As you know we ran a campaign on Product Hunt just a few weeks back. Now that the dust has settled, it is time to look back and analyze what went wrong, what were the results and what we would do differently (if we were to do this again).
Spoiler alert – the campaign was not all that successful. Even though we did everything by the book – had a prominent hunter known in the sector, produced high quality materials and rounded up all our networks (both business-wise and personal), we still got less then 50 upvotes within the first 24 hours. Sure – this is not a bad number, but needless to say, we were expecting more. To make it to the featured projects list (top 5), we would have needed hundreds of upvotes more. Here are 3 takeaways from our experience.
You really need to get your troops together prior to the launch and make sure they are by your side when you hit that submit button. Getting that kick in the first day of the campaign will attract more upvotes and keep you in the picture. This is probably where we failed (if you can call it a failure). There is an upside to all of this – we did manage to get our name out there and attract some interest in PDF Generator API. So next time we are launching a product on Product Hunt – we are wiser!
A good reference goes a long way – in addition to signing up a prominent hunter, you should really reach out to many more influencers in your market niche. And find a way for them to give your product their “influential” support. Activating multiple networks at the same time will give you that much needed domino effect in the first day of your campaign.
Content, content, content! Over the course of your launch day, you should really make an effort to be “in the picture” as much as possible. Sure – you might have posted your campaign link on Twitter on launch morning, but you should really keep the content going throughout the day. If your followers see your post (and due to different algorithms most of them are unlikely to), they might disregard it. However – if you keep reminding them throughout the day – they are more likely to give you the much needed upvote.
Every experience like this teaches you a thing or two. That is why we consider this to be a possibility for learning. Next time we are smarter! Thank you all for the support and keep coming back to this blog to catch up on future developments!
