It all started with the urge to my mama’s business grow. I reached to a mentor to update him about my next plan and it went something like this…

Me: I am looking to increase the sales of this product loved by everyone who has come across it and my strategy is to use Facebook ads and YouTube ads.

Reply: don’t be fixated on channels, fixation won’t help you. You might think one channel is best, but another might give you what you require. Get the book “Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth”.

And my friend that reply changed everything about my approach to business growth and generating traction for business.

In this article, I bring to you the first set of a lesson I learned from reading the book. And that is the 19 traction channels available to you. Yes, a whopping 19. My advice to you as well as that don’t be fixated, experimenting doesn’t hurt, and it doesn’t have to cost much. Try out all you consider worthy for your product and within the threshold of acceptable lose.

Traction Channels

My focus will be on 3 of those channels that are low cost

• Content marketing

Unbounce a startup in the business building landing pages was used an as an example here and founder has this to say:

“We had not started blogging at the beginning the way we did, Unbounce would not be here today. … Our content still drives customers. Something we wrote in January 2010 still drives customers today. 

Have you heard the saying “the internet never forgets”?  That is true in all ramifications, it never forgets. That is why the content of 2010 can still be alive to generate new customers about 6 years later.

Content marketing is about creating blog posts that give your business a hedge, a hedge that aims to convert the reader of such content to a new customer. Its advantage over the use of ads, for example, is that ads can only work for as long as you keep paying for it to run. Content lives forever wherever you posted it. Contents, intentionally written can be a catalyst for business growth through customer acquisition.

• Community building

This while it may have always existed, the internet democratizes access to it removes geographical and cost barrier that may have rendered it unviable. Stack Exchange is a potent example of reference here. Stack Exchange is an online community where people share their technical challenges and other people offers a solution to the said challenges.

People want to feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves. You need to have a mission if you want to build an awesome community. A powerful mission gives your community a shared sense of purpose and motivates them to contribute.”

This was how the team at Stack Exchange built the awesome community that a lot of techies rely on now.

But you need to ask yourself first if your business requires a community to thrive, and how best you can state your mission to be to attract motivated individuals who will be part of your mission. 

• Speaking Events

“speaking is funny. You know to me, it’s the old-school concept that teaching sells. . . . Teaching is what content marketing is all about: webinars, blog posts, and the like. I look at [these] things as the future of good marketing. The opportunity to teach and be in front of a room for forty-five minutes introducing your company and your story to potential customers is time well spent.” –  Dan Martell, Founder of Clarity

I share his sentiment, think about Apple launch events, the representatives of the company tell a story of the new product that is about to be released and the whole room is expected to buy into it. The way that story is told always matters.

Now, you may not that kind of Apple opportunity but if your product is great that you exist in the limelight, chances are you will be invited to give talks at someplace sometime. Take it up and use it as an opportunity to sell your story to your audience and those that will hear it later.

Do not waist any growth opportunity that presents itself to you.

All who start-up business do so with the expectation that they will reach profitability and grow their product or service acceptance among customers. The “how” is what is usually not clear. It is in search of the “how” that also led me to the book Traction. Above I highlighted 3 channels that almost anyone can afford but which only requires work. I hope you find them instructive and get to work just as much as I am going to my drawing board now.

Below is the list of the 19 channels

1. Targeting blogs.
2. Publicity.
3. Public Relations (PR)
4. Unconventional PR.
5. Social and display ads.
6. Offline ads.
7. Search engine optimization (SEO)
8. Content marketing
9. Viral Marketing
10. Email Marketing
11. Engineering as Marketing
12. Business Development
13. Sales
14. Affiliate Programs
15. Existing Platforms
16. Trade Shows
17. Offline Events
18. Speaking Engagements
19. Community Building

And here is the link that gives you more insight into each of the channels

Book link

For the uninitiated, Transsion holdings is the parent company of Tecno, Infinix and Itel. Recently, they had their IPO (initial public offering) on the Shanghai STAR exchange, a Chinese based exchange reserved for companies in the tech space and they raised 393 million USD, valuing the company at 3.95 Billion USD. Transsions IPO prospectus reveals some surprising facts, one of which is that 2018 revenue was 3.29 Billion USD, and they hold a whopping 64% of the feature phone market in Africa, with Nokia following them as a distant runner-up with 10%. In terms of unit sales, the three combined Transsion brands (Tecno, Infinix and Itel) control a combined smartphone market share of 36.2% with Samsung coming in at second at 23.9% and Huawei at 11.4%. 

The big question, however, is how did a Chinese company that was relatively unknown about 12 years ago end up having such a hold on the African Smartphone and feature phone scene? The Secret is in Design.

Design

In an article, I wrote about what design meant to me, and how design is much more than the product of design (well designed logo or banner, software user interface or a Hardware Product) but more about the process of design, or what has now been popularized by the term “Design Thinking”.

