How do you get traffic for your early access product?
I have a product that would cost anywhere from $40-200 per month from other businesses, it's a SaaS product (it's linked in my user profile, but that's not the topic).
I am currently searching for people to try it for free, which I thought would be absolutely easy to "sell", but doesn't seem like it. Any tips on how to get traffic or early adopters?
Trending on Indie Hackers
Hi! I'm in a similar position with https://www.brandesaurus.com/ (The Internet's Thesaurus of Brands)
I think you should check out TK Kader on Youtube, his content can help structure your thoughts around Go to Market Strategies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isnhS0Sdlzo
I went to User Journey's website to see the text and content on the site.
I think as a whole documenting your top 3 ideal customer profiles would help a lot.
Once you've documented these profiles you'll be able to research where they hang out. From there it's a matter of joining and giving value to the community.
As an example with brandesaurus my ideal customer profiles are entrepreneurs, designers, and marketers. All three of these profiles have a need for understanding how strong brands are made and maintained so the data on the site would theoretically be useful to them.
Now after identifying these 3 profiles I went to google and searched for online communities for marketers/designers/entrepreneurs.
After creating a list of 10-25 I started participating in these communities. Sharing the link as an example or when appropriate.
Additionally I made sure to link the product in my profile so if people check out my profile they'll be able to go to the link.
The above strategy was able to bring in over 100 visitors within a week of me having the idea and putting up a coming soon page.
I think doing the above would help you grow your visitors over time while increasing the value of the visitors as you participate in the communities.
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For early adopters I think the issue is more with your home page on the User Journey Website.
For me as a programmer/marketer I understand how awesome your value prop is however this could be confusing to marketers and programmers without specifying language for each.
To me while reading your page, my marketer side goes "this seems pretty techy to implement" so I think you'll need to calm marketers down (as an example the image with all the red text is more confusing than helpful for me)
My programmer side instantly goes I need a video to make sure it's as easy as it seems.
Lastly you do list emotional benefits tied to logical features however I think you still need to distill it down for people. At the end of the day businesses buy to save/make money, save/make time, or de-risk activities while people buy to get paid, laid, or made. So about 10-20% of your website's copy should focus on number-based outcomes like "Save an average of 10 hours every week with these timely automated emails" or "Have more time for your life and business by automating your app's onboarding emails"
Hope this helps!
Vintually,
I actually thought this would be more useful for people/lawers/marketers searching if a company already exists with a particular name or similar name. It's a big deal if you accidentally register a competing name or brand. Also, make sure you open up your API so that search tools can easily integrate into your database and do lookups along side domain name searches or similar...?
Interesting use case! Could definitely also help with naming research!
Also haven't thought about giving API access that seems like a great idea too
Thank you for the perspectives! :D
Also, one more thing...but maybe you already do this, search how close/similar your branding is to someone else? I.e. I type in my brand colors and you do some sort of proximity search to other brands?
One of the first things I did when researching a logo was how similar was it to something that already existed.
I just saw this and it was quite helpful. I'm in the same scenario as you, having released my software two years ago and now moving on to version 2, which is free while in public beta, and I have to tell that it's really difficult to reach out to ICPs without any marketing, let alone when there is no advertising money.
What I found valuable was to create a community around the product, which means it will develop more slowly, but when your own consumers start suggesting your product to new customers, it implies the product is excellent.
Just keep at it and don't lose faith!
https://getstacksapp.com
Glad this was helpful! Community can be a huge amplifier!
One thing we've found helpful with marketing is aligning our posts to the community we're posting inside of. Below are two examples from Reddit from over the weekend:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/110ix7f/brandesaurus_the_internets_thesaurus_of_brands/ - Side Project Subreddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/logodesign/comments/10zqhv3/any_and_all_feedback_appreciated_for_this_logo/ - Logo Design Subreddit
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We've been trying to meet our ICPs where they're at to get them to learn about the product plus hear their thoughts on the broad idea (which has led to us discovering people really like the idea but hate our page's design [and since we target designers this lowers trust which is a definite flaw])
Also totally agree a large part is keeping at it! Marketing is delayed gratification so unlike many tech-enabled skills marketing can take a while before feeling good about the work done
Thanks a lot :) Just watched through a few videos of TK Kader, seems useful!
I also read the tips you gave me about what to change on the landing page. I changed the hero section now but I guess I'll need to rework the rest too. Thank you :)
Some potential strategies you could try (which I tried):
And few others longer/harder/needing more investments way:
These are awesome tips! Just about to engage on the same journey to try and drive users to our start-up (its B2C, online marketplace) so these are great ideas!
I'll try to engage with communities, that sounds like a good idea for the start. Thanks Lena :)
Good point. This is a measure of customer loyalty and satisfaction.
I posted on reddit and indiehackers.
