What is Traction and What is it For?

Many startups and new businesses often struggle when starting out. Finding enough capital to finance a developing business and keep it running can be difficult for a company that hasn’t had enough time to establish itself in the market.

For this reason, we have to “think outside the box and consider which roads could bring us better results.” There is no exact science: to understand it, you have to experiment.

What is Traction?

Traction is, in short, “proof that the product (or service) being sold actually interests someone” and that they are willing to pay for it.

Three Growth Phases

By understanding where the company is, you can move it forward to the next steps:

Phase I: Create something people like, get your first customers, and discover what’s wrong to further improve your product or service. In this first phase you should be able to spark the interest of potential customers.

Phase II: To sell something people like, the goal is to reach many customers sustainably.

Phase III: Grow the company and, at the same time, grow its market share. You should focus on revenue growth, improve marketing channels, and create a truly sustainable business.

Choosing the Right Channel

Start with brainstorming, it will allow you to identify the best strategy for each of the 19 channels. A thorough analysis of each channel will help you eliminate all prejudices about each one — in this stage it’s important not to discard any.

Then you need to test the channels: How much will it cost to acquire customers with this channel? How many customers can be reached through this method? Is the type of customers acquired through this channel what we’re looking for right now? Answering these fundamental questions will be very important for choosing (or eliminating) possible channels.

The third thing you should do is “channel all resources to the most promising channel and prioritize”: there is no exact science and, unfortunately, analysis and ideas always work up to a certain point. For this reason, it’s important to make a clear decision, “after necessary experiments,” and focus primarily on the most promising one.

Main Causes of Poor Traction

Things won’t always go well. However, I can tell you that luck, most of the time, has nothing to do with it — it’s your choices that often describe the success or failure of traction.

Low-quality product: According to Startup Genome reports, 13.9% of startups fail because their product isn’t good. A low-quality product can get some purchases, but it definitely won’t generate loyal buyers. Quality is very important, and besides this, you also have to consider another very important factor: the product’s usefulness for customers.

Too high a price: A high price never attracts customers, especially if they can’t afford it. Before setting a price, you must understand the target the product or service is aimed at. Only after careful analysis is it possible to establish a selling price.

Non-existent marketing strategy: Marketing is usually essential to channel a target toward what you sell, which is why a good advertising campaign will make a clear difference between success and failure. In this case, it’s always advisable to contact a professional who can guarantee you results.

Conclusion

In upcoming articles, I’ll tell you how you can use these different channels to increase traffic and attract more and more customers — everything I’ve learned through years of trial and error, until achieving proven results.

Best regards and see you soon, Victor Blanco your digital strategist

Need help finding your traction channel? Contact me.

What is Traction?

Three Growth Phases

The 19 Traction Channels

Choosing the Right Channel

Main Causes of Poor Traction

Conclusion