Big Ideas

Traction is a great introductory overview of all the marketing channels available to early stage founders looking to get their first customers. Weinberg and Mares define a "Bullseye" methodology which can be used to identify which marketing channels are most likely to bring you new customers. This methodology can be applied throughout the early stages of growth of any venture. They call attention to the fact that most founders typically only use the channels they already understand or have heard of and often neglect channels which could be really powerful for their business. The bullseye methodology helps to ensure that all options are considered.

If I was to summarize the main ideas they would be:

1. Traction, defined as the rate of new customer acquisition, is the most important thing for an early stage venture
2. There are a large number of traction channels which should be considered given it's almost impossible to know what will work
3. Because it's hard to know what will work smart founders invest in testing a number of them until they find something that works
4. They should then focus ALL their energy on that channel until it no longer produces customers at the rate needed by the business
5. These tests should be cheap and quick, the goal is to figure out what works
6. Once a viable channel has been found, continue to run tests to optimize within that channel

Notes

Traction Trumps Everything

• "Traction is a sign that something is working."
• "Technical, market, and team risks are easier to address with traction. Fund-raising, hiring, press, partnerships, and acquisitions all become easier."

Traction Channels

• "Traction is basically quantitative evidence of customer demand." - Naval Ravikant
• "Most founders consider only traction channels with which they're familiar, or those they think they should be using because of their typeof product or company. This means that far too many startups focus on the same channels and ignore other promising ways to get traction."
• 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."

Traction Thinking

• "Traction and product development are of equal importance and should get about half of your attention. This is what we call the 50 percent rule: spend 50 percent of your time on product and 50 percent on traction."
• "Through traction development you get a steady stream of cold customers. It is through these people that you can really find out whether the market is taking to your product or not, and if not, what features are missing or which parts of the experience are broken."
• "Set your growth goals. Focus on strategies and tactics that can plausibly move the needle for your company."
• "Learn what growth numbers potential investors expect."
• "If you're not seeing the traction you want, look for bright spots in your customer base, pockets of customers who are truly engaged with your product. See if you can figure why it works for them ... " and then target those customers. If there aren't any distinct customer groups then it may be time to pivot.

Bullseye

• Bullseye is a methodology to figure out which traction channels are going to be best for your business.
• Bullseye structure
• ~Outer Ring: What's Possible - brainstorm every traction channel and a strategy that you could execute for that channel
• ~Middle Ring: What's Probable - run cheap tests in the most promising channels in your outer ring, promote the best ones to your middle ring.
• ~Inner Ring: What's Working  - focus solely on the channel that moves the needle (your core channel)

Traction Testing

• Middle ring tests should answer the following questions:
• ~"How much will it cost to acquire customers through this channel?"
• ~"How many customers are available through this channel?"
• ~"Are the customers that you are getting through this channel the kind of customers that you want right now."
• Inner ring tests
• ~"Optimize your chosen channel strategy to make it the best it can be."
• ~"Uncover better channel strategies within this traction channel."
• To the extent you can track and measure the efficacy of different channel strategies and thus quantify your marketing efforts
• ~A/B testing is good for optimizing within a given channel strategy

Critical Path

• "Lay out your milestones. Determine your traction goal and define your Critical Path against that goal, working backward and enumerating the absolutely necessary milestones you need to achieve to get there."
• "Stay on the Critical Path"
• "Actively work to overcome your traction channel biases."

Traction Channels

Targeting Blogs

• Run tests on a variety of smaller blogs
• Sponsor small blogs, especially personal blogs
• Offer something unique to your best targets

Publicity

• Focus on the smaller sites
• Build real relationships with the specific reports covering your startup's market
• Have newsworthy milestones to share

Unconventional PR

• Do something big, cheap, fun and original
• Be awesome to your customers and good things follow
• Prepare for failure

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

• Use search engine ads to test product positioning and messaging
• Measure conversions so you can test SEM variables against profitability
• Use longer keywords
• Pay close attention to your ad quality scores

Social and Display Ads

• Contact small sites directly for display ads
• Use social ads to build awareness of products and create demand
• Create compelling social content

Offline Ads

• Run cheap tests by first targeting local markets
• Seek out remnant ad inventory for the highest discounts
• Use unique codes or Web addresses to track the effectiveness of different offline ad campaigns

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• Find search terms that have enough search volume to move the needle for your company
• Generate long-tail landing pages by using cheap freelancers
• Focus on how you will build links
• Avoid "black-hat" SEO tactics that violate search engine guidelines, especially buying links

Content Marketing

• If you blog, dedicate at least six months to it
• Do things that don't scale early on
• Produce in-depth posts you can't find anywhere else

Email Marketing

• Personalize your email marketing messages
• Build an email list of prospective customers whether you end up focusing on this traction channel or not
• Set up a series of automated emails
• Use online tools to test and optimize email campaigns

Viral Marketing

• Build a viral loop into the product
• Shorten viral cycle time
• Look for viral pockets
• More than in any other channel, test, test, test

Engineering As Marketing

• Create a stand-alone, low friction site to engage potential customers
• Look internally for site and tool ideas
• Make them as simple as possible

Business Development (BD)

• Pursue mutual beneficial partnerships
• Focus on meeting your startup's core metrics
• Create a pipeline of deals you're constantly working on

Sales

• Don't rule out cold calling
• Build a repeatable sales model
• Get the buyer to commit to time lines
• Keep the customer's perspective in mind

Affiliate Programs

• Test using an affiliate network
• Keep your payouts simple
• The next place you should look for more affiliates is your customers

Existing Platforms

• Figure out where your potential customers are hanging out online
• Create a feature specifically to fill a gap for that platform's users
• Focus on new and untapped platforms

Trade Shows

• Schedule meetings and dinners ahead of time
• Investigate the efficacy of shows before committing
• Have an inbound and outbound strategy for your booth

Offline Events

• Launch at a conference
• Test this channel first
• Throw a party

Speaking Engagements

• Remember that you are doing the organizers a favor by presenting
• Submit authoritative proposals far in advance
• Tell a story onstage

Community Building

• Cultivate and empower evangelists
• Set high standards from the start
• Bootstrap off an existing audience