Personally, while discovering new music on any music streaming platform I tend to listen to music that has been upvoted by more people than the music that has received a cold welcome. Do you relate to any of this? Well, now you know the influence early adopters have.
In the book Diffusion of Innovations, Everett M Rogers classifies adopters into five categories: Innovators, Early adopters, Early majority, Late majority and Laggards.
Innovators are your customers since the Beta phase. They are natural risk takers and tend to try out new products. They are prepared and are comfortable with the fact that some of the products they try may fail miserably. The basic strategy to follow when the product life cycle is in the introduction phase is to make sure that the product is made such that it gets used to the customer, rather than customer getting used to the product.
What happens when we move past innovators? We reach the early adopters stage.
It is known that a slow start for any startup could mean that it never reaches the growth phase. An amazing start is needed for a safe lifespan of your startup and early adopters give you that start.
Who Exactly Are Early Adopters?
Early adopters are users that use a product/service way before the most of the market try their hand on it. These are the group of people that write reviews on websites, post comments and share their experiences.
The reason why early adopters try new products can be anything, social status or just curiosity but the common fact that binds them is their risk-taking abilities. Although their risk-taking abilities are not as high as innovators they still seem to leave their mark on the market.
Why Should You Be Worried About Early Adopters?
Early adopters are basically your first impression on the market. These are loud people who would recommend your product or service if they find it delivering value to them. Therefore, it is the most essential phase where your branding is in its nascent phase.
Your brand is heavily damaged if early adopters reject your product. This will result in a very negative market impact and would generally result in a downfall of sales.
On the other hand, early adopters are exceptionally good at influencing people. This is probably because of the fact that they are usually financially stable, have a public figure and are loud about their stance. A positive review by early adopters can shoot your brand value higher than most of your standard marketing strategies.
Strategies that you need to implement for early adopters:
Treat The Early Adopters As Royalties
Early adopters usually take the risk of trying your product keeping in mind that the product might get cheaper along the line or the fact that the product may fail to deliver value and yet they try your product, that requires some rewarding.
Take out time to answer their queries, solve their issues and give them the core idea of your company. This would work wonders as they would soon be influencing people for you.
Pre-Releases
Now, pre-release is an amazing marketing strategy. Pre-release usually gives additional services/features when booked. This means that early adopters are promised rewards for taking risks. With pre-releases, creators usually reward early adopters for getting their product without completely knowing how it is going to turn out.
Knowing Your Early Adopters
When products are customized for the user base, they usually receive an overwhelming response. Early adopters do not expect a perfect flawless product in the first run. However, with time and their feedback, if the products are modified as per their needs, early adopters make sure your product has an increased market reach.
Referral Programs
Referral programs are generally rewards provided for referring a user. This promotes an active indirect marketing system where individuals personally increase the user base for a small incentive. For early adopters, referrals are highly useful as they’re the pioneers and referrals would reward them the most.
The Startup Process
We know how important your dream business is to you. Therefore, we’ve come up with an all in one guide: The Startup Process to help you turn your vision into reality.
Engineer by education. Writer by choice. I learn about new things by writing about them.