My post is #1 hot trending in artificial intelligence subreddit right now.
it's called ReaderMax.com
I think what made the post successful and ultimately led people to checking out the product was that it combined a hot narrative (artificial intelligence) and in the headline I made it attainable for anyone since I did a dev sprint; 48 hours to complete project.
It's also a useful tool so at the end of the article some people find it worth checking out further.
So I think embedding marketing in the product helps.
Nice! I also tried something similar once in 3 subreddits and in 2 of 3 subreddits my post has been removed (even though I posted some helpful replies and helped the community before posting my own stuff). How do you manage that?
it needs to be value driven and not about the product directly. it needs to be like a how-to guide with ur product being the result of you pursuing the how-to or something like that. if you treat it like a lead magnet as opposed to an ad you will get to keep your post in many cases. sometimes the mods will just take it down so there's always that risk it's a numbers game to an extent.
Thanks! I'll try to take that into account and see if I can create suitable content that only has user-journey as kind of a "this is the easy mode for allt his btw"
Honestly, I don't think it's a good idea to offer it for free. Even if you succeed, it would be the wrong kind of users that would ask for features that you'll be building for, well, free.
In the end, they will probably churn because, again, they don't need your product that much.
Say, you invite me to take a look, I really don't care but it's free and I'm bored so why not? I look around, and kinda like it, but I want to provide value so I drop an idea or two, something a paying user would never need actually, but it's feedback so you're taking it seriously and spending valuable time implementing it.
Instead, you can try finding and contacting the users of your competitors and offer them a 50% discount for switching to your product. As a bonus, even if they don't switch, you can ask them what they don't like and do it better.
Or you can contact the potential users of your competitors -- they won't even need to switch.
Actually that's really helpful. I also thought about not having a free tier in the final product because of the exact same reasoning, but you are right, even the early tester maybe should be selected based on ability / willingness to pay.
On the other hand, I definitely want to make the entry frictionless for small businesses so they can grow with the product and later "need" to upgrade because they are big enough.
@divby0
Here are some tips that might help you get traffic or early adopters:
Clearly communicate the value proposition of your product:
Make sure your website or landing page clearly explains what your product does, how it works, and what benefits it offers. Use language that your target audience understands and highlight the features that differentiate your product from the competition.
Leverage social media and online communities:
Identify online communities and social media groups where your target audience hangs out and participates in those discussions. Share your product with them and ask for feedback. If they find value in it, they will likely spread the word.
Offer incentives for early adopters:
Consider offering an exclusive deal to early adopters, such as a lifetime discount, free premium features, or access to beta testing. This can create a sense of urgency and encourage people to try your product.
Partner with influencers:
Identify influencers in your industry who have a large following and offer to give them early access to your product in exchange for an honest review or a shoutout on social media.
Attend industry events:
Attend trade shows, conferences, and other industry events where your target audience is likely to be present. This is a great opportunity to network, demonstrate your product, and collect feedback.
Reach out to your personal network:
Don't be afraid to ask friends, family, and acquaintances to try your product and provide feedback. They may know people who could benefit from your product, so make sure to ask for referrals.
Overall, getting people to try a new product can be challenging, but by following these tips and being persistent, you can attract early adopters and build momentum for your SaaS product.
Thanks :) This is a huge list, gotta digest it later :)
It really doesn't scale, but this works almost every time for me:
It's a simple shared geography tool. You share something in common with these leads. Your connection is your location. Some people feel compelled to help a hometown entrepreneur.
It definitely does not scale but it's a very very smart thing to do. I don't need scale or revenue, I just need answers and a few early adopters to later have results and maybe even case studies to show. That's the perfect idea if I wasn't such an introvert xD.
I'll probably try after I tried a few other things. Definitely one of the best answers here.
I'm an introvert too.
If you want to grow, you're going to have to have conversations with customers/leads. This is a way to sharpen your talking points and rapidly improve your messaging.
I usually start off with a really simple script and then start iterating. It will be exhausting but then you'll start to feel comfortable after you get a meeting.
One of the quickest ways to get the early users for your SaaS is to launch it on the most visited launch platforms (ex:product hunt, beta list), tech directories (Ex: Crozdesk, Stackshare) and forums where your target audience hang out (Ex: subreddits).
I recently curated a list of 50+ legit places where you can promote your SaaS for free and get your first 1000 early users. I think that's the best place for you to start if you don't have a big following on social media: https://launchpedia.co/places-to-promote-your-startup/
I am in the same situation with FinetuneGPT, we just launched our landing page yesterday!
My plan is to follow some of the steps already suggested below:
Hey Bengin!
It is not easy that's true. You should work hard to market your product where your target audience is hanging out so you can reach the right people who would click on the link and actually use your product.