Design thinking is a five step iterative approach to problem solving used by designers and popularized by the team at global design Consultancy IDEO. Design thinking in essence has five steps; Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Testing. The Success of Transsion Holdings was made possible by the efficient execution of one of the five design thinking steps; Empathy.

Empathy

 Design is human and people centered, therefore the foundation of Design is Empathy. Empathy isn’t assuming you know why and where the shoe hurts, Empathy is about wearing the Shoe, and finding out for yourself where it hurts. Your chances of building products that connect with people are heightened when you develop true Empathy for your users and consumers, because not everyone that is frowning their face is angry. Some are hungry. Empathy will help you know the difference.

Design doesn’t try to influence human behavior, it adapts to it.

At the root of Transsion’s success is Empathy. Transsion’s understanding of the Nigerian (and by extension African)market and consumer has empowered it to position its product in the right place to solve the Jobs to be done (I’ll get to this later) of the Nigerian and African consumer. Here are some steps they took:

Dual Sim

 Transsion originally started with one brand; Tecno. And at the initial stages what they made were primarily feature phones, their phones weren’t necessarily high quality, and as for those who remember those days, those phones were nicknamed ‘Chinko’ phones. Be that as it may, Transsion noticed a gap in the market; the average Nigerian consumer liked having two phones, so, they took advantage of that information and began to design dual sim phones, today the rest is history, almost every new feature phone and/or smartphone launched into the Nigerian market comes with Dual sim capability. Transsion pioneered it in Africa.

Pricing

The average Nigerian is price conscious, very price conscious, if you sell a product in Nigeria for an exorbitant price that doesn’t already have a solid brand, and your market is the Average masses, you may need to re-strategize if you don’t want to go under. The average Nigerian is willing to choose one product over another based on a N1,000 ($2.78) difference in price. Transsion understanding this consciously made an effort to keep their phone prices down. Five years ago, at the end of the road for BlackBerry, people began migrating to either Android or IOS devices, but there was a problem, it was pricing. The two major Smartphones then were Samsung and Apple, which really didn’t solve the pricing problem (they exacerbated it). This was where Transsion saw an opportunity and grasped it. The first batch of Tecno hardware was so cheap, I remember a specific model was so cheap it costs one third of a hundred dollar!!!!.

Focus on what matters, ignore what doesn’t

There are very few technology companies as focused as Transsion. To achieve the right pricing, Transsion has to be focused on making sure that their phones don’t carry specs that are not necessary, and since they understand their market, it hasn’t been difficult to do. Being focused means not putting specs that are good on paper, but add little or no noticeable value to the user. To cut down on processor cost, they use Mediatek chips instead of Snapdragon, which are more cost effective for managing mid to low range Smartphones. They know you don’t need a high resolution OLED display, you also don’t need a 90Hz screen refresh, so it’s not included to avoid bumping up the retail price, wireless charging is nice, but for now it’s not a deal breaker, Phones are made of plastic as against Glass to save cost, in the end efficiency and good decision-making is really the backbone of their strategy. Things like the face unlock, all screen displays, fast charging and even a fingerprint scanner all have considerable value to the end user and are added to the product. Whatever is primarily a buzzword feature stays far away.

It’s a Numbers Game

Business executives love numbers, so do Nigerians. Although Transsion is a focused brand, they know when to play with numbers to attract your attention. Quadruple camera setup (4 Cameras in a phone), 32megapixel front facing camera, 4000 mah battery, 4gb of RAM, 64gb of internal storage, these are largely designed to draw the end users attention. In reality, the number of camera’s doesn’t determine how good a photo is, the Google Pixel 3, arguably one of the best photography Smartphones in the market has only one camera, most of the heavy lifting is done by computational software. Transsion understands well enough where to put numbers to draw the users attention and makes the most of this.

Some other strategies employed by Transsion include having a portfolio of three brands, meaning customers have a wide array of products to choose from instead of being stuck to one product from one brand.

How Does this Help me?

Empathy is the first step in Design thinking, if you will succeed in business, you must apply the principles of Empathy. Without a deep and thorough understanding of your consumers, and the market you intend to operate in, you run the risk of providing products and services that people don’t need or find valuable

 People do not buy products because they want to, they buy products because they want to “be”. There’s something we call the Jobs To Be Done Theory, your product isn’t just a ticket to perform an action by a user, it’s a way to bridge a gap between where a user is now and where he intends to be. Your product bridges that gap. Transsion bridges the gap of affordable premium, and democratizes the Smartphone experience. If your product will be successful it must locate a specified gap and bridge it for the intended user.

Conclusion

Empathy is key to success in business, if you can’t see from the eyes of your users, then you really can’t see at all.