What's New: Finding and reaching your target audience

(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)

Honing in on a target audience can be a founder's biggest challenge:

Targeting and reaching an audience is hard enough, but what about when you've made the mistake of building a product first? The tips below can help you target and find users, and turn things around if you've already built.
Copywriting is about conveying your product's value effectively. This guide shows you how to write non-slimy copy that converts!
Founder Akram Belajouza's e-commerce business hit $247,000 in annual revenue, and then...he sold it. Below, he shares what led to the decision to sell, and what he's looking for in his next venture.

Want to share something with over 110,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing

🎯 Find Your Target Audience

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by Boris Kuznetsov

Well, here we are. I've made the first classic startup founder mistake: I built NoFuss, a website builder, without talking to users first. Now, I'm trying to figure out who in 2023 would email markdown files to build websites.

I was so excited about this idea that I jumped straight into implementation without doing any market research.

How have you managed to find your target audience?

Keys and doors

RJ Youngling says that solo founders unfortunately tend to start with product instead of market research:

The place where you want to start is qualitative market research. If you don't, then what you're doing is essentially making a key that you absolutely love, then going out into the world to try and find a door that your key will unlock.

It's not good to start with the key first. Start with the door.

Choose a door, preferably one with a simple lock. Then, make a crappy key and iterate a few times, until you can unlock that lock and open the door.

This is exactly how you should think about marketing. What audience do you want to serve? Where do they hang out?

Study them to figure out what problem they have, one that they would pay money to solve.
Try to find proof of buying behavior.
Figure out what their desired outcome is.
Start pitching and pre-selling them. Then, and only then, start working on the product.

If you're looking to improve your fundamental marketing skills, check out some of my essays!

Beta bunch

Saad Arafat recommends effective user testing:

I would focus on getting beta testers and building a landing page with a solid value proposition. What makes your product unique? Who will get the most benefit out of it? How will it make their lives better, save time, make them money, or whatever else?

Then, using the beta testers, keep improving the product for a few weeks before fully launching it. Be sure to include pricing strategy in your series of tests.

Jason Cohen, founder of WPEngine, has a really good take on this. I highly recommend watching his interview.

Turnaround time

Denis Balitskiy offers a suggestion for turning things around when you've already built a product, but have no audience:

Usually, the best approach is to build an audience first, validate the idea, and then start building the actual product (this time, with buyers in mind). But since you already have a product, try this:

Think of a target audience for NoFuss. Who would be interested in something like this? Start building that audience. A simple newsletter or forum would do. There, ask if they would buy it, or if they need something else.
If the answer is no, ask what they actually do want. Run surveys and conduct calls. Ask specifically if people would buy what you have to offer.
Make them pay for it. Collect a little downpayment, and promise lifetime access or premium perks. If you get enough people interested with credit card in hand, then start building. If you don't, and most tell you this is a bad idea, refund those who trusted you and move on to the next solution.

As a rule of thumb, you should never build anything unless somebody is ready to pay you for your solution.

Amre adds a note about community:

I would suggest investing time in Facebook, Reddit, and other similar sites. Create a community to engage with the problem that your product can solve. Ask in all forums how users are currently managing the problem, then use that to chart your course for building!

What are your best tips for honing in on a target audience? Share below!

Discuss this story.

📰 In the News

Photo: In the News

from the Growth Trends newsletter by Darko

❌ Twitter is shutting down its CoTweets feature.

📝 Here's why you should add pillar pages to your content strategy.

📈 Stripe will increase fees for EU and UK-based businesses starting in April.

📹 TikTok has added more video performance insights.

🏈 YouTube has launched its 2023 Super Bowl Ad Showcase.

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

📖 Copywriting for Conversions

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by James Fleischmann

When it comes to writing landing page copy and CTAs, there are a few gems that are specific to indie hackers.

Let's dive in!

What is copywriting?

