10 Tips for Bridging the Gap Between Early Adopters and the Mainstream Market

By Brett Farmiloe

When a new product enters the market, early adopters are the first consumers to try it out and can provide entrepreneurs with valuable feedback about a product's functionality and ways to improve it. These early adopters are able to see a new product's potential and are willing to wait for the issues that often occur with new products to be resolved.

Mainstream markets, which make up the majority of consumers, use products after early adopters. They are much more risk-averse and adopt products based on the proven success of a product and how well it fits their needs. Winning over the mainstream market can make or break a startup.

So how can startups bridge the gap between early adopters and mainstream markets? We posed this question to small businesses and asked them to share their best insights. From focusing on a niche to developing an online presence, their tips can help your startup break into mainstream markets.

How startups can move from early adopters into mainstream markets

1. Focus on a niche

"When startups get a little bit of traction with early adopters, it can be tempting to go after the whole market right away. But having a limited budget and manpower can make it hard to compete with the big fish. A great way to go mainstream is to focus on either a subset of the total market or a specific persona. Going after one smaller pond at a time gives you the ability to appeal to your audience more directly, and it requires fewer resources. Once you've found success with a few different niches, it'll be a lot easier to address the rest of the market directly."

—Elliott Brown, OnPay Payroll Services

2. Keep marketing until most people know you

"A startup crosses the border from early adopters to mainstream markets by getting its product in the hands of as many people as possible. This can be done through a variety of marketing and outreach initiatives, such as online and offline advertising, partnerships with other businesses, PR and media exposure, and so on. The ultimate goal is to reach a point where the majority of people are familiar with the product and are using it on a regular basis.

"Once this happens, the startup is considered to be 'mainstream' and can start focusing on expanding its reach even further."

—Paw Vej, Financer.com Ltd

3. Use your competitors as a benchmark

"Keep a keen eye on competitors and stay one step ahead of them. Be up to date on the competition's performance and use it as a reference point to benchmark your offering against theirs. Using this strategy instead of denying the existence of any competition shows your potential clients that you are ahead of the curve."

—Jason White, All About Gardening

4. Build your online presence

"The best way to promote your business and grow your audience during the early adopter stage is to build an online presence. Encourage early adopters to leave feedback on your company site, popular review platforms, and social media pages. The more established you are in the online world, the easier it is for people to find you and share your product/service with other potential customers.

"Analyze your customer demographics and determine which social media channels your targeted audience is most active on. Work on building those social media pages with shareable posts and interacting with your consumer base. You can also offer discounts to people who leave reviews, offering a small percentage off their next order to encourage them to both promote your company and become repeat customers."

—Roy Morejon, Enventys Partners

5. Create a simple description of the product benefits

"Many startups struggle to go mainstream because they're heavily tied to their niche market purpose. Early adopters will overlook or even prefer the relatively narrow appeal of a product, but serving only boutique interests is at odds with going mainstream.

"Simplify your UI, make the central functionality more upfront, and invest where you see the most use. Focus more on demonstrating how your offering simplifies and makes things easier than instead of showing off the technical features."

—David Patterson-Cole, Moonchaser

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6. Use your early adopters for promotion

"Early adopters are always the 'cool kids,' so use them to help to kick-start your word-of-mouth marketing. If your early adopters are also influencers, they can use their powers to get their followers to purchase your product.

"It's essential to keep in touch with your early adopters; don't antagonize them. These users will act like your opinion leaders. They can help you build an image that others will want to be part of. The challenge is attracting your early adopters with innovative and cutting-edge technology while still keeping your product usable and cost-effective for the masses."

—Mark Daoust, Quiet Light

7. Market the product’s value and usability

"It's relatively easy to attract early adopters. They are enamored by technology and like to bet on the potential of an exciting idea and be known for their foresight. The chasm between these folks and selling your product to the mainstream is how usable and valuable your product is. The broader marketplace does not have money to burn on funky gadgets. They need to know that a new technology will benefit them in some tangible way.

"You must market customer experience over features and make sure the market understands that the product will make their lives easier—and not just because it's fancy and new. You may have to shift your marketing strategy from what attracted those early adopters to make sure the general public also wants your product."

—Paul Moody, ProMoverReviews

8. Streamline pricing to the worldwide marketplace

"When we transitioned from our niche of American early adopters to a global customer base, we made sure that our pricing and distribution channels were streamlined and the best on offer in the worldwide marketplace. We broadened our sales channels and ensured that our business procedures were optimized to expand in any given direction on every continent.

"Getting these basic procedures standardized and on point gave us the base to which we could branch out. The basics matter—once you've got that sorted, your business can grow."

—Evan McCarthy, Sporting Smiles

9. Mine data from early adopters

"Your early adopters, if sufficient in number, will give you all the data you need to confirm who your ideal customer is. In addition, the feedback you collect will allow you to make the necessary changes in preparation for a greater number of eyeballs.

"Most of the time when we are starting out, we are guessing who our ideal customer is, what their problems are, and how we can solve them with our solution. Once you have mined data from your early adopters, make the necessary changes so that you can increase your conversion rate, decrease your cost per acquisition, and feel confident targeting larger audiences."

—Ross Kernez, HealthPlanOne

10. Build up from a minimum viable product

"A startup must achieve product market fit first. To achieve product market fit, it is recommended that when building the product, the team should follow a minimum viable product (MVP) first approach while still adopting a narrow and specific use case. Everything cannot be built for everyone, so having a focus is essential at the beginning. This will allow the founding team to fail fast and rebuild faster.

"Once an MVP version is successful, adopted, and validated by paying customers, your startup can branch out and include more use cases. Wider use cases that have more features built on an already validated product will help you become successful in the mainstream markets."

—Swati Chaturvedi, Propel(x)

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