Mint

Mint tested three channels, then put its effort behind the winner. Mint aimed for 100,000 customers in six months and tested blogs, publicity and search ads. Blogs won and brought the first forty thousand customers. A rerun focused on publicity then took Mint to 1 million users within six months of launch.

This follows the Bullseye process: brainstorm every channel, test about three, focus on the one that works, and rerun the process when that channel saturates. Weaker channels get cut even if they somewhat work.

Mint paid small bloggers directly to promote it and tracked results per blog. Mint emailed small bloggers with the plain offer "Can I send you $500?". The emails drew more than ten thousand preregistrations and showed which customers were most interested.

Personal bloggers often have loyal readers and earn nothing from writing. The approach is a short pitch with a payment offer, a small ad or giveaway tailored to that blog's readers, and signups tracked for each blog.

Mint traded early access for badges that waitlist users posted on their blogs. Six hundred blogs displayed the "I Want Mint" badge, and fifty thousand users signed up through them.

The tactic gives waitlist users a copy-and-paste badge for their blogs and profiles, and grants VIP access to those who drive signups. Signups are tracked per badge, and the links also help search ranking.