I love a good actionable story about how to grow your business, especially in the competitive SaaS space.
If you’ve been into digital products over the last few years, you may have heard of Nathan Barry, and his success in the e-book space. Surely not his only accolade over the years, but one where I first discovered his work. What attracted me was his attention to design and the details around it. Meaning, every piece of his product, brand, and funnel is expertly crafted. All the while, other internet marketers were lifting the same copy and landing page templates from each other.
It was that same effort which brought him to designing a rapidly growing e-mail automation platform called, ConvertKit. Book ending this show along side my last episode with Rob Walling of Drip, really helps us understand what it’s like to not only grow a SaaS business, but to grow a SaaS business in the e-mail marketing world.
Contents
Interview with Nathan Barry of ConvertKit
This is the season finale! We’ll be back in late October, read more below!
6 actionable steps to launch your product
First and foremost, this episode is a fantastic season finale for us — I’m glad I could book Nathan to teach us through his words of wisdom. I want you to listen to the entire episode, but here are 6 actionable steps I was able to pull out of our conversation, if you found other great nuggets of wisdom, post them in the comments.
1. Teach everything you know
In my recent live show, WordPress plugins to power-up your blog, we discussed some of the pitfalls young bloggers encounter in the beginning — that of — not knowing what to blog about. Look, if you’re launching a product, chances are you know a little something about the space you’re getting into. You can at least teach us how you got to where you are, and what went into building that product.
So teach us all of it, will ya?
2. Start 90 days out
If there’s anything I’m guilty of, it’s not promoting a product launch long enough. Sure, I did $5k in pre-sales for my Conductor plugin, but imagine if I invested 90-days out. Surely with the proper messaging in place, I could have doubled, if not tripled, that pre-sales launch day.
3. Find a niche in your customer
I know how hard it is to niche down a product.
To-do list app > Simple to-do list app with sharable lists > To-do list app for parents > To-do list app for parents of newborns.
See where I’m headed? Even if you struggle with the niching on the product, try and focus on niching on the actual customer. Find cross fit trainers and target them. Locate the Facebook group that mom’s of newborns dwell in.
Ask that specific customer avatar to try your product. Here’s a great video I did about building your perfect customer avatar.
4. Blog post the hell out of everything
Struggling to get that content marketing wheel spinning? Just write.
Write about everything you’re doing. Post pictures of wireframes and new mockups for your upcoming product. Creating a clear line of communication will help resonate with your target audience. It seems silly at first, but you’d be surprised with the results after a few months.
5. Get specific with your goals
Is it 1,000 visitors to the website in the first month? 500 YouTube subscribers? Maybe selling $2,000 in pre-sales? Whatever it is, you need to write it down, and get specific on your goals. If it’s simply “world domination” you’re going to get burned out pretty quick.
6. Everyone wants to help someone in motion
This might be the key takeaway here: not everyone wants to help you on day 1, but on Day 57 when you have traction, or when you have that working prototype. I’m a busy entrepreneur, just like you. Do we really want to do a pitch meeting or review wireframes for someone we barely know? No, we’re busy, but we love to help — it’s in our nature.
When you’re reaching out to someone for advice or to get on a podcast, you’ll seal the deal by showing them your in motion. You’re not there to get free advice or suck some airtime for free traction, but that you’re making strides and you have something to offer. Get in motion, before getting discouraged.
Season 4 is coming October 20th!
Do you still like what’s going on this podcast? Have you checked out my other show PluggedIn Radio? It’s a show where I talk to plugin devs and have them demo their products to us. Occasionally, I’m joined by a co-host to do a news roundtable for top WordPress headlines.
The podcast will be on break until October, we’ll see you then!
Links for the show
Nathan on Twitter
ConvertKit
NathanBarry.com
ConvertKit raises $1.8 million
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