Copywriting is about conveying your product's value effectively. That's it. If you do it well, a reader from your target market will convert if it's the right solution for them. You don't need to try to get them to convert if it’s not the best solution for them. Manipulative copy is bad copy.

It's less about hacks and psychology, and more about knowing your audience, understanding their pain points, and communicating the truth of how your product can help them.

Copywriting for conversions

Here are the two toughest things about copywriting:

Writing tight copy: You have to be so concise that it hurts. It's harder than it sounds, because it requires you to convey a lot of information in few words. Ask yourself whether every word, sentence, and paragraph adds value. If not, remove it.
The curse of knowledge: You know the problem you're solving and the solution you're providing, so it's very easy to assume that your reader knows it, too. They probably don't. But sometimes, they do. So, write for your readers. Don't over-explain or under-explain. This requires a lot of knowledge about what they know and don't know about your product, the market, etc.

Writing for conversions

Here are some tips for writing copy that converts:

Write like a human, not like a robot or a company. Be personable and write in first-person. Write like you speak.
Write at a sixth grade level. Use jargon only if it makes sense in your niche.
Avoid buzzwords. They aren't fooling anyone.
Work backwards from your objective. What do you want? To impart value? Conversions? Shares? Know the goal, and work toward it.
Don't bury the lede. If something will get the user to read on or convert, keep it above the fold. Deeper dives and explanations can go below the fold.
Directly address the needs of your target audience, and handle common objections before they can make them.
Use social proof. Testimonials, big name customers, and number of customers all work well.
Back up what you say with numbers and data. Visual representations can sometimes help.
Focus on benefits over features.
Use active voice and descriptive language.
Have fun with it! Bored leads do not convert.

Call-to-action tips

CTAs deserve their own section because they're incredibly important:

Connect it to the benefit. Never use "Check out this thing" or "Get started" as a CTA.
Start with a verb.
Use first-person ("my" instead of "your").
Make the button or words stand out.
Put it at the top and bottom of your landing page. In long-form content, add it in multiple places, but make sure you don't hurt the readability. Put it between sections.

Formatting tips

Use effective headers.
Use font and font size to your advantage; typography isn’t just for looks, it’s also for readability.
Make it easily skimmable.
Make your site clean and easy to navigate.
If grammar and spelling are not your strong suits, or if you're writing outside of your first language, hire an editor.

SEO

SEO is obviously extremely important in copywriting, but I'm not going to cover it much in this article. I wrote about it recently if anyone needs a primer on the topic. For now, I'll just mention a couple of things:

Avoid keyword stuffing. That's a thing of the past. Just say what needs to be said as quickly as possible.
Write for humans, not Google.

Frameworks

Did you know that there are copywriting frameworks? There are. Like, a lot of them. Here are a few:

AIDA: This one is the most common. Grab attention, hit them with interesting facts, share stories to generate desire, and lay out your desired action.
AIDCA: The same, but add in conviction. Meaning social proof, statistics, and so forth, right before the action.
PAS: This is best when you want to focus on a problem and your solution (i.e. landing pages). Present the problem, create agitation by diving into it more, and offer a solution.
ACCA: This is best if your target customers don't know the problem yet. Present the problem in a way that creates awareness, explain why it's a bad thing (comprehension), create conviction (social proof, etc.), and provide steps for action.
QUEST: Qualify who the solution is for, show that you understand by relating to their problem, educate them about the solution, stimulate them (features, demos, social proof), and help them transition into a customer by showing them the action to take.

A quick note on AI

I'm personally not a fan of writing with AI. I think it makes humans even less capable of communicating.

Plus, I actually tested it as an option for my other newsletter, and it was more work to edit it than it would have been to write it. So for me, it's not an option. But a lot of indie hackers are finding it super useful for getting started!

Jan Koch shared some solid tips a few weeks back, which I thought might be helpful if you decide to try using AI!

