how i would growth hack a barbershop
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We interviewed 180+ growth hackers including Sean Ellis, Brian Balfour, Josh Elman and Gagan Biyani.
VIDEO EDITOR AT GROWTH HACKER TV
Helping and advising 200+ startups about growth and hustling. Trained 150+ growth hackers at our growth school. Watch our video on YouTube at StartupFood.
GROWTH HACKER AT THEFAMILY
I write an essay every month to help companies grow faster. I talk especially about growth hacking, business intel l igence, behavioral and cognitive psychology.
BLOGGER AT HACKISITION
JULIEN LE COUPANEC« Growth hacking is fundamentally like playing with
Legos. It is about having an up-to-date vision of all the cubes to imagine growth experiments. »
THE PROCESS WE WILL FOLLOWWhile a growth hacker is still a marketer on many aspects, the main difference is that he has to think about growth in a holistic fashion. Focusing merely on acquisition and activation is just one part of the job. We also have to be creative regarding retention, referral and other details that can push revenue to the top. We’ll take care about the quality of our service and make use of many growth hacks to lead our customers to experience the core value of what we do.
#1. SPOT AND TRIGGER
OPPORTUNITIES
Let’s say that we are located in a renowned Parisian street but no one knows us yet. We just opened and so, are very early-stage. Our first focus is to identify all the things that might create awareness about our incredible shop so that people pass the doorstep.
HIGHLY TARGETED FACEBOOK ADSRUN HIGHLY TARGETED ADS ON FACEBOOK FOR PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN THE LOCATION.
USE EMOTIONAL ANCHORSBUY A GIANT CHEWBACCA, MAKE HIM A GOATEE AND PUT HIM IN FRONT OF THE STORE.
SOCIAL CIRCLE AWARENESSMAKE SURE EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT I DO, THE ADDRESS OF THE PLACE AND ITS NAME.
80 %
60 %
75 %
SUCK PAYING CUSTOMERS OF DATING WEBSITESBY EXPORTING THEIR EMAIL ADDRESS WITH YAHOO. CUSTOM AUDIENCE OR COLD EMAIL.
70 %
ADWORDS CAMPAIGNS GOOGLE MAPTRACK THESE CUSTOMERS BY ASKING THEM HOW THEY FOUND US.
90 %
#2. DESIGN THE MOST OUTSTANDING FIRST EXPERIENCE.
If we want to retain them, making a compromise on the first experience is not an option. I even remember an entrepreneur arguing to me once: « you better focus 80% of your efforts on the first user experience as everyone must go through it ». Good news, that’s exactly what we are going to do. Here are the main variables we will have to continually optimize to reduce the “friction”. Ultra customer care leads to retention and referral. But be careful, since a company’s culture and the customer service it delivers are closely tied together, great customer service and the resulting happy customers are only possible if you treat your employees well.
ULTRA CUSTOMER CARE LEADS TO RETENTION AND REFERRAL.If there is one thing I have learned, most people are impatient and don’t like to wait. If we want our customers to be happy from the first to the last second, we will have to deal with this embarrassing situation and avoid as much as possible to be late.
DUET MULTITOUCH COFFEE TABLESDEAL WITH CUSTOMER WAITING TIME AND IMPROVE WORD OF MOUTH.
INCREASE PROXIMITY WITH STORIESFIND HIS AREAS OF INTEREST AND FOCUS THE CONVERSATION AROUND THEM.
PINTEREST, DRIBBBLE AND GRAPHICRIVERTHINK ABOUT THE STOREFRONT OF ANY SHOP AS A LANDING PAGE.
80 %
90 %
85 %
KNOW CUSTOMER’S NAMETHIS IS ONE OF THE MOST UNDERESTIMATED THINGS AMONG BARBERS.
80 %
10% DISCOUNT ON THE FIRST VISIT + PRODUCT SAMPLESTHAT’S A CLASSIC AND I HAVE SEEN PLENTY OF PEOPLE USE THAT TRICK.
70 %
#3. CREATING A HABIT AND ACCELERATING REFERRALS.
Deliver great customer service and let your loyal customers do your marketing for you. At the end of the day, stuff sells because people like it and recommend it to other people. Nonetheless, let’s accelerate this natural behavior.
MOST LOYALTY CARDS ARE STUPID AND HERE IS WHY:
• First, many are made with paper which can make you lose or forget about them. That’s why I would automatically create a virtual loyalty card and make it easy to access through their name with a special url like « mybusiness.com/julien ».
• From a customer perspective, they also tend to promise you no reward until you reach your 10th purchase. That’s like promising a 5 years old he will have a Ferrari when he will hit 31. I prefer to believe in fragmented rewards: on the second visit I would offer a discount or an incentive attractive enough so that they remember to come, on the fifth visit another one and then, on the 10th visit, a free cut.
FOCUSING AND GROWING FROM INSTAGRAM.
Trying to be the best on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram and Pinterest is the best strategy to be mediocre on each one. In our case, we will only try to grow on Instagram as there is a great engagement regarding fashion pictures. We will take pictures of our most good looking beards to bring legitimacy, to show that our work is an art, to come back in our followers’ minds but especially to increase the connection with the models while growing from their own social circle as we will tag them.
SMIIRL INSTAGRAM« The best way to get someone to share your
product is not to beg him but to make him become a creator. Because it becomes a part of him. »
NOTICE A RECURRING PATTERN AND GROW FROM TWILIO.
Interacting with our customers by SMS may also be a promising experiment to increase retention. I’m sure there is probably some efficient tactics to imagine using Twilio. Personally, I go every 7 days, but it should be easy to notice a recurring pattern for each customer. If we see that someone is passing the doorstep every 15 days, it could be smart to send him a text message and come back in his mind with an incentive if he haven’t visited us let’s say, for 20 days.
TO INCREASE REFERRALS WE WILL ASK FOR IT.
• If we have a good feeling with a customer, we will ask him to talk about our shop to his friends just after he leaves.
• Ask your satisfied customers to leave you a review at Yelp (or whatever platform is the most relevant for you), and give them a coupon with e.g. 20% discount for their next visit in return.
• He can be given a 10% discount voucher if he tweets about the experience or reviews the shop on Facebook.
REVIEWS ARE PRECIOUS« This also means to engage with negative reviews
by displaying the human side of your company: when you spot a negative review online, fix it. »
#4. EXPERIMENTING WITH PRICING AND INCREASING REVENUE.
keep in mind the adage: « a confused mind does not buy ». Pricing for a barbershop should be easy and smart. We will use a simple system and round the prices to avoid to deal with changes. If we have a great retention, we will also increase our prices a few bucks.
With this model, if it happens that our retention is very high, we will open another barbershop and run another Facebook ad on a small sample of prospects offering this time the first beard for free. That would be a way to accelerate growth as it becomes difficult to find a more attractive incentive.