You can use Reddit and make the most out of subreddits where you can showcase your product to people in your niche.
I recently started marketing my own movie recommendation app on Reddit, used copywriting to actually get traffic to my website by adding the link but without getting banned and it worked.
I got over 600 people coming from Reddit.
Tell me more about your product: the category it belongs to and what's your target audience and i can help you find the right subreddits.
Oh, coincidentally I'm also using Reddit to find my niche.
Our product is an invoice solution on Shopify, helping users to customize and create and print beautiful and professional invoice templates and above all, an automated, multi-language Email system for sales worldwide. world.
I am in the early stages of marketing, preparing well for the user data and content that will be marketed to increase new users.
Marketing channels include:
Those are the plans that we have to prepare for the release of the next Big update
Product Name: Fordeer: Invoice Order Printer
Link Landingpage: https://pdfinvoices.fordeer.io/
Shopify Store product link: https://apps.shopify.com/fordeer-data-export?search_id=0fbfa445-f593-4da6-b7ba-a3953a586908&surface_detail=+order+printer&surface_inter_position=1&surface_intra_position=18&surface_type=search
If you use and sell on Shopify, please use our products and give us feedback or any praise or criticism, we receive and improve the product.
Don't forget in a few days there will be our big update and there will always be an update to the marketing results of the product to everyone interested in how to develop new users for the SaaS industry.
The thing is, I already tried things on reddit. Even though I always did a few helpful answers and replies before I posted something on my own, most of the time the post was then removed.
Reddit is tricky for this, you really need to find that grey are between providing value and plugging your stuff.
I'd also recommend Surfkey.io to find the best subreddits, relevant threads and comments to your niche and problem space.
Yes, I find like that's the main difficulty on reddit. I'll try though, thank you Aleks :)
Btw you signed up on user-journey right? Have you gotten the email? Should have been in your inbox 1-2mins after signing up, may have gone lost in junk.
Would you care to post the copywriting you used? I'm also advertising on Reddit and would really appreciate the help
I think it depends on your target audience. I'm making a quiz platform for bloggers and content creators and I'm having the same problem.
When I started the development of my project, I also built a small following on Twitter. It helped a lot in many ways to network and connect with like mindend people, and one of the best points in sharing my progress with friends is that I got feedback easily.
I DM-d a few of them, who have blogs and some of them actually started using it. They gave me valuable feedback and advices on what should be improved.
Of course if your audience is not on Twitter, there are other platforms as well. In this price range maybe LinkedIn would be a great idea to start using actively. You can find people on ProductHunt who share their LinkedIn profiles, so you can get initial connections easily.
Thanks Helmut for your answer!
I think cold DMing or emailing is definitely something I'll have to look into later, but I really am an introvert exactly as written books 😂
Me too, but being an entrepreneur means we must get out of our comfort zones! 😀
Getting traffic and attracting early adopters for your SaaS product can be a challenging task, but with the right strategies, you can increase your chances of success. Here are some tips to help you drive traffic and find early adopters for your tech website .
Define your target audience: Clearly identify your target audience and understand their pain points. Determine who would benefit the most from your SaaS product and tailor your marketing efforts towards reaching that specific group.
Utilize social media: Leverage the power of social media platforms to promote your tech website and attract early adopters. Create engaging content related to your product, share industry insights, and interact with potential customers. Utilize targeted advertising on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or relevant niche forums to reach your desired audience.
Hey Bengin, I understand how you feel. Getting early traffic for your SaaS product can be tough. Here's a suggestion: have you tried listing your product on startup directories like LaunchPedia? That can help you get your product in front of more people who are interested in trying out new things.
Another tip is to create content around your product and share it on relevant communities, like Reddit or Facebook groups. Make sure to engage with people who show interest and answer their questions. This can help build buzz and get more people to sign up for your early access. Good luck!
If you have a competitor , find out where are they marketing their products. If they are not marketing on some platform then it's your golden chance to get traffic from that page.
You can list your product on startup directories and launch platforms like Product Hunt, Betalist, etc..
I made a list of 50+ places you can promote your startup and get the initial users. Feel free to check it out 👇 (It is free)
https://launchpedia.co/places-to-promote-your-startup
Actually, for us medium-like sites worked quite well. We posted an article about the product and the team and managed to get to the top 3 in "Popular" category on such ones. On the medium itself to be honest in didn't worked at all. Maybe we've got 100 users or so, not so much. Seems like you either need a "hunter", who will post somewhere about you, or create your own strategy of presence extension and stick to it long term.
What medium-like sites do you mean?
They are russian ones: vc.ru and dtf.ru
It's quite difficult to repeat such a success on the US ones
@divby0 there are no shortcuts. Build up your target audience on social, Twitter is a great social network resource for this. Grow your followers base.