Tools

Grammarly.
Thesaurus.
Hemingway App: Simplify your writing.
Headline Analyzer: Tells you whether your headline is engaging.
Convertize: If you do want to do some A/B testing, this is a handy tool for that.
The Most Dangerous Writing Prompt App: Gives you a prompt, and you write about it.
Copy.ai: If you want to go the AI route, there are a ton of options. This is a leader in the space.
Jasper: Jasper is another leading AI tool.

Resources

Books:

Courses:

Newsletters:

Will you implement any of these tips into your copy? Let's chat below!

Discuss this story.

🚀 The Spector Report

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by Josh Spector

I'm sharing growth tips for creative founders! Here's this week's:

Don’t obsess over meaningless metrics.

Most metrics don’t matter. The only ones that do are the ones related to your ultimate goal.

Let’s say your goal is sales.

Would you rather have 100 new followers where 20 of them buy, or 500 new followers where 10 do?

Subscribe to Josh's For The Interested newsletter or I Want To Know podcast for more.

💰 Akram Belajouza Sold His $247K ARR Business

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by Akram Belajouza

Hi, indie hackers! I'm Akram Belajouza, and my e-commerce business hit $247K ARR. Then...I sold it.

Here's why!

The beginning

Five years ago, I was thinking about starting a new business. E-commerce seemed like a good way to go. At that time, I was working as a freelance web developer. I had regular customers with whom I worked part-time on a weekly basis. So, I was not too worried about earning money, and I also had some free time.

When it comes to business, I was always an advocate of selling products rather than working hourly, since it's hard to scale a business if it is based on your time. Even if you raise your rates, you will still have limitations. So, I started thinking about what I could sell online. Natural cosmetic products were booming, and since I had some connections in that field, I thought it was a good choice. It was a growing market, and I had these advantages. I was also hoping to automate this side hustle so that, after a few years, it wouldn't rely on me anymore.

The growth

I had a little bit of money to start with, and I wanted to invest it in advertising. So, I talked to cosmetic companies, and they agreed to allow me to delay payments.

In the beginning, I was working on it by myself. After a few weeks, I knew that I needed to hire people to help me with order fulfillment and social media management. I eventually grew the company to a five member team responsible for order management and fulfillment, customer support, social media management, and general execution. The business was stable, yet not growing as much as I wanted.

We were able to sustain it and experiment with different approaches. Many things happened along the way: Changes in the Facebook Ads algorithm and ad prices, competition, COVID-19, and many other things, so we had to adjust. We also started creating our own products. Those were white labels by the producers, so we just had to create a brand, which was very interesting!

The analysis

Money (the good):

The business was able to generate money. Some years, I was able to save all of the money I was earning from freelancing. The only downside was that the business was fluctuating from month to month. Some months, we would make a profit; others, we would lose money.

Time (the bad):

I had a vision that one day, we could find a product that we could scale. Finally, we found a winner product. With a good ad strategy, we were able to sell a lot of it. But, there were some problems.

The pricing was not optimal, and we didn’t scale fast. We sold the products at a slow pace for an extended period. A year later, when COVID-19 hit, sales started dropping. Also, the products were aging. If you don’t use time in your favor, it turns against you. We had to create new products, ad creatives, and designs. We were able to sell the products, but after about two months, we had to start the process again.

Future (the ugly):

Because we had to work on new products continuously, the expense of running the business was quite high. Unfortunately, I am not very optimistic about the future of this business. It started with reselling some brands, then ended up needing to create new products regularly.

For now, there is no stable future in sight, no automation possible, and a lot of continuous effort. I have learned a lot from it, but I didn’t achieve the goal I was aiming for: A sustainable business with stable revenue that didn't require all of my time.

I understand that you have to work hard on your project, especially at the beginning. After a while, there should be a clear vision about its future, which was not the case here. Maybe the next owner will have a different vision or execution. I decided to sell the project and move on to building my next!

Discuss this story.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

Cover image for Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

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 Boris Kuznetsov, Darko, James Fleischmann, Josh Spector, and Akram Belajouza for contributing posts. —Channing