Customer acquisition tips for early stage startups on a tight budget

Marta Frenna, CEO of Greyhounders, a Madrid-based Demiumstartup, gives us the lowdown on their launch customer acquisition strategy, ona shoestring.  

But first, a word about the startup that is disrupting theoptical prescription glasses industry in Spain….

Set up in 2018 by Marta, Marco Resino and Juanjo Ruano andincubated in the Demium Madrid office, Greyhounders provides an easilyaccessible online-only optics service.

Thefounding team identified that the fashion prescription glasses was ripe fordisruption in Spain.  Historically, themonopoly of the optical industry has managed to create the perception that goodquality lenses and glasses should be expensive.  This project democratizesaccess to fashionable prescription glasses and thus breaks with the molds oftraditional optics and offers a higher quality product in both quality anddesign at an affordable price for all audiences.

Thenumbers made a whole lot of sense. Around 25 million Spaniards currently wearprescription glasses, and this is projected to increase to more than 35 millionover the next 10 years. The hours in front of the computer or mobile phoneare usually the main cause of the most common problems at the eye level andmore and more cases of visual problems are detected among the smallest.

Thishas caused the optical sector to keep growing in recent years, at a rate of 3%-4% per year, with projections of over 2.6 billion euros in turnover in 2019.

So what isGreyhounders?

TheGreyHounders business model is pure-play e-commerce shop. Customers can browsean extensive online catalogue of frames designed in Spain and Italy. They canthen see if the glasses would suit their face shape via augmented realitytechnology on the website, and they can also share the images with theirnetworks on social media. They can then order up to five pairs to try on athome for free, which they’ll receive within one week. Postage and returns arefree, with a 15-day window in which to make a final decision.

Greyhounders started with initial marketing budget of lessthan €1k and within the first four months of launching their MVP, they’d sold300 glasses. The key, she believes, was personally engaging with customers withboth early marketing proposition development and initial sales.

So, Marta’s tips on how to acquire new customers….

1. Understandingyour customer pain points in the consideration and purchase process is asimportant for marketing as it is for product development. The Greyhoundersteam spent a lot of time analysing the customer journey, which is valuable notjust with respect to developing a solution, but in developing customercommunications. All early marketing content talked to how their innovative newoffering helped overcome these challenges at a more attractive price point.
2. Don’tunderestimate the importance of brand. The team understood how much valueis derived from a brand that really resonates with a B2C target customer in acompetitive, and well established industry. So getting this right was a priority. The Greyhounders team tested theirearly brand and campaign development on their immediate network, which proved avery low cost feedback loop.
3. Contentis king.  And while content depth cantake time to achieve, think carefully about how you create the most effective,shareable content to give you more bang for your buck. Greyhounders focussed ondeveloping high quality blog content, that was shareable. An example of thiswas tagging their customers in images of their glasses throughout theproduction process, which was frequently reposted by the customer in their ownsocial media channels. This both helped educate potential customers in theirproposition, and helped to generate further interest in their brand as more peopleunderstood the true benefits of their brand proposition.
4. Personalisationwill drive higher engagement. Personalisation of marketing activity –specifically emails – doesn’t need to be sophisticated. Once Greyhounders had establishedtheir first leads, they sent out personalised newsletters manually, withbespoke and compelling titles and information, to give them the greatest chanceof getting continued engagement and sales.
5. Launchoffers and discounts can be super effective, but don’t get caught in a vicious discountingcycle. On launching their first product, Geryhounders did offer discountson price.This is a common marketentry strategy, improving a startups chances of attracting customers andconverting sales. But the team had to think very carefully about how they’dincrease prices and phase out discounting as a general acquisition strategy. Soit was made very clear that these were for a limited time and for limited stockonly.
6. Developa unique proposition to drive demand. Which played nicely alongside theirdiscount strategy. It’s a known fact that limited edition stock in fashion canhelp drive demand. Greyhounders applied this tactic in their launch strategy -specifically, the initial frames, which were all named after districts inMadrid, were created as a special edition and only a few of each wereavailable.
7. CRMpays off in the early stages. The team implemented acustomer relationship management strategy from the very beginning,with the tracking of both sales and referrals so that specific pricing could bedeployed for loyal customers based on purchase history and referrals to familyand friends. This also helped improve the lifetime value of loyal customers,which gives room for alternative, non-discounted price promotion for the generalpublic.

And, while it might be an obvious point, it’s important thatall marketing activity continually promotes the high quality of their product.

The strategy adopted by the Greyhounders team in the earlydays has paid off, and the team has recently hired a Head of Brand to join theteam, tasked with boosting online sales and increasing brand awareness.