How to truly get advantage of Product Hunt and don't be lost in a trending list
Weâve been featured on Product Hunt top 10 and I want to tell you how you can do the same, or even better, step by step.
What did Product Hunt bring us?
As most of PH listings, it was out of the blue. A satisfied customer or a friend posts your product there and you start seeing an exceptional increase in visits and sign ups.
How exceptional you might be asking?
150% increase in visits and 20% sign ups. How many free listings can say that, really?
In addition, this week weâve received more API leads than in the last 3 months.
However, this is not about bragging about vanity metrics. Other people have had outstanding numbers, like Front and their amazing comparison with being featured in other medias like TechCrunch and Hacker News. BrandiD also had some crazy numbers in sales due to PH.
How to benefit from being featured on Product Hunt?
My point here is how you can benefit the most from being listed on PH.
By the time this video is recorded (September 2014), you need around 300 upvotes to make sure you're in the top 5.
In other words, you better have an already launched and working well product so you increase the likelihood to be upvoted.
If you are in the early days (aka a coming soon landing page), I rather go to Betalist. We did that two years ago and got hundreds of sign ups there. Pretty cool place if youâre at that stage.
These are the 3 steps I recommend you to follow if you are listed on PH:
It's very likely you can't comment if you're brand new on Product Hunt. However, their team will reach you out very quickly to let you do that.
@videolean Videolean is trending on @ProductHunt! Please check your e-mail, I'd like to give you access to comment. Thanks! đą
â Nichole Elizabeth (@NikkiElizDemere)
Once you have access to comment, be the first commenting on your listing saying you're the founder of your app and you'd be happy replying and listening to any question or feedback people have, like Derek from Knowtify did.
If whilst you're getting access to comment, someone says something about your product, that's an amazing opportunity to work on a remarkable reply that will catch other people's attention.
For example, in our case, someone wrote a critic about our marketing video but we still didn't have access to reply there. So we filmed a video like this, and posted on the comments once we got that access. I believe plenty of our upvotes came through that reply.
Let your users know you've been listed and that they can upvote you if they genuinely love your product.
Start with the basics, and share where you already are (Facebook, Twitter, G+,...). Bear in mind shares with images normally rank better and have better click through on those social networks. Make a screenshot of your listing and attach it to your updates. Also make sure you are sharing your PH listing URL, and not Product Hunt's homepage (i.e http://www.producthunt.com/posts/videolean)
If you use a newsletter app (Mailchimp, Awebber, etc.), why not reaching out your database with such a great news?
Disclosure: this doesn't mean you should offer any discount or whatsoever for upvoting you. Product Hunt guidelines say you should not incentivize people for upvoting your product.
What a better excuse to follow-up a potential partner you don't talk with since ages ago than saying you've been featured in one of the trendiest startup directories?
Drop them a line saying you've been listed on Product Hunt and if there is any chance to resume your last conversation. Worst case scenario, you don't get an upvote but at least you move on in something that makes you a sustainable business - sales.
Other way can happen as well. Received a congratulations email from Derek from Knowtify, actually.
Have you been featured on Product Hunt? Feel free to comment below how you did promote it.