics your product relates to across different platforms, like Facebook and LinkedIn.

However, you should also consider:

• Quora: Quora organizes content by topic, letting users follow each topic so they can see the latest questions and answers in each. Follow key topics related to your industry and make note of relevant questions that you can answer with a natural, non-promotional link back to your content.
  
  
• Reddit: There are probably one or two obvious subreddits related to your niche. Use Sayit to find related subreddits based on where users are posting. For example, entering “SEO” reveals an overlap with subreddits focused on social media, affiliate marketing, and Wordpress.

• Slack: Quality Slack communities can be hard to find. Oftentimes, general purpose groups devolve into spammy, self-promotional groups without genuinely engaged members. Niche groups with active moderators tend to have the most potential for meaningful content promotion. To find these groups, ask around your network to find out what communities people are in. Also look through this Airtable of niche Slack communities.

Sign up or apply to join the ones where your target audience might be—then repurpose your content for sharing in them. Remember to be mindful of each community’s rules and culture; you should avoid coming off as sales-y or overly promotional.

Offline communities

Find local Meetups

Meetups are small groups of people who congregate over a shared interest, profession, passion, or hobby. They usually meet regularly and all know each other. Just like you would in online communities, approach Meetups with the mindset of networking and becoming an active participant. Meetups are fun, social events, and it's important to show a sincere interest in the social aspect.

Attend conferences and in-person events

Sponsoring organized events tends to be really expensive and rarely works very well. Instead, ditch sponsoring events altogether and just go to them as an attendee or community member. Countless startups have gotten their initial traction simply by immersing themselves in communities and events, participating as active members, and taking advantage of the networking opportunities.

Seek out your customers where they are

Sometimes you just need to get out there and approach your customers in the real world, organized event or not.

Some examples:

• Uber took to the streets and handed out referral codes.
• Snapchat went to the mall and handed out flyers.
• Tinder founders pitched their dating app to USC frats and sororities.
• Lyft made a list of all of their contacts at nearby startups, then arranged to drop off ice cream sundae kits for their employees—and gave everyone Lyft credits.
• The founding team at Square patronized local businesses and convinced merchants to start using the product and share valuable feedback.

The essence of this tactic is about interacting with real people in the real world in the places they spend time.

Be fun, be helpful, be generous.

Interviews and speaking engagements

Look for opportunities to get in front of relevant interest groups and tell your story.

• Podcasts: Use a search engine tool like Listen Notes and research relevant podcasts in your industry. Use Cold Outreach and think of ways you can add value to the conversation and the podcaster's audience.
  
  
• Speaking events: Look for conferences, trade shows, workshops, classes, educational events, seminars, or lectures that might be open to you coming in as a guest speaker. For topic ideas, think of ways you could educate people on a topic or problem that your product relates to or solves, or teach them how to do something that your product makes easier/faster/better.

Worthy mention: tap your personal network

Even if your company doesn't have an audience, you do! It probably goes without saying, but you should of course tap your personal network as much as possible.

Most founders broadcast the news of their startup launch all over social media and expect people to immediately get on board and help spread the word. We've been there, it's an exciting time and you want to announce your plans to the world.

Broad social posts are fine, but if you really make the most of your personal network, you need to take a strategic approach as well. Start by going through your personal network and look for two types of people:

• Your "connectors:" This group is the priority. These people have a combination of large network size, clout/influence, and are in your industry. These people can not only serve as valuable early adopters for your product, they can also help share your product with their network if they believe in what you're building (tapping their audience).
  
  
• Your best-fit customers: These people fit the criteria of your best-fit customers, regardless of how big their network is or how much industry clout or influence they have. These people can simply be your very first customers. You already have an established relationship with them, so the barrier to entry of getting them to sign up and try out your product is much less than pitching a cold audience.

In both groups, the key is to be direct; be personal. Text your friends. Call your former coworkers. Draft an email, or just pick up the phone. A personal touch goes a long way, and people are going to feel honored that you thought of them and will genuinely want to help you succeed.