How do you warm up the community (potential voters) before the Product Hunt launch?
I would like to follow up on the previous discussion on How far in advance do you prepare your launch on Product Hunt?
In this case, I would like to share with you, but also listen to you in a brainstorming session:
What activities do you use to activate the community and potential upvoters for your upcoming launch?
I would start with the most basic ones.
The "Notify me" page
DM existing Product Hunt users on social media – make sure they are available on the weekend (write in advance and on launch day)
If you have existing product users, remind them too
Convert non-existent platform users to create an account on Product Hunt (in advance)
Posting on social media
PR article/filling in media space (podcasts, videos) – where you mention the launch in between your speech
Increased activity on Product Hunt and in private group chats/communities (e.g. WA, Discord, Slack)
Reminder email sequences.
I would be happy if you could share other tactics that have worked for you in activating the community. :)
Replies
I have an issue with actually going to these people's DMs, and just telling them to help upvote my product. Cos, I did a lunch recently, and didn't know how to go about it.
Basically I want to know if the majority would be cool with someone reaching out to them on their socials, for their launch
@franklivania I wouldn't mind people reaching out to me to evaluate the product and I would recommend and upvote the product if I like it and solves a pain point well.
@satish_rajendran Okay, thank you for this. My guess is most would not mind, but it depends how you approach them. The approach matters
@franklivania Yeah, I know this feeling pretty well :D
@busmark_w_nika I hope I find it easier after a few conversations here
@franklivania when you will be more visible and contributing often, it will be easier to earn trustworthy and people's openness to help you :)
@busmark_w_nika true, actually. I'll continue to engage and make friends here. Hope we can be friends 😅😅
Real Favicon Generator
@franklivania My take one this: all people on PH and other communities (indie makers on X, etc.) understand the importance of launching and votes. If you had a past interaction with them, whatever small, you are entitled to contact them. I suggest you remind them what this past interaction was if this is not obvious.
@ph_bernard Thank you. This makes sense.
The thing is... How do I find common ground to engage with them? This is a huge problem for me, and I'll need to master it.
For one, I've built a product, which I think is great, but... I don't have an idea how to reach the market.
Real Favicon Generator
@ph_bernard Thanks, Bernard. I'll do this, and also relate more with the community, as a way to get my foot in.
Quicko
@franklivania It's more about reaching out to people for feedback rather than just upvotes. Not only does it increase engagement, it also gets you some valuable feedback from someone outside the team!
@charuchaturvedi Of course, rather than just lobby them for their upvote. After the upvote, what next? 🤔
Quicko
@franklivania exactly!
I haven't done a proper launch yet - probably the current one we are doing will be the first proper one - but how we are framing it is:
- "Notify me" page
- Prepare a CRM of PH users you have interacted with before and reach out to them, mainly through LinkedIn or Twitter
- Be active on PH
Any new recommendations would be much appreciated.
P.S. We are launching soon :D
@borja_diazroig When is "soon"? :D (date)
@busmark_w_nika 23rd of August :)
@borja_diazroig 1 month, that's good :D
Real Favicon Generator
This one is a bit off-topic: I recently launched, but not on PH. Several launchpads are freemium and if you're not willing to pay, you can't choose your launch date.
So I launched without any idea of when I would actually be live:
The waitlists take months
The wait time is not clear at all
You get an email on launch day. No prior notice.
How to keep people warm after you warmed them up? 😁
To address the issue, I continuously collect emails from people willing to vote for my product, with a form like this:
Note that the launchpad name ("Dev Hunt") is not even correct: I have no idea where I will launch next since I don't control the launchpads waitlists. But this is a way to make the message clear, and I can fix that in the email I sent them.
Basically I'm running a kind of one-time mailing list.
@ph_bernard Have you been considering the Dago's platform? :)
https://www.itslaunchday.com/
This is a very helpful topic. Thanks for creating @busmark_w_nika. Done anyone have a list of discord or slack communities where i can join to promote the launch?
@malithmcrdev You are welcome! To be honest, I think that there are not so many Slack communities and I think that they are more private.
But if any of you have a list and want to prove I am wrong, feel free :D
HuHu AI
From our experience, setting up the coming soon teaser and used it to engage with the community helps.
Getting into some product hunt communities and sharing the upcoming launch also helps making our brand aware.
Sharing and commenting on the forum also helps.