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Why Founders Fail To Market Their Products

medium.dave-bailey.com

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Re: Why Founders Fail To Market Their Products

#31

Post by WA »

SyneRyder wrote: post #28
WA wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sell B2C software with a subscription of 1.99€ per month. I have 7,000 active users. I get 5-10 emails per day max. Before I charged money for my software, I was afraid of the overwhelming flood of customer support requests . Except they never came. > even one short email enquiry would wipe out a dozen sales or more (if you put a monetary value your time) Per email, yes, absolutely. Sometimes I take 20 minutes to a…

Your support metrics look similar to mine - it looks like about 20% of your customers send an email once a year? And up to 20 minutes per email sounds right to me as well. I guess that isn't a flood, but even half an hour of support per day adds up to a month of full-time work per year. > Maybe US customers are faster to send a short email than browsing through FAQ. I get some emails where the entirety of the support…

> but even half an hour of support per day adds up to a month of full-time work per year.

1. You could repurpose emails and turn them into FAQ content (= small SEO improvements).

2. If I take the time to answer an email for 20 minutes, I just find it intriguing and such an email almost always helps me to improve my expertise a bit.

3. Even if it's a whole month of support per year: So what? This is my job and I get paid good money for it ;)

> "The program doesn't work. Is it a bug? Please advise." Some customers don't mention which product they're using, or will even send me support enquiries for competitors products.

Get aText or TextExpander or something like that, make a predefined template that asks for more information.

While I answer every single email, I try to spend the least amount of time on people who seem a bit...weird in their questions. If people don't take the time to write a good question, I don't take time to provide a good answer. Requesting more information is a good way to annoy them a bit back. Maybe they either clarify what they want or they'll try to help themselves.

> just that I couldn't afford to do it on a $5 one-off app purchase.

Have you thought about turning this into a subscription? If it provides value on a daily basis, people might pay more than you think, let's say $12 per year.

Re: Why Founders Fail To Market Their Products

#32

Post by superasn »

There are other myths.

6) What if someone steals my idea and beats me to the market?

Due to the culture of secrecy propagated by big companies like Apple we too believe our ideas are unique and need to be secret.

If anything, the best ideas are usually incremental changes to already existing ideas but I digress. The point is being first to the market means squat but if you have a solid marketing plan and a consistent supply of leads (+ good relationship with your list) then you will make money. period.

7) A big launch is the end goal

Even a big launch is only 1% of your total traffic put leniently. So many people put all their hopes on a big launch.. So you're on Techcrunch, big deal. I've had many sites on TC, Mashable, etc but the traffic usually means nothing. You get a burst of signups (probably 1k+ in a week IIRC) but that is like a drop in the ocean and just like posting on a Forum, the moment your post drops from homepage - it's history. On the other hand, good SEO, and consistent supply of leads (say 100 leads a day = your big launch on TC in 10 days) is what will keep you in the game and make you money everyday.

8) If I have more traffic my site will grow

Getting traffic is half the job. Converting that traffic into paying leads is where the money is. If you think your lead will buy from you the moment it lands on your site, you're being naive. You have to romance your subscribers, give them free bonuses, educate them and then one day when you have something they need, they will buy from you - even if you're last to the market or are charging them more. When people trust you, you will get more repeat business than the new orders. I bet people with iPhones are the biggest consumers of the next iPhones too. Never ever underestimate the power of up-selling (though this one I think you only learn from experience).

Re: Why Founders Fail To Market Their Products

#33

Post by jackgolding »

TeeWEE wrote: post #21

Marketing is important, however more important is to build in a viral loop into your product, that for every new customer x>1 new customers are contacted. This is how social networks work, invite your friends systems, etc. However, even then marketing is still important. But too often marketing is seen as: Spend huge amount of money on ads. No: marketing is market research, choosing your target audience, branding, im…

I find this as the struggle as someone who has traditionally worked with large brands. One of the companies I worked with spent millions of dollars on paid advertising while startups and web companies seem to favour inbound marketing a lot more - which big companies aren't really as good at (or pay as much attention too.)

Re: Why Founders Fail To Market Their Products

#34

Post by SyneRyder »

WA wrote: post #31
SyneRyder wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your support metrics look similar to mine - it looks like about 20% of your customers send an email once a year? And up to 20 minutes per email sounds right to me as well. I guess that isn't a flood, but even half an hour of support per day adds up to a month of full-time work per year. > Maybe US customers are faster to send a short email than browsing through FAQ. I get some emails where the entirety of the support…

> but even half an hour of support per day adds up to a month of full-time work per year. 1. You could repurpose emails and turn them into FAQ content (= small SEO improvements). 2. If I take the time to answer an email for 20 minutes, I just find it intriguing and such an email almost always helps me to improve my expertise a bit. 3. Even if it's a whole month of support per year: So what? This is my job and I get p…

> You could repurpose emails and turn them into FAQ content (= small SEO improvements).

