What's New: A simple Quora trick to grow your business
(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)
Do you have a presence on Quora?
- Use this simple trick to find Quora questions with lots of views, but few answers. Add your answer, and watch your product rise to the top of people's Google search results!
- Influencer marketing is a powerful tool that can help you deepen relationships with your customers, attract new prospects, and increase sales. The 6 tips below can help get you started.
- Founder Robin Lomax built a community around his alcohol-free subscription box, AF Beer Club. Here's why he went alcohol-free, and how building a strong community helped to grow his business.
Want to share something with nearly 75,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing
🕵️♂️ Leveraging the Power of Quora
by Davis Baer
Answering questions on Quora was one of the key drivers of growth in our early days at OneUp, the social media scheduling tool that I cofounded. We now have 70K+ users!
Here's a free, easy way to find Quora questions with 1K+ views, but only one answer.
Why does this matter?
You can write answers to relevant Quora questions positioning your product as the solution to the problem. Then, people who have that problem can find your answer and discover your product.
Who is this for?
Both B2B and B2C companies can find customers through Quora.
Many people think that nobody is on Quora anymore, since pretty much no one goes to Quora to search.
However, people search for something on Google, then find a Quora question and answer as one of the top results of their Google search. That helps them find the solution to their problem, and this is how Quora gets the vast majority of its traffic.
Here's how to do it
Paste this into Google, but replace "keyword" with whatever keyword you're looking for:
site:quora.com keyword "1 answer" "k views"
For example:
site:quora.com SaaS "1 answer" "k views"
The top result for this search shows a Quora question with only one answer, but 5.9K+ views:
Now, write your answer, and you're only competing with one other answer for the top spot!
Does this work for other platforms?
This trick won't work for LinkedIn, since the number of views is not public information. However, you can do it for YouTube with this line:
site:youtube.com keyword "k views"
I also wrote this guide for marketing on Reddit. I was planning on turning it into a book someday. We'll see if I ever get there!
Will you use this trick for Quora? Share your thoughts below!
Discuss this story.
📰 In the News
from the Growth Trends newsletter by Darko
🔑 TikTok has shared key creator collaboration tips for brands in a new report.
💸 Money-saving apps are thriving amid economic struggle.
👦 Key findings on teens and social media.
📉 Google Ads revenue is expected to drop for the second quarter straight.
💻 Yelp is enhancing its consumer experience by adding new features.
Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.
🤩 Tips for Building Quality Influencer Partnerships
by Syed Balkhi
Do you want to reach more potential customers and build a community around your brand? It may be time to think about partnering with influencers!
Working with influencers can help you build rapport with prospects, improve brand awareness, and boost sales. Many founders don't know how to build quality partnerships with influencers, but this guide can help you get started.
Here are six tips to help you form fruitful partnerships with influencers!
1. Find the right influencers for your business
You first need to determine the right type of influencers for your products or services. It's important to consider your industry, buyer personas, and product selection before you start working with content creators.
Founders and marketers should seek influencers with similar goals, values, and audiences. I recommend creating influencer personas. Figure out the qualities and traits you need from potential partners, and use this chart as your blueprint to find the right type of influencers for your business.
2. Establish clear expectations, goals, and payment terms
When you partner with an influencer, go over your goals and expectations. I also advise asking them to tell you what they would like to gain from the partnership.
Not only will this strategy help you draw up a contract and establish a blueprint for success, but it also aids in building trust.
When deciding on payment terms, you'll need to keep the influencer's reach in mind. Micro-influencers (people with over 10K subscribers, but less than 100K) can be a great option for indie hackers because they have niche audiences, and will often promote your product for much less.
Aside from one-time payments, you can incentivize influencers by starting an affiliate program where each person earns a commission based on how many sales they drive to your site.
3. Give them creative freedom
There's nothing wrong with giving general guidance, like asking creators to mention a certain feature or benefit, but you shouldn't micromanage their work.
Ultimately, you need to give influencers the creative freedom that helped them find success in the first place. Influencers understand their audiences, and they know how to communicate with them effectively.
If you try to hijack their personality and creativity, their content will not look authentic. Followers will quickly take notice, which could cause them to see your brand as intrusive, instead of helpful.
I suggest creating loose guidelines, then letting influencers do what they do best!
4. Turn to your existing audience
There's an excellent chance that you can find influential figures within your own audience. The best influencers are people who already know and use your product, so it makes sense to turn to your existing followers when you're looking for partnerships.
You can easily learn about your followers by using a social listening tool to find out who is talking about your brand. If you see someone with a high subscriber count praising your product, consider reaching out and asking if they'd like to work together.
Some social media tools allow you to organize your followers based on their subscriber count. Use this feature to find potential influencers, even if they've never directly mentioned your company.
