Hi Guys,
We thought we should try and get some fresh ideas about our side project , Refreshbox.co, we feel that we might not think enough out of the box enough. Refreshbox is a destination platform which enables people to subscribe or create a 5-link-collection newsletter consisting their weekly professional best read (curate content). It's a newsletter platform (not just a tool like mailchimp) and it's important for us that it will be a two way street newsletter. The most important things for our curators, those who launched their own newsletters, are subscribers and engagement with their subscribers. When a subscriber gets a newsletter he can:
1. rate and comment on the newsletter
2. comment on the links.
3. Open and click rate.
There is a notification sent to the curator when one of these happen.
My question to you is: what additional ideas do you have to create engagement between the curators and subscribers? Try to think out of the box. An idea I had is to give subscribers an option to donate to an organization related to the domain of the newsletter if they liked the links they got. That way the curator can see how much money people donated because of the links he curated. Maybe it's not the best idea...what are your ides? Thanks a lot!
Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min?
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Re: Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min?
#2Idea #1: Go talk to your newsletter subscribers, or whoever you think will be your subscribers.
Idea #2: Go talk to your curators, or whoever you think will be your curators.
Your questions above point to the fact you are trying to solve your problem (how to get customers), rather than your customers problems.
Re: Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min?
#3How about an "ask a question" feature.... presumably newsletters will be sent on a topic which the sender is interested in / an expert in and at least partially with the aim of drumming up business.... so e.g. if I send a link about what to do or not do when applying for a job (subtle link - previously posted, I admit - : https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/shoe-in-booted-out-3-tips-you...) then the customer could link straight to a question slot like: "Hey Jer, I'm applying for a job and your article was really interesting, what about XYZ?" - direct user engagement and possible client!
Re: Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min?
#4I used to publish a street magazine and our mailing list was one of our primary tools to interact with our subscribers and fans. Hence, I have (sort of) had the problems you are trying to solve.
I know you're looking for out of the box thinking, but too many marketers obsess over thinking outside of the box and they forget the basics. In this case, you need to pay way more attention to the 'simple' things.
Idea 1 - > FYW (Fix your website). On mobile, your website is a mash of horrible alignment and weird word wrapping. I use Safari on a fully updated iPhone 5c - if I'm having problems, so are others. Based on your website, you couldn't pay me enough to become your customer - I can't trust your ability to format my message if you can't even format your own website. Online marketing is really at least half QA.
Idea 2 - Within a second of loading your page, I got overwhelmed by how quickly {Name I have never heard of} will Email you Five tips about {something I can't see because it changes too quickly. Fix that.
Idea 3 - Work on your copy. Between your Ask HN text and your website I have no idea what your service really does or how it will help me. And, unfortunately, the quality of the writing on the first page keeps me from subscribing to any newsletters. If you're going to highlight content, it needs to be good. I don't need more poorly written articles on growth hacking and I will never engage with that type of content.
Idea 4 - Are you really solving a problem? If so, whose problem are you solving? Go talk to those people. Personally, from what I have gathered from your site, I think this was a problem that I had eight years ago.
Re: Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min?
#5Idea #1: Go talk to your newsletter subscribers, or whoever you think will be your subscribers. Idea #2: Go talk to your curators, or whoever you think will be your curators. Your questions above point to the fact you are trying to solve your problem (how to get customers), rather than your customers problems.
Thanks for the reply! I have talked to my curators and some of them told me that they want more engagement with their subscribers. That's my main question, how can I encourage more engagement....
Re: Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min?
#6How about an "ask a question" feature.... presumably newsletters will be sent on a topic which the sender is interested in / an expert in and at least partially with the aim of drumming up business.... so e.g. if I send a link about what to do or not do when applying for a job (subtle link - previously posted, I admit - : https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/shoe-in-booted-out-3-tips-you... ) then the customer could link s…
That's a good idea, I like it. It works good in all the AMA...Yes, most of the newsletters are very niched...Thanks for that (:
Re: Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min?
#7I used to publish a street magazine and our mailing list was one of our primary tools to interact with our subscribers and fans. Hence, I have (sort of) had the problems you are trying to solve. I know you're looking for out of the box thinking, but too many marketers obsess over thinking outside of the box and they forget the basics. In this case, you need to pay way more attention to the 'simple' things. Idea 1 - >…
Thanks a lot for the reply and feedback. There is a lot of work on the product, totally agree. It's a side project and we try to invest as much time as we can... I would like to talk about idea 4. I think the more time goes by the more relevant the problem is. check out this awesome article http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2015/6/24/search-discover...
Re: Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min?
#8Idea #1: Go talk to your newsletter subscribers, or whoever you think will be your subscribers. Idea #2: Go talk to your curators, or whoever you think will be your curators. Your questions above point to the fact you are trying to solve your problem (how to get customers), rather than your customers problems.
Thanks for the reply! I have talked to my curators and some of them told me that they want more engagement with their subscribers. That's my main question, how can I encourage more engagement....
Focus on behaviors rather than what they say.
What does "more engagement" look like? What behaviors denote "more engagement"?
Once you talk to 10-20 curators you should have a solid understanding of what "more engagement" means to them.
From there brainstorm possible solutions that will effect that.
Rank your solutions on a graph with Bold - Not Bold on one axis, and Likely to Solve - Unlikely to Solve on the other.
Create experiments starting with the most bold and most likely to solve idea.
The boldest, most likely to solve idea that subscribers and curators are willing use will probably be innovative and better define your UVP.
Re: Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min?
#9[deleted]
Re: Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min?
#10Idea #1: Go talk to your newsletter subscribers, or whoever you think will be your subscribers. Idea #2: Go talk to your curators, or whoever you think will be your curators. Your questions above point to the fact you are trying to solve your problem (how to get customers), rather than your customers problems.
Thanks for the reply! I have talked to my curators and some of them told me that they want more engagement with their subscribers. That's my main question, how can I encourage more engagement....
Tell a subscriber that the curators want to interact with her or him better, and listen to that subscriber. Repeat this maybe a dozen times.
Ask your curators if they had any specific ideas for engagement and see what the subscribers think about that.
You've got to be your product's non-technical founder, and coordinate with your users and customers to build what they want.