#customer driven development

Editor's Note: This is a guest post from Jesse Maddox, the Founder & CEO of TripLingo. TripLingo creates a customized experience for learning languages, particularly for travelers. You can follow Jesse on twitter at @onwardly and @TripLingo. TripLingo was one of the first LaunchRock users. This is Part 3 of 3. Part 1 discussed ways to structure your launch, and Part 2 covered page content.

Lesson #8: Twitter sharing generates more views, but FB more signups

We’re not the first to realize this, but sharing on Twitter leads to lots of clicks at a much lower conversion rate. Sharing on FB led to fewer clicks but many more signups. The reason for this seems obvious- people trust recommendations from their friends (Facebook) more than they do “strangers” on Twitter. So what does this mean for you? I suggest using different copy for the Twitter and Facebook share buttons.

Facebook is for personal relationships, so emphasize how the person thinks your product is cool (e.g. “Just signed up for an awesome new tool for travelers. Check out TripLingo.com to sign up for beta access (plus you can win a prize)!”

Twitter, on the other hand, revolves around common interests. Here, you’ll want something that appeals to your target markets interests (e.g. “Awesome new website for travelers, check it out if you love travel!”)

I’m no expert in this area, so I’d love to hear others’ comments on how to differentiate Facebook and Twitter content!

Lesson #9: Test the page before you blast your friends

This was just a dumb mistake that we made. Before we’d really done any proper testing to see what people thought of the page, we jumped the gun in our excitement and started sending it out to friends.

The problem was twofold: 1) the page wasn’t optimized, and 2) your friends are potentially your best bet of getting the snowball effect started. That is, people who know you personally are the ones most likely to send it out to all of their friends.

That’s the initial launch you need to get the friends of your friends to sign up. If your page isn’t optimized beforehand, you’ll blow your biggest chance at going viral. Test before you send it out to all of your friends.

Which brings me to…

Lesson #10: Get it started by reaching out to your friends on a personal level

Speaking of blasting your friends, don’t just draft a short email and beg them. For one, they’re your friends and you want to treat them as such. Second, you’re asking them to put their own reputation on the line by publicly telling their friends. Many people are very conscious about this, some aren’t. But you should understand that in some sense they are putting their reputation on the line by talking about you.

When reaching out to your friends, tell them your story, what you’ve been up to, what your product does, and why you need their help. Be sure to give them clear steps of action. DON’T pressure them. If they want to help they will, if not there’s no point making them feel bad.

Giving them clear steps of action is really important. You don’t want to just say “help me!”, you have to tell them exactly how they can help you. Here’s an example from TripLingo, where I told my friends how they can help at the end of the email:

If you feel so inclined, I could really use your help in 2 ways:

Sign up to hear about our launch at TripLingo.com . (We're giving away $1K towards a flight anywhere in the world, so you could actually get something)

Post a link to TripLingo on Facebook and Twitter (we provide links on the homepage)

Lesson #11: Use Google Analytics and measure changes you make in terms of hits and signups

Being thorough with your metrics from the beginning is really important. Even if your marketing prowess is God’s gift to mankind, you and your team’s opinion is just a small data set. Combining this idea with the idea that you should rapidly iterate based on feedback, its important to test and monitor the performance of your landing page as you iterate. Luckily, LaunchRock makes this easy. Install Google Analytics from Day 1, and keep note of when you make changes to the page. You can then monitor conversion rates and figure out what’s working and what’s not working.

On a related note, the key number you’re looking at is the “Viral Coefficient”. The viral coefficient answers one question: “For every person referred to your site, how many people do they refer?” If each person referred to your site refers one other person, then your Viral Coefficient is 1. You’ll have growth but it will be flat. If its above 1, then you’ll experience exponential growth (1 person refers 2 who refer 4 who refer 8…). Less than 1, and referrals will gradually sink until they disappear completely.

Your Turn

I hope the above and the previous posts have helped you think more clearly about how you approach and execute on your launch page. With the entrance of tools like LaunchRock and the generally explosive pace of innovation on the web in general, there is much change afoot. In addition, every product/company is different, and you’ll need to view each piece of input through the lens of the specific problem and market you’re addressing. But I hope this helps, and I’d love to hear any feedback in the comments!

via blog.launchrock.com