Marketing, Ugh!
Marketing 101
I'm not even sure if marketing is the right term for what I am attempting to do in a concerted way for the first time for one my side projects. But I am putting effort into making the product development work that I want to do worth the effort by trying to get more paid users.
Specifically, I would like to convert more trial users into paid users, but improved user acquisition will hopefully be a second phase of this if I can get my trial-to-paid funnel working better.
I build a lot of side https://shanecleveland.net/projects/. I love the process of making things. And I have had good success (lucky!) with generating interest in some of these projects through SEO. But not all of them. And when users don't show up after the initial work, I tend to loose interest.
But I really like my [https://timelinetool.app](Google Calendar Schedule View) app. I really want to improve it and add more features. I get a handful of new trial users each week, but I only have a small number of paid users. I can see that trial users are interacting with the product, and I have gotten some amazing feedback from some users who seem very passionate about the idea.
I know that adding more features is not the key to getting more conversions, and I don't think working solely to get more visitors and trial users is the best route to increase the number of paid users at first.
So I am working on onboarding and trial conversions. I am starting with a couple of tools to help with this.
First, I have set up a product tour flow upon successful signup with https://usetiful.com to get more users more engaged at the outset. And I have initiated an email sequence over the two-week trial period with https://sendpulse.com to help with conversions.
So far I have been able to utilize free tiers. I hope to go more in depth on what I have put in place going forward and share some progress. Hopefully this helps me gain some clarity of my own and help others.
I am considering adding a chat button – not because I will actually be attempting to live chat, but I wonder if it increases user feedback.
I also plan on creating more content/documentation to help guide new customers and increase awareness of existing features, which should double as an additional benefit to SEO.
And when I slowly add new features, I would like to make adding documentation/announcements part of that process.