Your Continued Answer to Clarity.fm question...

{Hi!, here is the continuation from the question found on Clarity.fm here:  https://clarity.fm/q/2474 } {Regarding growth hacking for an international shipping service and creatively growing its customer base}

... A persona allows you to paint a picture of your targeted consumer: an example would be: A crafter of steam punk inspired dress shoes. His buyer’s persona would be a  hipster, he likes hand made items, crafted from raw materials, he wears hats suitable for Mad Men, probably wears Ray Ban looking glasses but probably not brand name, his wallet is probably made out of organic untreated leather with a chain, he has a beard, so most likely buys beard  care product, I’m almost sure his friends do too. If he uses social media, he would probably not have a Facebook, he probably uses twitter or Instagram. He would most likely connect with the words drapper, fashion, uncool, urban, no filter, raw, cotton. He probably doesn't mind spending more for the things he considers good quality made with love, so discounts wouldn't matter much to them.

…For your international shipping service, your client might be a middle income urban white male. But what subset of that is more common? What products are bought more through your service or for what industry? Answer those so you can begin crafting your persona. If the most common thing sold is handmade house décor, your persona would probably hang out a lot on Pinterest, which means they spend a lot of time online and have no problem following links to their hosting sites for How Tos, or suggestions. This group of people might be more secluded than hipsters, so trying to leverage their network might not work as much.  But what they would probably rave about is how your service allowed to find something super unique from another country and better yet gave them an idea on how to add to their space. This can be through a picture on their Facebook profile. You can hack into this by having them share their product from an email you could send informing them of their product’s arrival. You can showcase your products sold on Pinterest, create Facebook buy page, offer some discount for signing up to an email subscription.

An email subscription in exchange for a discount is great because if your consumer gets the idea that they are saving, let’s say: $100, you can continue a relationship with email and maybe at least once more get them to order again and make maybe $110 more from them, the more they buy, this initial $100 more than pays itself back..

Once you have that persona, 

Target them and their networks {this approach requires some serious homework, but it pays off} strategize on paper before you begin reaching out. Use social media to approach them and build relationships through them, also you might to make changes to your current social accounts so they play well with your super targeted effort and added squeeze pages.

Squeeze pages can be created so that in social media efforts your link is used to send them to a simple conversion page where they either sign up for your product or sign up for a discount, or follow up call or something (depending on what it is that you import)

If you really don’t want to offer any discounts: Have a squeeze page that gives your potential clients the right to sign up/in only if they refer a friend or tweet or like or pin… (Depending on what your subset demographic is most likely to use, the key is not vanity but actual valuable exposure to those who could actually use your product not just rack up likes)

You can offer “extra packaging” or care if they simply share or refer or enter their email.

Ask and easily redirect them to provide answers to Facebook for example on tips that future buyers could benefit from. Once your clients become contributors they are more likely to share their input with their networks.

Add gamification, rewarding them with some sort of recognition on social media for their contributions via answers/tips or for being a frequent buyer.

I hope this has gotten your mind flowing with ideas, just remember before you go half-assing your efforts write down in paper what your persona will look like, what keywords would they most likely be attracted to, what services or values, what products are bought the most by that most frequent persona buyer. Once all is jotted down in paper, then go and implement with a squeeze page, possibly redesign of your website, Pinning of pictures, or offering extra care, etc.

You goal is not ambitious, just look for a K factor of at least 1, which means that one consumer at least brings 1 more consumer to your site.

 Did you notice what I did here? I started with Clarity, then asked you to continue reading here. I hope you did. This increases the awareness to my blog to you and anyone else who reads the Clarity question/answer. It also gives you a real time example of growth hacking. 

Also, the tags I put on the bottom of this post should help anyone else looking for advice on this topic  find my blog in the future. 

Best of luck.

For web development, consider www.arizonawebstudio.com

For creative business coaching and help, consider me at www.unthink.me

Also follow me on twitter @OfficialUnthink or facebook.com/IwillUnthink

Humberto Valle

#UnthinkStrategy