Do you want more customers?
One of the quickest and most hacky ways to get more customers is to make a hit list: a list of folks who are either already buying from your competitors or are using products tangentially related to the product (or service) you sell.
Then reach out to every person on your list and tell them about your product.
Here is a super simple way to do that:
Step 1: Use NerdyData.com to get a list of websites using your competitor’s product.
Step 2: Reach out to them and get them to use your product instead.
NerdyData is a search engine for code. So you can plop in a bit of code from your website (ex: a Facebook tracking pixel snippet) and find all of the other sites on the internet that have that code on their website.
Pretty snazzy, right?
I’ll give you a few quick examples of how you could implement this.
Example #1: Unlock Your Theme by John Meese
John sells an online course called Unlock Your Theme. It’s a video course that teaches people how to use Michael Hyatt’s WordPress theme.
How could John use this strategy to sell more copies of his course?
First, find a snippet of code unique to Hyatt’s WordPress theme.
To do that you can go to any site running his theme and right-click and press “view source.” This will give you a look at the code that produces the page you see on his theme.
You’ll see something like this…
Now, hunt through this code to find a snippet that is unique to the theme.
Something like this…
Last, go over to NerdyData.com and put that code snippet into their search engine.
The result is a list of 2,506 websites that are running the WordPress theme.
These are people who have already bought the theme, installed it and are actively running it on their site.
Now John’s job is easy: send all 2,506 website owners an email, telling them about his course that will help them get more out of their website.
BOOM!
Example #2: ConvertKit by Nathan Barry
Nathan Barry runs a email service provider called ConvertKit.
You’re familiar with MailChimp and AWeber, right?
ConverKit is like that, only more sophisticated, cheaper and specifically designed for professional bloggers.
Marketing ConverKit is a little tricky though. ConvertKit is not targeted at the beginner crowd. The entry level plan costs $29 per month, whereas Mailchimp and Aweber both have free (or extremely cheap) plans for beginners.
Nathan’s target market is bloggers with 3,000 subscribers on their list who are already making money from their list.
These are people who are already using email service providers like Infusionsoft or Ontraport but are fed up with the complexity and bloat of those systems.
But finding those people can be hard.
Unless you use our new hack. 🙂
First, you would need to find a snippet of code that websites using Infusionsoft or ONTRAPORT would have on their site.
In this case that’s easy: any website with an embedded form has a unique piece of code.
For example…
If you go to LewisHowes.com you’ll see an embedded form on the home page.
Right-click your mouse and press “view source” and you’ll get the entire code base for his website.
Now, if you do a search for “infusionsoft,” it brings you straight to several unique pieces of code you can use for the search.
Lastly, if you punch that snippet of code into NerdyData, you get a list of over 18,000 websites with the same code installed.
= Infusionsoft’s entire customer list!
Now Nathan has a hit list. He has a list of 18,000 people who are actively paying Infusionsoft at least $250 per month for their service.
His job is to filter through this list and reach out to the most qualified prospects.
Yeehaw!
**UPDATE: Answering a few common questions**
Since originally publishing this article, I’ve received a boatload of “How do I use this in my industry?” questions.
This update will answer those questions and clear up a few other issues several of you have faced.
Update #1: The purpose of this technique is to identify potential customers for your business based on trackable and searchable behaviors.
Those behaviors could be any number of things:
1. Articles they have backlinked to
2. Plugins they have installed
3. Themes they are running
4. The CMS they are using (WordPress, Squarespace etc.)
Before jumping in to use this technique, It’s important for you to identify what online behaviors qualify your customers.
Not all businesses will be able track plugins, themes and backlinks as indicators of customers’ interest.
For example…
Commenter Kyle Reed asked this question:
The Nerdy Data technique is primarily useful for businesses selling products to people that have websites or some form of trackable and searchable online presence.
Since Kyle’s ideal customer is “any women interested in fashion” that makes it a little harder to apply this specific technique.
However, there are several other trackable and searchable indicators that Kyle could use to find women interested in clothes.
Here are two:
1. Pinterest
A search for “women clothes fashion” on Pinterest brings up 100s of popular pins like this.
All 530 people that pinned this are potential customers of Kyle’s wife’s boutique.
Reach out to them, follow them on Pinterest and run paid ads to them.
2. Twitter
Anyone who shares women’s fashion-related articles is a potential candidate as well.
A quick search on BuzzSumo will give you the most popular women’s fashion articles.
You can then click the “View Shares” button in BuzzSumo (or use the free tool Topsy) to see the exact individuals who shared the article.
All 403 of the folks who shared this article have exhibited a behavior that qualifies them as a potential customer for Kyle’s wife’s store.
Update #2: What do you do once you have generated a list of potential customers?
So you’ve used NerdyData (or Twitter or Pinterest) to generate a list of potential clients.
Now what?
Zach Gray asked this question in the comments…
Your exact attack plan will vary depending on the price point and nature of your product.
For example, let’s look at how Nathan Barry could reach out to the prospect list he generates by using this technique.
This is how I would reach out to my prospect list if I were Nathan…
Step 1: Generate a list of 250 potential customers that are currently using Infusionsoft.
Step 2: Pay an assistant to find the email address of each prospect. (Budget: $50-ish.)
Step 3: Email all 250 prospects with this email script:
Step 4: Follow up with anyone who doesn’t respond with this script.
Based on my experience, of those 250 people, Nathan will be able to convert 2-5 of those prospects into paying customers.
Tip: You can also use a service like LeadFuze to automate this entire process.
Update #3: As an entrepreneur, your job is to creatively apply techniques and strategies you learn to your unique situation.
One of the most valuable skills you can acquire as an entrepreneur is the ability to take strategies that you observe in other industries and apply them to your business.
At first it isn’t easy.
It’s easier to read a blog post like this and say “Oh! My customers aren’t online. This isn’t applicable,” and go back to wallowing in your self-pity.
However, I want to challenge you. I want to challenge you to figure out a way to MAKE it work for you.
How can you take the basic principles taught in this strategy and apply them to your business?
How can you find new potential customers by observing and tracking their behavior online?
That’s your job. Figure. It. Out.
Watch this if you need a little more inspiration.
One of the things that helps me the most is seeing more case studies.
So I’m going to leave you with one more example and a video walk-through of how to apply this strategy.
Example: Video Marketing Business
Corey Baker asked how he could use this strategy to find new clients for his video marketing business.
Start by asking this question.
What paid products are used by people interested in video marketing?
Answer = paid video hosting services like Wistia.
People who pay money every month to host videos on Wistia obviously “get” the value of video marketing and would instantly be more qualified to pay for professional services since they are already paying for video hosting (as opposed to using a free service like YouTube).
So how do we find these people?
Here is a quick video walk-through:
How can you use this to make more sales?
First, be creative.
What software products do your target customers use?
Make a list of them. Google search for them. Examine your own website for what you already use.
Then use NerdyData and the technique I outlined in this post to create your hit list.
Once you have your list together, get to work!
Start reaching out to your new prospects one at a time.
PS: Need help figuring out how to use this technique for your product? Leave a comment below and the community will jump in to give you advice.