Lenny's Newsletter - How people discover new products
👋 Hello, I’m Lenny, and welcome to this month’s ✨ free edition ✨ of my newsletter. Each week I humbly tackle reader questions about product, growth, working with humans, and anything else that’s stressing you out at the office. To get these emails weekly don’t forget to subscribe 👇
I love this question. How do people become aware of new products? I posit that there are seven ways:
To help you develop your strategy and inspire your thinking, below I’ll explore each of these seven channels, with examples, suggestions, and advice as to which channel is right for you. Let’s get into it! How people learn about new products1. Friends or colleagues tell you about itThe oldest growth channel in the book—friends or colleagues telling you about something they’ve discovered and love. This can happen at a party, at your home, at the office, over email, etc. Generally, this is free and very organic (e.g., “I LOVE my new spatula, check it out!”), but it can also be incentivized through a referral program or even an MLM program. This is by far the cheapest and best way to grow if you can pull it off. In a previous post I covered this topic in depth, including a look which products grew primarily through this channel: You should invest in this channel if:
Most products do not grow this way (and it’s nearly impossible to layer on if the product isn’t naturally suited for this), so don’t be sad if you can’t make this work. 2. You come across it organically while browsing onlineThe next best (a.k.a. cheapest) way to learn of new products is to see people on the internet (organically) talking about them. This includes seeing social media posts, press, influencers organically sharing something, comments in a forum, Wirecutter articles, and organic search results, etc. Products that grew primarily through this channel include Clubhouse (people on Twitter talking about it), e.l.f. Cosmetics (TikTok influencers raving about it), Zillow (press articles), Animal Crossing (people on Facebook posting about it). For example, here’s a case study of how e.l.f. used TikTok to get a ton of attention: Similar to the first bucket, it’s worth betting organic traffic if:
3. You come across a promotion while browsing onlineCompanies like Wish, Casper, Calm, Blue Apron, and Hims grew primarily through this channel—ads (e.g., Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube), paid influencers, affiliate programs, and channel partners. Some examples: As I covered in a previous post, this channel is most effective if:
4. You come across it organically while you’re out and aboutMany new products are discovered by people simply happening upon them while being out and about in the world—noticing a new cereal on the shelf, seeing a Tesla drive by, peeping a Peloton sitting in a friend’s home. Most CPG products grow through this channel (i.e., shelf placement), as do retailers (i.e. foot traffic), and some consumer electronics (e.g., those white iPod headphone people used to wear). This is an effective growth channel for physical products that:
5. You come across a promotion while you’re out and aboutThis is the classic “out-of-home” (OOH) marketing channel: billboards, bus ads, taxi ads, backs of trucks, flyers, etc. You pay to get your advertisement in front of people who spend time around a certain location in the world. This is traditionally a hard channel to measure a return on investment in, but can build a massive brand moat if done well (e.g., Nike, Apple, and Coke). It’s also a powerful tactic to get the attention of a certain audience in a specific location, such as Brex heavily leveraging billboards and bus stops in SF to get the attention of founders: This channel is best suited to:
6. You come across a promotion while at homeWhen you think of in-home advertising, you probably think of TV ads, but there’s so much more: direct mail, ads on the packaging itself, flyers inside packaging, radio ads, podcast ads, newspaper and magazine ads. A few examples: Direct mail particularly has become a staple of DTC product growth strategies, and podcast and newsletter ads have been an increasingly popular way to get in front of new customers. This channel is best suited to:
7. Someone reaches out to you to tell you about itFinally, there’s outbound sales—someone coming to you to tell you about their product. This can be over the phone, email, DM, LinkedIn message, or door-to-door. Large enterprise companies grow primarily through this channel (e.g., Oracle, Workday, and ADP each have outbound sales teams reaching out to people daily), as well as all the telemarketing- and door-to-door-driven businesses like Cutco and a lot of insurance companies. If you’re a founder, I can’t recommend this book on doing sales highly enough. This channel is best suited to products:
Where to go nextOK, so there are seven broad channels to get people’s attention. Where should you invest? In addition to the tips I’ve included throughout, I suggest working your way through these five steps:
This answer went much further than you likely imagined, but I hope this gives you enough food for thought for developing your GTM strategy. If you have any other suggestions or questions, don’t hesitate to leave a comment. 📚 Further studyHave a fulfilling and productive week 🙏 🔥 Featured job opportunitiesProduct Management
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