🔥 I got 2000 new subscribers from my Product Hunt launch

THREAD...

Last week I launched Marketing Examples to Product Hunt.

✔️ 1,500+ upvotes
✔️ Product of the Week
✔️ Email list grew from 1,300 to 3,300

This is the step by step account of how I did it

Step 1 - Don't launch straight away

23rd May 2019 Marketing Examples v1.0 went live. The site had a few case studies, several bugs, and an email box which didn’t convert well.

The old version of me would have thrown it on Product Hunt straight away. But I decided to wait.

Why?

1) I didn’t want to waste my “turn” with the very first iteration of my site.

2) I didn’t want to launch in a vacuum. Product Hunt multiplies current momentum. Having a small following of “fans” on launch day goes a long way.

So I set myself a target.

✔️ 1000 email subscribers
✔️ 1000 twitter followers

And then I would launch. 70 days later I hit my target.

It was showtime.

🔥 A lesson in pricing

THREAD ...

Peter Thiel spends 6 months writing down everything he knows about business. His book sells for $10.

Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger spend 6 months writing down everything they know about design. Their “book” sells for $79.

Believe it or not, both prices make perfect sense.

Thiel is selling to the masses and the masses are sensitive to price changes (price elastic).

If he raises the price to $30 they wouldn’t think twice before substituting his book for one of the many cheaper alternatives on Amazon.

Adam and Steve are selling to hardcore fans and hardcore fans are insensitive to price changes (price inelastic).

They've all been following the Twitter tips, watching the screencasts, reading the Medium posts.

In their minds, there are no substitute resources available.

When demand for your good is inelastic, you raise your price.

In the case of Adam and Steve, all the way up to $79.

As the diagram shows, a 8x price increase ($10 to $79) results in just a 2x drop in books sold (20k to 10k) and 4x more revenue (area of the rectangles).

🔥 Marketing tools are damaging your SEO. And how to fix it.

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1/ It's no secret that a site's “performance” is a ranking factor for search.

But how does Google actually measure it?

Well, open up Chrome DevTools, click the ”Audits” tab, then ”Run Audits” and you'll see that “Performance” is made up from 6 metrics.

2/ Most casuals assume that performance is all about how fast a site displays on the screen — “First Meaningful Paint”.

But if you look at Google's weights you'll see that “Time to Interactive” — how long it takes for a site to become interactive — is far more important.

3/ Essentially, Google prioritises “interactivity” over “visibility”.

Even if your page appears fast, 3rd party scripts loading in the background (delaying user interaction) will see you penalised.

4/ One example of this is @ToDesktop.

Their site content loads in < 1s, but run it through a Google Audit and its “Time to Interactive” is 8.8s.

🔥 7 practical ways to write copy that converts:

1/ Get specific

Landing page copy is full of unfalsifiable, blanket claims: “more, easier, faster ...”

If you want to stand out get specific. You can’t bullshit specifics:

2/ Call out the type of customer you serve

People pay attention when they know something is specifically for them:

“What? Loads of authors are using this. I’m an author. Maybe I should be too ...”

3/ Use value-based messaging

Talk less about your product and more about the value your product brings.

People don’t want a better toothbrush. They want a brighter smile:

4/ Write for one reader

You're not talking to 1000 people. You're talking to the single person reading your page. So write like it.

An informal tone and addressing your users personally (“you”) makes a big difference:

🔥 How to build a website which converts email subscribers

THREAD...

Over the last 2 months, Marketing Examples welcomed 31,000 first time visitors. 4,000 of these visitors subscribed to the email list.

That’s an email opt-in of 12.9%.

The industry average is 2%. The top 10 percentile average is 5%.

So, screw it, I’ll go there:

“Marketing Examples is one of the best websites in the world at converting passers-by into email subscribers.“

What follows is a series of things I've observed whilst trying to build a website which maximises email subscribers.

1 - Being obvious works

I imagine a few of you have read The Alchemist. Pretty good book right? How many of you signed up to Paulo Coelho's email list?

No matter how good your work no one is going to go out of their way to sign up to your email list. You have to make it obvious

There are four ways to sign up to the Marketing Examples email list:

1) From the fixed position navbar
2) At the end of any article
3) Through the exit intent popup
4) Directly from the subscribe page

From any given point you're only one click away from subscribing.

100,000 followers. Wow. I remember the first 100.

Let's turn back the clock.

Here's the 7 marketing tips YOU found most useful from the last two years 👨‍🚀

Sell outcomes, not features

Don't think about “capturing emails”

Think about creating something worth subscribing to

Rihanna's a great copywriter

Simple CTA trick:

Add a few words to your button to handle the user's biggest objection to clicking

I spent the last few weeks thinking about how brands differentiate themselves

Thread 🧵

1/ Let's start with this line by Ted Morgan.

“Positioning is like finding a seat on a crowded bus”

Most brands sleepwalk onto the bus and sit on top of one another.

The smart brands look left, right, find an empty row, paint their logo on it and sing sweetly like the Sirens.

2/ Positioning is an easy thing to complicate so let's keep it simple.

*Your goal is to own a space in the customer’s mind. You do this by differentiating yourself.*

Differentiation is not a dark art. It's something you can learn. Here’s the different ways to achieve it:

3/ Through contrast

Point at the status quo and pit yourself against it. Contrast burns your brand into the customer's mind.

• Hey pit themselves against mainstream email
• Lemonde pit themselves against insurance stereotypes
• “I'm a Mac” pit themselves against the PC

4/ Through values

Think Patagonia and the environment, Ben and Jerry's and social justice, Black Rifle Coffee and gun rights.

Some will hate it. Others will rally behind you. And that's the point. Fence sitters don't buy.

What's the simplest marketing you've done that's made the biggest impact?

THREAD: My step-by-step guide to writing landing pages

There’s two parts of a landing page:

a) what’s immediately visible (above the fold)
b) what the user scrolls to (below the fold)

Let's start above the fold.

“A caveman should be able to glance at it and immediately grunt back what you offer” — Donald Miller

Here’s my formula:

1/ Explain the value you provide (title)
2/ Explain how you'll create it (subtitle)
3/ Let the user visualise it (visual)
4/ Make it believable (social proof)
5/ Make taking the next step easy (CTA)

1/ Let's start with titles.

When your product is unique all you have to do is explain what you do as simply as possible.

Most products aren't unique. So a hook adds *oomph*.

The easiest way to write hooks is to address your customer's biggest objection.