Automate Customer Acquisition by Growth Hacking other Marketplaces
Marketplace startup is always challenging, the biggest obstacle for each founder, it is how to solve chicken and egg problem.
My startup is also marketplace and we provide last mile in house delivery for big items, like furniture appliances an etc.
As a technical founders i was too away from marketing and did not know anything how to create funnel, do digital marketing and etc.
Thanks to Neil Patel for SEO Videos, Ahref Blog and big thanks Growth Tribe
Marketing costs a lot, it is “F..ing Expensive”. But luckily i was watching another episod from Growth Tribe and David Arnoux said “ Build your community by using Other`s People Network (OPN)”.
That is genious! Remember how AirBnb growth hack? They wrote a widget to publish listing on Craigslist.
Since we are doing furniture delivery Craigslist, Facebook marketplace, LetGo
are fully of people who buy and sell furniture. Obviously they need delivery service.
For me the biggest question was “How can i place Easymove in front of those people without spending a dime?”
Moment to hack the system
A lot time ago i developed in myself skill set to notice things which people do not pay attention and sharped that skill set.
Next time when i was posting a table for sale on craigslist i paid attention on url and came with idea, what about to post craigslist ad with the phone of my company. I gave a shoot and it worked.
After that moment i started testing different strategies to post ads with company ads on Craigslist, Facebook marketplace, LetGo and etc.
Test & Measure Marketing efforts
Always test and measure! Want to hack Marketing, Be creative!
Here how i was testing and measuring my efforts. I created for myself marketplace posting framework.
Again and again , Test and measure
In 3 days i was able to get 4k views and 147 Leads not paying any dime. our conversion rate was 65%.
This strategy allowed us to generate $105K in Sales.
The main problem with all that stuff is that algorithm constantly is changing and you need to keep up.
It is time and energy consuming but it worth!
Time to Automate Posting
Once we started to prepare for fundraising, manual marketing become painful. Even we hired a marketer, but the problem was that person did not have a sense what we are doing. The only way was to automate routine work!
Here is my automation toolkit:
1-Eclipse
2-Java
3-Selenium
4- Autoit
5- Pyton (Btw work really great to automate servers)
Growth Hack Craigslist | Selenium is the KING
Selenium is super easy to learn. Recommend to read materials from Guru99
public class craigslist {
private static Object[] location;
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException, IOException {
System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "Path to selenium");
WebDriver driver=new ChromeDriver();
driver.get(" https://accounts.craigslist.org/login");
driver.findElement(By.id("inputEmailHandle")).sendKeys("Your Username");
driver.findElement(By.id("inputPassword")).sendKeys("Your password");
driver.findElement(By.id("login")).submit();
driver.findElement(By.linkText("craigslist")).click();
driver.findElement(By.id("post")).click();
driver.findElement(By.xpath("/html/body/article/section/form/ul/li[1]/label")).click();
driver.findElement(By.xpath("/html/body/article/section/form/ul/li[6]/label/span[2]")).click();
driver.findElement(By.xpath("/html/body/article/section/form/div/div/label/label[26]/div/span")).click();
driver.findElement(By.name("PostingTitle")).sendKeys("Type Title Here");
driver.findElement(By.name("price")).sendKeys("0");
driver.findElement(By.name("postal")).sendKeys("60660");
driver.findElement(By.name("PostingBody")).sendKeys("Type Test Here");
driver.findElement(By.name("sale_size")).sendKeys("10");
WebElement menu = driver.findElement(By.xpath("/html/body/article/section/form/div/div/fieldset[1]/div/div[2]/label[2]/span/span[2]"));
menu.click();
driver.findElement(By.id("ui-id-5")).click();
driver.findElement(By.xpath("/html/body/article/section/form/div/div/div[3]/div/button")).submit();
driver.findElement(By.xpath("/html/body/article/section/form/button")).submit();
WebElement uploadElement = driver.findElement(By.id("plupload"));
uploadElement.click();
Thread.sleep(4000);
Runtime.getRuntime().exec(" Use Autoit in order to upload picture ");
Thread.sleep(4000);
driver.findElement(By.xpath("/html/body/article/section/form/button")).submit();
//Thread.sleep(4000);
driver.findElement(By.xpath("/html/body/article/section/div[1]/form/button")).submit();
driver.quit();
}
}Let nail it down and dive in.
1- Install Eclipse, Java and Selenium
https://www.guru99.com/installing-selenium-webdriver.html
2 — Use method findElement to tell selenium where to go and click
Type your ysername/password to login craigslist
driver.findElement(By.id("inputEmailHandle")).sendKeys("Your Username");
driver.findElement(By.id("inputPassword")).sendKeys("Your password");
3- Type title for your posting
driver.findElement(By.name(“PostingTitle”)).sendKeys(“Type Title Here”);
Use Autoit to upload image to your Craigslist posting
Here is a piece of code which you will need:
- ControlFocus(“ title “,” text “,controlID ) //Sets input focus to a given control on a window.
- ControlSetText(“ title “,” text “,controlID ,” File path which need to upload “ ) // Sets text of a control.
- ControlClick(“ title “,” text “,controlID ) //Sends a mouse click command to a given control.
Read guide how to upload photo via Selenium Webdriver here: Guru99
Once you are wrote a code time to create schedule.
You can use native Windows Task Schedule or Jenkins
Here is guide how to execute and set up code on Task Schedule
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHUSZtcJJJs
Results
In a week we grow web page traffic and increasing brand awareness.
Growth Hacking is not a skill set, it is a mind set
Hopefully you enjoyed reading this article and it will help you.
Later or i will share my experience how to automate Facebook Marketplace Posting and Messenger Chat.
Follow me on
twitter : @emin_F_aliyev
Happy to share my experience and journey ! Stay Tuned!