I do that, but it also creates support enquiries for competitors products. I rank well for "how to install Photoshop Plugins", which means I get the emails for how to install my competitors plugins too :) Should be great lead-gen, but I've not found a way to convert those visits into downloads/sales of my own plugins.

> Have you thought about turning this into a subscription?

Sometimes, but some customers specifically said they bought my software because it wasn't a subscription. I'm also charging $20 - $25 per sale now, trying to price for at least one support case per sale.

Re: Why Founders Fail To Market Their Products

#35

Post by lettersdigits »

stevoski wrote: post #12

I built a desktop app (Poker Copilot) in 2008. I figured if I did it well, I'd have my own one-person software company supplying a steady stream of income with little ongoing effort. My product would be so intuitive that it wouldn't need a user guide. It certainly wouldn't need marketing because everyone in my target audience would spread the word that my product was what they needed! Ha, what a fool 2008 me was. Wha…

>Nine years later, and still the stream of customer support requests has not relented!

You gave me an idea for a business model - Let's say you offer a pingdom-like service (to monitor your site availability and reliablity) -

You can just do the following:

1. Offer the service 100% Free, at your own risk

2. Offer a $x/month subscription . if you don't pay - you won't get any customer support.

Or, you can will still offer free support for non-paying customers, but without any priority (their tickets will be handled only after the paying customer's tickets)

Does anyone know of a company that is offering this type of model ?

(edit: added missing words and spacing)

Re: Why Founders Fail To Market Their Products

#36

Post by mootothemax »

TeeWEE wrote: post #21

Marketing is important, however more important is to build in a viral loop into your product, that for every new customer x>1 new customers are contacted. This is how social networks work, invite your friends systems, etc. However, even then marketing is still important. But too often marketing is seen as: Spend huge amount of money on ads. No: marketing is market research, choosing your target audience, branding, im…

> more important is to build in a viral loop into your product, that for every new customer x>1 new customers are contacted

This is marketing.

Re: Why Founders Fail To Market Their Products

#37

Post by garysieling »

shubhamjain wrote: post #25

I jibe with the article but I disagree that marketing is something that should be pursued from Day 1. As Jessica Livingston has noted umpteen times, the first thing you need is product that delights users. Marketing activities around an idea that might not have a useful market is a bit wasteful. I don't imply that marketing is pointless at early stage but time-consuming marketing channels (blogging, social media) are…

I think the marketing work that happens early is of a different character than what you'd do if you had a base of customers.

I've been building a search engine for talks (https://www.findlectures.com), and when I demo it people often give me new language that helps the copy on the site, or ideas for features that communicate the value better.

Re: Why Founders Fail To Market Their Products

#39

Post by sharemywin »

lettersdigits wrote: post #35
stevoski wrote: post #12

I built a desktop app (Poker Copilot) in 2008. I figured if I did it well, I'd have my own one-person software company supplying a steady stream of income with little ongoing effort. My product would be so intuitive that it wouldn't need a user guide. It certainly wouldn't need marketing because everyone in my target audience would spread the word that my product was what they needed! Ha, what a fool 2008 me was. Wha…

>Nine years later, and still the stream of customer support requests has not relented! You gave me an idea for a business model - Let's say you offer a pingdom-like service (to monitor your site availability and reliablity) - You can just do the following: 1. Offer the service 100% Free, at your own risk 2. Offer a $x/month subscription . if you don't pay - you won't get any customer support. Or, you can will still o…

pay cancel -> 1yr -> pay cancel.

Also, you'd be incentivizing your company to make support more complex so users call, email etc.

Re: Why Founders Fail To Market Their Products

#40

Post by lettersdigits »

sharemywin wrote: post #39
lettersdigits wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nine years later, and still the stream of customer support requests has not relented! You gave me an idea for a business model - Let's say you offer a pingdom-like service (to monitor your site availability and reliablity) - You can just do the following: 1. Offer the service 100% Free, at your own risk 2. Offer a $x/month subscription . if you don't pay - you won't get any customer support. Or, you can will still o…

pay cancel -> 1yr -> pay cancel. Also, you'd be incentivizing your company to make support more complex so users call, email etc.

what ? please explain..

If you cancel the subscription, you won't get support. I don't understand your point :)

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