Invest in networking. Build relationships. Create trust. This has been the ethos of our go-to-market strategy for the past year. Our target customer does not appreciate sales talk, quick meetings and non-personalized approaches. Our strategy is delicate and takes time but we’re finally starting to reap its benefits. Here’s what we’ve been up to in Q3!
Denmark, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, USA, Germany, Belgium, Malta, Spain and the Netherlands. In the image above you can see the logos of some of Europe’s most prestigious dance companies. 4 of those joined towards the end of Q3, within a 30-day timespan.
Lanced’s rapid international expansion is generated by network effects. With each new company and audition, hundreds of dancers join our platform, creating a dynamic cycle where opportunity attracts talent and talent attracts opportunity.
The global performing arts, and especially the dance sector, are incredibly tight-knit. Word of mouth is the key to unlocking these network effects. Our goal has been to become the topic of conversation between directors and choreographers at dinners, after galas or at dance conferences. To achieve this, we needed to establish trust and credibility with current and future customers.
Invest in networking. Build relationships. Create trust.
In the last half year, we worked hard towards two key events; the BBTK (June) and TanzMesse (August).
The BBTK is an exclusive conference for all ballet and dance directors in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Through a coordinated effort, orchestrated by some of our early customers, we were extended an invitation to speak at their conference last June. They gave us a rare opportunity to speak in front of directors and dramaturges of 30 German theaters, showing a live demo and answering questions. This was a pivotal moment for us. The consensus amongst the people attending? “We’re using Lanced upcoming season!”.
TanzMesse is a bi-annual expo for global dance companies and producers in Dusseldorf, Germany. Many directors and choreographers visit so it’s the perfect place to get in front of our target customers and have in-person interactions. We prepped a guerilla marketing campaign and created a targeted list of directors visiting (locating their stands). It was three days of madness, but I left with incredible conversations, great suggestions, and exciting new ideas. Most excitingly, 10-15 new companies pledged to join Lanced this season.
It took some time for these seeds to bear fruit, but since the beginning of September, we’ve been receiving meeting requests from 1-3 companies per week. People are talking.
Over the summer, we pushed an insane amount of updates, new features and bug fixes and even upgraded the UI design of the entire platform. The platform is now stronger, faster and more intuitive.
On the communication side, we’ve worked hard on our positioning and finding the right sales/marketing language. “How do we clearly and concisely communicate our problem/solution? And what language do the different departments of a theater in the decision-making process speak? How can we anticipate their questions and provide a clear onboarding process?”
Optimizing our communication has without a question contributed to our latest growth. The value proposition of Lanced is now crystal clear to our (future) customers.
Since our platform is based on the visual perception of the performing arts, we also needed to make our communication visually captivating.