Are you planning a PH launch? Don't forget to create a ship page! 📣
Nico Spijker
31 replies
Building a PH ship page is a great way to gather support in the weeks before your actual launch.
It's configured through the ship from Product Hunt. It gives you a custom page that people can sign up to with their email weeks in advance of your actual launch.
Share your ship page across social channels, your website, current users, communities, reddit and other relevant places where you're connecting with people.
Once people sign up, you can send messages (emails) to all people that signed up. This way you can keep them up to date on your launch and quickly gather support on your launch day.
Build your own page for free here 👉 https://www.producthunt.com/ship
✨Best practices for ship pages ✨
1️⃣ Add a custom background that is relevant to your product
2️⃣ Embed a link to your product in the description or title
3️⃣ Adding a title and description. Bullet lists often work well as you have limited space to describe your product, maybe use relevant emojis as each bullet.
4️⃣ If you don't have a video, upload a short Loom to this page where you explain what your product is. Little effort that provides a lot of context!
5️⃣ You can only send a message once a week on the free plan, so make sure to plan this ahead for your launch if you don't upgrade.
6️⃣ Add the widget to your website so people can sign up right from your website.
Am I missing anything? Let me know below! 👀
I'm building a dedicated community with tips like these and loads of other resources, anyone is welcome to join: https://space.new/w/2k5rz9o
Replies
flo merian@fmerian
Insightful — Thanks, Nico 👍
At Specify, we’re experimenting with a new feature — a design system docs that automatically syncs with Figma. We made this Upcoming page to raise awareness.
We kept it simple with a single line to describe/introduce the concept. We added an HQ image that "shows the (early) product."
Hope it inspires — Feedback appreciated 💜
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@nicolaas_spijker Oh good idea! Would you expect to land on a landing page or the PH Product page?
Producter
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Papermark
Nico totally agree! It is great insight! Ship page helps a lot.
👀 Already got a ship page? Share what you're working on below and provide fellow makers with some inspiration on how to create beautiful ship pages. 🚀
@nicolaas_spijker We're working on a product that let's you send, collect and embed audio testimonials. Check it out, we're launching soon: https://www.producthunt.com/upco...
@jetmir_haxhiavdyli Cool! Curious to learn more about the product during your launch, testimonials are super valuable nowadays, curious to learn more about the use cases for these audio testimonials :).
@nicolaas_spijker Hi, excited to know more about your tool.
If you want me to review your product ping me at thesoftwareguy1994 at gmail.com with your name and product name as the subject.
LaunchPedia
Thanks for sharing these Nico. These are helpful, I will try to create a ship page for my next product hunt launch.
BTW, is ship page free or premium feature?
@karthik_tatikonda There is a free version which is a bit more limited in functionality. You can also upgrade to unlock some additional features (multiple pages at once, send messages more often, more personalization, etc.)
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Hey Nico, thanks a lot for sharing this. This is super helpful. Can we make edits to the page once launched?
@vishal_godhwani Hi Vishal, yup the page is fully editable throughout. So you can start lean and add additional elements as you get ready for your launch (i.e. the actual launch date or video footage)
Thanks for the tips! Super helpful!!
How often should you send out messages before the launch?
@nicolechaplin Depends a bit on whether you have the paid or free version + what you are asking your audience.
Good reasons to send a message on your ship page:
- You decided on a date to do your launch
- X Days left post
- Major changes or improvements to your product
- Advice/feedback on something relevant to that community.
Based on that and how far away your launch is I'd say try to do something between 2-4 (at least do the official date of launch announcement and another one with the actual launch).
Does a ship phase make a lot of difference when you launch a product on PH?
@lanang_ari It's an additional tool you can use to prepare for your launch, it's up to you how effective it ends up being.
It will not make a difference if you just create it without sharing it across channels, but it will if you're able to gather support on the page weeks in advance of your actual launch.
You aren't, nice platform
Hi Nico, thanks for sharing this! :)
Would you recommend building a ship page or a normal waitlist landing page? Or both?
Thanks in advance!
@andrea_todorova1 The ship page has some benefits being:
- Low barriers to creation one (takes a few minutes only)
- Natively integrated with PH
- Low effort (just enter an email although the normal waitlist landing page would do so as well I assume.
A normal waitlist can be trickier as it will take you much longer to create one, so the question then is what additional functionality do your require for it?
If any of the paid functionality of the ship page can be added to your normal landing page for free + you have the bandwidth to build one then it could also make a lot of sense to do this natively.
I would not do both though, best to stick with one and promote it across your different channels consistently.
@nicolaas_spijker thank you for your answer! I appreciate you taking the time!
I agree with the benefits of the PH ship page you mentioned. It's quite easy and fast to create one.
Although, aside from bootstrapping digital products, we are a digital agency and it's not a problem to develop a normal lp. I think that maybe it's more relevant to have a normal one if your audience is also on other channels and not only on PH. 🤔
👀 Got a ship page already for petit home Share what you're working on in the comments section to inspire other makers to construct stunning ship pages at https://www.pettihome.shop/colle...
I have never heard of such a thing, but this is a great solution for all members of this wonderful service
Thanks for sharing! Question I have is if you have the same landing page format within your website where people can sign up then is it needed to do a ship?
So to ask another way, are there any advantages for your official launch on PH if you 'ship'?
@mehran_najafi The ship page is a low barrier tool to gather support for your launch day. It's generally less of a commitment for people to sign up to your ship page compared to your landing which might increase your chances of having more people show up on your launch day.
Obviously more signups is the end goal, but sometimes people supporting your launch might be bookmarking your product or keeping an eye on it without directly signing up to the service/product.
I appreciate you sharing! I want to know if doing a ship is necessary if you have the same landing page format on your website where people can sign up.
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@banking_information Personally couldn't find the place to add the email, might want to push the field up or make it a bit more obivous for people to find. :)