It'll be much work to do upfront to keep consistency, but at the end of the day, if you do it right, works like a rocket launch ramp!
Look at it like this: having support from someone who knows you or from someone who doesn't know you ?!
Let's connect on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/AlexMano12
Hey,
I am building PriceInCheck(https://priceincheck.com/) A No-Code Price Monitoring Solution. Recently I created and published my landing page. Now like you, I am searching for early users for my Beta-Program.
As per my research sites like Reddit and Quora can help you bring a ton of traffic to your landing page. But if you ask me the best way to get early users is by directly reaching out to the potential users via email or LinkedIn messages. Apart from this content marketing also works great sites like medium and Linkedin can come in handy for it.
Hope this helps a bit and best of luck with your SaaS product.
Hey Bengin,
So the good news is that you have a product that is in demand - other businesses are successfully selling similar products that solve the same problem.
The bad news is that only a tiny percentage of your target market (around 1%) is actively looking to buy what you sell right now.
This isn't specific to your business or target audience - its the same with any market. The number of active buyers is always very small.
This is why you are struggling to find people to try your solution - you're looking for a needle in a haystack.
This is why the majority of startups fail - it's super difficult to find these active buyers (even if you are giving your product away for free).
The solution then is being able to successfully pitch your product to those in your market that aren't actively looking to buy right now - after all, your marketing efforts are reaching these people/businesses already.
There's a ton of strategies to do this (my preference being the one I advocate on my website thebluntmethod.com) but that's what you need to do to succeed.
Hope that helps
Best
Chris
Leverage your network: Reach out to your personal and professional contacts to see if they know anyone who would be interested in your product. Ask them to share your product with their network as well.
Offer a free trial or demo: Consider offering a limited-time free trial or demo to potential customers. This allows them to try out your product without any financial commitment.
Use social media: Promote your product on social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Engage with potential customers and encourage them to try out your
Participate in online communities: Join online forums, groups, or communities related to your product's niche. Engage with members and offer helpful insights. Don't be spammy or pushy, but instead share your product if it's
Run targeted ads: Use social media advertising to target potential customers based on demographics, interests, and
Reach out to bloggers and influencers: Find bloggers and influencers in your product's niche and ask if they would be interested in reviewing your product or sharing it with their followers.
Remember, early adopters are often looking for something unique, innovative, and valuable. Make sure your product stands out and provides real value to potential customers.
I got 300+ signups in 2 days after the early access launch of https://pinggy.io
The primary source was a HackerNews post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34337592
The landing page at that time was not as polished as it is now.
The key to good response was a working free demo that anyone could try instantly.
I think an alternative to a demo would be a nice video showcasing the product.
I would also suggest having a email subscription option for future updates or a slack link so that people can get into "waitlist" till the product is more mature.
Thanks :) Sees like I should try the hackernews forum later
In my opinion, go with google ads (intent-based search can help you get early adopters and paid customers too), Reddit ads and organic posting in Reddit (subreddit specific to your target audience ).
Google Ads will definitely be a go to as soon as self-service is a thing. For now my UI is too complex and weird to think about self-service 🥲
me potential strategies you could try (which I tried):
Instead of just asking people to try your product, try engaging with communities related to your product and share helpful content that showcases your product's benefits. This could help build your reputation and potentially attract early adopters.
Create helpful content related to your product and use it as a way to gather contacts. When someone downloads the content, personally thank them and offer to let them beta test your product.
Consider using a paid testing tool like Testlio to get valuable feedback quickly.
Reach out to friends and family who work in your product's industry and ask them to be your first testers. They may also be able to connect you with others in the industry who could be potential early adopters.
And few others longer/harder/needing more investments way:
Offer a referral program - incentivize current users to refer others to try your product by offering them a discount or some other kind of reward. This can help you grow your user base while also rewarding your early adopters for
please look at the comment from @lenaniewska, you both have very very similar stuff, just differently structured. Suspicious indeed
Hm, maybe @akash meant replying to my comment, since he added another comment below 🤔
It is very good.. apply for new business is very important because now days jobs are very few in our country nd less source of income .So start a business very good option to choose .Dew people didnt understand that.many people join daily new business. But this business is best for everyone
I think you should start with start with SEO
I defo want to do that. I have a site with like 8k uniques a month for free just through SEO. But that took a long time and I don't even know if this product will be successful.
I'll work on SEO and blogposts after I get at least two or three paying customers
Hi there! It can be tough to get early adopters for a new SaaS product, especially without a lot of marketing resources. Have you tried reaching out to potential users on social media or online forums related to your product or industry? You could also consider offering a referral program to incentivize existing users to bring in new users. Lastly, make sure to highlight what makes your product stand out from competitors - perhaps your product is the Virginia best in its category and that's something to emphasize to potential users. Good luck with your launch!
Thanks Jack :)