5. Give influencers unique promo codes
If you want to assess your influencer partnerships and track the progress of each creator, you should give them all unique promo codes to provide to their audiences.
Once you give everyone a custom code, you can easily check your on-site analytics to determine which influencers drive traffic and sales.
6. Stay in touch
Finally, you should always keep an open line of communication between your team and the influencers you're working with.
Open up multiple ways to stay in touch, including email, phone, and a way to live chat with someone from your team who can answer their questions.
Influencer partnerships, like many business partnerships, need strong communication, so this is one step you shouldn't skip.
Have you worked with influencers? Share your experience below!
Discuss this story.
🔥 Landing Page Hot Tips
by Rob Hope
Strengthen your landing page with these design, development, and conversion tips:
Empathize with the visitor’s problem in your introduction copy. Then, explain exactly what your product or service does in the subtext, removing all verbose words or phrases.
🚫
The world’s most innovative invoice tracking software.
XYZ Invoicing uses the cutting edge InvoAlgo algorithm to programmatically track unpaid invoices to send clients reminders using conversion-optimized email templates tested on thousands of happy customers.
✅
Wasting time chasing late client payments?
XYZ Invoicing sends automated reminders to clients with outstanding invoices.
—
Start by making the visitor feel that your offering was destined for them, in the simplest way possible!
Subscribe to Rob's One Page Love newsletter for his favorite UI, design, and development finds.
🍺 Robin Lomax's AF Beer Club Community
At Founderoo, we share weekly stories of founders growing their side hustles to full-time businesses. Today, we're profiling Robin Lomax, founder of AF Beer Club, an alcohol-free subscription service.
The backstory
After graduating university, I moved to Oxford to work for colleges and charities in welfare roles. Later, I moved to London, and refined my taste in beer during the craft beer boom of the early 2010s.
I met my wife in 2012. We had our first baby last year, after six years of marriage.
I initially took a break from booze in January 2019. I've always been a real ale drinker, choosing local independent brewed cask ale, like pale ales, stouts, and IPAs.
Although I knew the health benefits of quitting or moderating booze, I was worried that a big part of my identity would be lost. So, I delved into the world of alcohol-free beer.
I'm a primary school teacher by day, and run AF Beer Club in the evenings.
AF Beer Club
AF Beer Club is a subscription box service showcasing the eight best alcohol-free beers every month to our subscribers. We also run the largest online alcohol-free beer community, which was organically grown over the course of three years.
The subscription boxes are a product of Wise Bartender, curated and promoted by me. Wise Bartender is one of the largest online stores that sells alcohol-free drinks in England, and the official Dry January suppliers.
The physical monthly boxes and social media platforms go hand-in-hand, with a recent podcast added to further the experience. The values and ethos of AF Beer Club can be summarized in four key points: Quality, community, representation, and fun!
The idea
I had been discovering and posting about alcohol-free beer for almost a year when we had the first lockdown at the start of the pandemic. I had built a healthy little online community of people who had a shared interest in alcohol-free beer, and trusted my opinion.
I started in May 2020, getting hundreds of cans of beer delivered to our small flat in Sheffield. We went from 20 members to 50 in the first couple of months.
Our hallway was full of beer and packaging, with our dog having a field day rummaging through it all, so my wife declared that if I hit over 70 members, I had to come up with a better operational structure.
The third month hit the target, so I approached Wise Bartender about partnering. We've been working together since, and finally met in person at their festival last summer!
The launch
I launched after hosting a very successful virtual beer festival on Instagram across three days. It was a real celebration of the industry, and people were keen to continue their alcohol-free beer discovery!
I've continued to post online, not just about the beer in the boxes, but about an array of alcohol-free beer and products. We're proud that the club has grown organically, and continues to do so. We showcase breweries on a monthly basis.
In the early days, I spent too much time peering over the metaphorical fence at what others were offering. Instead of focusing on relationships with breweries and our members, I was wasting valuable time obsessing with things out of my control.
Now, I focus on providing great beer and experiences for my members.
What's next?
I plan to continue to grow the club, keeping the personal and community elements strong.
I would really like to host an IRL alcohol-free beer festival, but my life is currently heavily focused around a 10-month-old baby!
What resources have been inspirational to you as a founder?
The book Eat and Run by Scott Jurek, the Club Soda platform, and Alan Partridge!
I also run 40 miles per week.
I'm very proud of the community that I've built within the beer world. I hope that when people think of alcohol-free beer, somewhere in their heads, they have AF Beer Club taking up some space.
My advice to other founders is to build a genuine community with a shared common interest! It's a game changer.
Discuss this story.
🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick
I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:
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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Davis Baer, Darko, Syed Balkhi, Rob Hope, and Guy Ligertwood for contributing posts. —Channing
Thanks!!!!!!