Startup marketing: winning first customers with creators

The simplest way to do startup marketing without a marketer or an ad budget is to start with a few creators who show your product to their audiences. Instead of burning money on campaigns that don't yet know who they are talking to, you test your message on real people, collect your first sign-ups and reviews, see which audience responds, and later reuse the creators' content on your site and in ads. On Blogger Bank you describe the product in a single task — creators apply on their own, and the contract and payment live in the same place.

This article is for founders of consumer startups and new brands that sell to people rather than companies: apps, food products, cosmetics, accessories, subscription services. If you sell software or services to businesses, read our piece on influencer marketing in B2B and SaaS, because the customer journey works differently there. And if you are only setting up your company profile, start with the article on how a brand launches on Instagram with creators.

What creators give a startup looking for its first customers

Early on, a startup doesn't need reach for its own sake. It needs answers to a few questions: who really wants this product, what words describe it best, and how much it costs to win one customer. Working with creators answers these faster than growing your own profile from zero, because you reach people who already trust someone.

• First users. The audience of a creator who matches your target group is made up of people willing to try something new when someone they know from the screen recommends it.
• A message test. Every creator tells your story a little differently. Comparing reactions shows which promise works before you spend money on a website and ads.
• First reviews and content. A video of someone using your product is proof that the product exists and works. A startup with no history usually has no such material at all.
• Audience data. A few creators from different niches show which group signs up and pays, and which one only likes.

Creators won't save a product nobody needs. They will, however, help you find that out quickly — which is also valuable knowledge at an early stage.

Step 1: test your message with a few creators

Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator, advises founders in his essay “Do Things That Don't Scale” to recruit their first users manually, one by one, instead of waiting for them to arrive. Working with a few creators is the same idea in a version that fits a founder's calendar: instead of messaging hundreds of strangers, you talk to a handful of people who then speak to their audiences.

A few creators are enough to start. Give each of them the same product but a different angle, for example:

• one creator shows the problem the product solves and their day before and after,
• another focuses on saving time or money,
• a third shows how they use the product for the first time, without preparation.

Then don't count likes. Look at comments with questions (“where can I buy it”, “does it work on Android”, “how much is it”), at link clicks and at how many people actually signed up or bought. Questions in the comments are free market research: they show what is missing from your website and product description.

Prepare one short brief: what the product is, who it is for, which problem it solves, what the creator should show, what not to say and where to send viewers. This is where Blogger Bank fits a founder's situation: you describe it once in a task, and creators who find the product interesting apply on their own. You don't have to hunt for contacts and write to everyone separately.

Step 2: find the audience that converts

A founder usually has one target group in mind. The market often disagrees. That's why in your first collaborations it pays to deliberately pick creators from different niches that might need your product.

Example: a meal-planning app may appeal to parents who want to handle grocery shopping faster, to people watching their diet and to those who simply love cooking. These are three different groups and three different messages. You can test them by choosing creators from the family, food and technology niches. The same logic works for cosmetics, pet accessories or home products.

To make the results readable, each creator gets their own trace:

• a separate link with UTM parameters that shows traffic and sign-ups in analytics,
• a separate discount or referral code that shows purchases, including from people who didn't click the link,
• a “how did you hear about us” question at sign-up — simple, and it catches people who typed your name into a search engine.

We describe how to set up codes and links in how to measure the results of a creator campaign. At an early stage you don't need an elaborate report: a table with the creator, niche, cost, sign-ups and first paying customers is enough.

Step 3: collect first reviews and UGC

A new brand faces a chicken-and-egg problem: people don't buy because there are no reviews, and there are no reviews because nobody has bought yet. Creators help break this loop in two ways.

The first is creator reviews. An honest product review on a creator's profile is, for a new viewer, the first proof that someone has really tested the product. Such a post is still advertising and must be labelled — the rules are covered in the ad labelling glossary entry. Don't confuse it with a customer review in a shop or app store: don't order those, ask your real first users who came from creators instead.

The second is UGC: photos and short videos in which a creator uses the product, but which you publish — on your website, in your shop, in emails and in ads. For a startup without a photographer or editor, this is often the fastest way to stop the website looking like a mock-up. Just a few videos showing the product in real life are enough for the home page, a “how it works” section and your first ads.

Before you use someone else's content, agree with the creator where and for how long you may use it. This scope is called usage rights and should be written into the contract, not into a chat message.

