One of the best ways to hack growth in the early stages of your business is by consciously trying to find and reward customer advocates.

Bonjoro team

With Bonjoro, a personalized video messaging platform, the cornerstone of our product is around people and reinserting human connection into the increasingly automated world of digital marketing. With that brand mission, we realized it was vital not only to sell a product, but to sell an experience and to make sure our early adopters would sing about Bonjoro from the hilltops. So what did we do specifically:

  • Be active in re-sharing customers tagging @bonjoro on twitter, or commenting if they tag us on Facebook. Take, for example, this recent post on our twitter feed. This is someone who is using the product or service and by us retweeting and engaging, we are deepening that customer loyalty. On top of that, after that retweet, we touched base with them and asked questions to learn more about how he was using our tool and what was most effective. This is another key part of this growth hack: Ask your customer advocates questions!! Why did they buy? What made it such a positive experience? Who would they recommend it to? This information is incredibly valuable to help inform your outreach decisions.
  • If someone loves the product, get ahold of them! Pick their brain! You can reach out to them on LinkedIn, or shoot them an email. Try adding them to an affiliate program. Make that person feel special and show them that “Hey, not only is our product awesome, but our team is more awesome”. Even if they aren’t retweeting, if someone leaves a positive review, or lets you know through a different avenue, they are happy, build a relationship. Give them an added incentive to promote your product. We have found with Bonjoro that there is a dramatic increase in affiliates joining up with us when we are proactive in outreach and helping them position the product.
  • Send a personal video to each and every customer who buys your product, authentically thanking them for supporting you. Don’t fall into the loop of “Well, this isn’t scalable”. Wrong, wrong and more wrong. The impact of positive brand and customer advocacy can be exponential. Spend the extra time (and money) to make your clients feel special and to make the experience over the top. And don’t limit your outreach to just when someone buys either. Reach out during the holidays, a birthday (if you have that information) or whatever opportunities you have to build a real, authentic, human relationship with your customers. 

With just those simple steps at Bonjoro, we have found explosive growth in organic referrals and are building a brand image that we are proud to stand behind. So if you are looking for a growth hack at an early stage of your business, start by making the first hundred sales experiences awesome, then the first thousand, and then up, up and beyond.

Be creative with how you reward and interact with your custom advocates too. This isn’t about trying to squeeze monetization out of people, but instead, it’s about how you can build a differentiated, compelling growth engine off of customer referrals through building human connections.

What was your greatest growth hack? Please comment with your thoughts and recommendations.

And don’t forget to follow us on TwitterFacebookLinkedIn for more tips and guides.

4.8 (95%) 4 votes