(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)
How many indie hackers have done cold outreach?
Want to share something with over 100,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing
by Sam Hartmann
How many indie hackers do cold outreach? There are so many ways to do it, including:
Can any business be successful without cold outreach? Interested in hearing from other founders on this!
RJ Youngling believes that cold outreach absolutely works, but you have to be clear on your ideal customer:
When people say that cold outreach doesn't work, it's usually coming from engineers who look at marketing with disdain, then wonder why it doesn't work. The single most important thing with cold outreach is something that everyone skips: Your positioning! If you're sending emails out willy-nilly, don't be surprised at a lack of results. You won't sell your amazing beef burgers at a vegan conference!
What very specific problem do you solve for which very specific audience? After determining that, you need to make sure that your solution comes at a price point that's either lower than the value gained, or lower than the cost of leaving the problem unsolved.
Once you have those elements, the next step is to simply start talking to your target segment in your target market. Make your messaging clear and attractive. Here's more on nailing your positioning.
Of course, cold outreach isn't going to work for everyone; that's just how marketing goes. Tactics are simply tools! Some tactics will work for some founders and not others. That being said, I suspect that a good majority of people who say that cold outreach doesn't work can make it work by implementing the elements above, in order.
Ash Rahman thinks that cold outreach is obsolete:
For indie hackers, cold outreach should be a last resort.
Why? This is 2022! Nobody wants to talk to a salesperson. People like to discover things themselves, and purchase when they think it makes sense for them.
Cold outreach is not scalable, and also consider the mental toll it takes to see all of the rejections. Angry prospects threatening litigation doesn't sound fun to me! I also believe that cold outreach has become too saturated to be a viable marketing tool anymore.
I think that founders should only consider cold outreach when everything else has been exhausted. Go out into the wild and network with people in a meaningful way. Help your target users discover you organically. They should feel like they found you, not the other way around, and you certainly don't want them feeling like you've tricked them just to sell your product or service.
Keep in mind that it's different if you have a dedicated sales team. Getting a "no" is part of the job for a sales team, but for a founder, it can ruin productive hours and motivation. Founders need to be creative with their time.
Many founders swear by cold outreach! Onur Genes says that it has been one of keys to success for his business:
I have sent more than 50K emails so far, and I've been able to close a lot of deals that way. I know that many indie hackers may see cold outreach as being spammy, but it doesn't have to be. You are sending those emails for a real purpose, and if your tool is helpful, you've improved the trajectory of that business!
A quick guide:
Cold outreach is also a powerful validation method!
Heleana Tiburca agrees:
Cold outreach can be pretty addicting when it actually works! I think that some of the most pivotal points in my career have cold outreach at their roots. It's helped me to meet amazing advisors and partners, and also land clients.
My quick hack for cold outreach? Find the community manager, not the CEO. Read more on that here!
Has cold outreach worked for you? Share your experience below!
Discuss this story.
from the Volv newsletter by Priyanka Vazirani
📱 Twitter is currently testing an edit feature, and a "Twitter Circle" feature.
💲 The UK has slipped down to the world's sixth largest economy, dropping behind India.
🚲 People who bought Pelotons early in the pandemic are now trying to unload them.
📉 Amazon's cost-cutting is a warning.
😶🌫️ Tired of Zoom meetings? Get ready for hologram meetings.
Check out Volv for more 9-second news digests.
from the Trends.vc newsletter by Dru Riley
You can get more sales without getting more traffic.
The average website conversion rate is 2-3%. You're losing customers with a below average conversion rate.
Optimize your website to boost the percentage of people who convert. A 1% to 2% conversion rate change is a 100% increase in sales.
Conversion rate optimization experiments:
Conversion rate optimization tools:
Make sure that your page speed loads in three seconds or less. Slow websites aren't just annoying, they prevent sales.
Make your headline clear and convincing. Up to 80% of visitors never make it past the fold.
Know which levers to pull. Optimize these variables on your landing pages:
"I don't know where to start optimizing. I don't want to fix something that isn't broken."
Growth often requires risk. Your landing page might not be broken, but it can always be better. Experimentation is the price we pay for improvements.
"Won't the law of diminishing returns come into play?"
Maybe. But the same applies to pay-per-click advertising. At least conversion rate optimization does not lead to marginal costs for diminishing returns.
"Conversion rate optimization tools are too expensive."
Google Analytics is free. Start somewhere. Knowing something is better than knowing nothing.
"Doesn't conversion rate optimization require an understanding of almost everything? Copy, design, analytics, etc."
Start small. Change your copy. Add FAQs. Include testimonials. You don't have to boil the ocean or be a designer to improve your landing page.
Go here to get the Trends Pro report. It contains 200% more insights. You also get access to the entire back catalog and the next 52 Pro Reports.
Discuss this story, or subscribe to Trends.vc for more.
🤏 In one sentence, what is your product? Posted by Wolfeleven.
💸 I spent $2K on Facebook ads. Posted by Andrew Kamphey.
📝 50 top subreddits to share your infoproduct. Posted by Leon.
🧐 Do you write tests? Posted by Fredrik.
🗓 I delayed launch seven times. Posted by Miguel Lima.
💭 What do wish you'd known when you launched? Posted by AllOutNerdClan.
Want a shout-out in next week's Best of Indie Hackers? Submit an article or link post on Indie Hackers whenever you come across something you think other indie hackers will enjoy.
Hi, indie hackers! I'm Etiene Dalcol, founder of Polygloss, a language learning app. We've just broken our previous record of downloads for the fifth month in a row! We've hit nearly 20K downloads without spending a single cent on ads. Also, all of our downloads are organic:
If you're learning a language, the way our app works is very simple: You pick an image and write a short message about it to another player. It's recommended for intermediate speakers or very brave beginners!
Here's some data from the last 28 days:
Read on for more!
Things really started taking off back in April. Here's a few things that made it happen:
I'm not sure which of these factors influenced our growth, or if it was a combination, but after that, the Play Store started recommending our app to users who were casually browsing. As of today, the majority of our Android downloads come from Google Play Explore. I have not been blessed by the algorithms like this on iOS yet, but the downloads there are increasing!
Here's what I did in August to keep progressing in my business:
To pay my bills and stay afloat so far, I have been freelancing as a senior software engineer. The contracting gets me about $2K per month. This is a significant salary cut from the six figures that I made in the past, but I usually don't exceed 10 hours per week of contracting. Honestly, even if I didn't have my own projects to pursue, I couldn't see myself working full-time for others again. So, this is a pretty sweet deal for me, given my needs!
Discuss this story.
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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Sam Hartmann, Priyanka Vazirani, Dru Riley, and Etiene Dalcol for contributing posts. —Channing