Step 4: reuse creator content on your site and in ads

Once you know which message and which audience work, you can carefully add paid promotion — but with content that has already proven itself, not a graphic made in a hurry. For a small budget that makes a big difference: the money goes into creative backed by real audience reactions.

• Landing page. The best clip from a creator's video at the top of the page, with quotes from the questions and comments your product answers below it.
• Ads from the creator's account. Meta lets you promote a creator's post as a partnership ad. We explain how in the article on UGC in ads and Meta Partnership Ads.
• Variant tests. Instead of one video, order two or three different openings and see which brings cheaper sign-ups. The method is covered in the article on testing UGC creatives in ads.

If you are preparing the launch of a specific product, you will also find the articles on product launches with creators and pre-sales with creators useful. This article covers an earlier moment: looking for first customers and fitting your message.

Barter or paid collaboration at an early stage

A startup counting every złoty naturally thinks of barter, meaning a product or service in exchange for a post. It is a fair form of collaboration, but not for every goal.

Barter makes sense when the product has real value for the creator and their audience — a cosmetic, a gadget, a year of premium app access, a food box. It suits the first test: a few creators receive the product and you see whether they want to talk about it at all. If nobody wants to test the product for free, that is a signal too.

Paid collaboration makes sense when you need something specific: a publication date, a defined format, several video versions for testing or the rights to use the content in ads. Then you pay for work rather than relying on goodwill.

In practice, many founders start with barter and then commission paid work from the creators whose audiences actually signed up. We explain how to propose and settle such a deal in the article on barter collaborations. Creator rates depend on niche and format — instead of guessing, browse profiles in the influencer catalogue.

Simple metrics: sign-ups, activation and cost per first customer

At this stage you don't need a dashboard with twenty indicators. Three numbers per creator are enough:

• Sign-ups or orders from their link, code and “how did you hear about us” answers.
• Activation, meaning how many of those people really started using the product: completed the first task in the app, placed a second order, didn't cancel the subscription after the first week.
• Cost per first customer, meaning the full cost of the collaboration — fee, product value and shipping — divided by the number of paying customers from that creator.

Keep two things in mind. First, with only a few collaborations the numbers are small and a single case can change the result, so judge a series, not a single video. Second, part of the effect comes later: someone saw the video today and bought two weeks later by typing your brand name into a search engine. So also watch whether searches and direct visits grow after the posts. Conversion at an early stage is a direction rather than a firm forecast.

What this work gives you when talking to investors

Early creator collaborations aren't just first customers. They also give you material that structures your startup's story when you talk to an investor, an accelerator or a partner. Instead of “we think our customers will be young parents”, you can show:

• which audiences you tested and which one signed up and paid,
• which message worked and which didn't, with examples of comments and questions,
• how much it cost to acquire the first paying customers through this channel,
• whether those customers stay with the product after the first week and month.

Don't promise scale on this basis that you haven't tested yet. An honestly described small test with real numbers is more convincing than a forecast without data. Creator content is useful in the pitch itself, too: a short video with a real user says more about the product than a screenshot.

The most common startup mistakes when working with creators

• One big creator instead of several tests. Spending the whole budget on one post won't tell you whether the product, the message or the audience fit failed.
• Choosing by follower count. What matters is whether the creator's audience has the problem you solve, not reach alone.
• A website that isn't ready. Creator traffic lands on a page with no price, a broken sign-up or no answers to basic questions.
• No separate links and codes. Without them, after the campaign you don't know which creator brought customers.
• No written content rights. The best video won't make it into an ad if you didn't agree on it in the contract.
• Conclusions after one week. A small sample and delayed purchases easily lead to bad decisions.

How Blogger Bank helps a startup win its first customers with creators

A founder without a marketing team needs one place to find creators, agree on terms and receive content without losing weeks to correspondence. On Blogger Bank the full collaboration cycle happens in one place:

• Instead of browsing profiles and writing to each creator separately — you describe the product and goal in one task, and creators it suits apply on their own.
• Instead of guessing whose audience fits your product — you browse profiles that creators fill in themselves, not data scraped automatically from the web.
• Instead of arrangements in messages — the contract with the chosen creator is generated automatically, so the scope and content rights are written down from the start.
• Instead of paying upfront and hoping for a post — secure payment is released to the creator after you accept the content.
• Instead of chaos when testing several niches at once — chats, contracts and terms with many creators are handled in one panel.

See who you can invite to your first test in the influencer catalogue. Create a brand account and describe, in your first task, the product you are looking for first customers for.