Hello there
This is the #15 Issue of Weekly Dan.
Welcome to 76 new people (wow 🥹) who have joined this week. You are nice.
Every Friday, I share 5 golden nuggets with you:
One Personal Insight
One Marketing Tactic
One Product for InspirationOne Long-term TrendOne Thought-provoking Question
One Great Resource
Let’s get going.
Personal Insight 🤯
I am both an introvert and a marketer.
I don’t like being loud and talking to strangers. But I enjoy promoting products and getting people’s attention.
For a long time, I hated cold Twitter DMs.
Doing it felt wrong.
But last week, I needed to reach out to 500+ newsletter Creators for our new product — Sponsor This Newsletter. Love it or hate it, I needed to complete this task.
Here are 3 mindset-changing ideas that helped me:
Cold DMs are not different from content marketing, paid ads, or launching on Product Hunt. It’s just an acquisition channel. In some situations, it’s more effective. Why neglect it?
If your offer is valuable, you are doing the right thing. Those people wouldn’t find out about your product, but now they can get tangible value from it.
It’s easy not to be annoying. Don’t follow up more than once. Don’t reach out to random people that are not your target audience. Don’t ask people to book a meeting with you.
As a result, I got only one somewhat negative response. Others either agreed to my offer or didn’t respond. Not bad.
Maybe you should cold DM more people too?
If you are up to it, check my previous issue to do it right.
Marketing Tactic 🧭
Today I will share the greatest marketing tactic with you.
It will acquire more users, activate them better, and get more paying customers.
Holy Grail of marketing.
Ask for the feedback
I am serious. Don’t scroll to the next topic.
When was the last time you asked for feedback?
If your answer is not today, then it’s too late.
You don’t need to create more content or acquire more users. Instead, you need to do it better. Here is where honest feedback comes in handy.
Define what you want to get feedback on
Landing page
Positioning
Acquisition channels mix
Pricing page
Email sequence
Cold DM template
Reach out to 5 Founders you admire
Ask them, “What can I do better about X”?
Offer to help them for free in return
Make changes
It’s obvious. It’s simple.
But it doesn’t mean it’s not powerful
Product for Inspiration 💫 → Long-term Trend 🛸
I felt that this is the weakest nugget in my newsletter. Time to try something new.
From now on, I will pick a long-term trend and show how you can leverage it.
Desire for positivity
The world is a little bit crazy right now. You read the news and everything seems dreadful.
That’s why more and more people seek positivity.
Here are 3 simple examples that I’ve seen in our Indie Bubble.
Gas app lets teens say nice things to each other is #1 on App Store, acquiring 30K new users every hour
Andrew Gazdecki and Arvid Kahl, the two biggest Bootstrap Opinion Leaders, mostly tweet empowering and positive ideas for Startup Founders
Bro culture on Twitter (with all its downsides) is founded around lifting bros, not criticizing them
Behavioral scientists usually say that avoiding negativity is more powerful than seeking positivity. And it’s maybe true for the general population.
But what if your target audience is slightly different?
Here are a few ideas to make your marketing more positive:
Share more transformational stories of your customers
Change your positioning from “Avoid X” to “Achieve X”
Change your Tone of Voice from “Challenging” to “Empowering”
Thought-provoking Question 🔋
Who don’t you sell to?
First-time Founders love to sell their products to everyone (been there, done that).
But understanding who is not your target customer is critical.
Sure, you can benefit from a revenue boost in the short term. Who doesn’t like Stripe notifications, right?
But it will harm you in the long term:
These customers will request features you don’t want to build
These customers don’t achieve results → Negative reviews
Your messaging will become too broad too soon → Lost target audience
Not selling your product to the wrong audience is equally important to finding the right target audience.
Understand your worst customer profile. And then make sure they won’t buy your product.
Great Resource 🏈
Want some inspiration for your marketing?
Say no more.
Tella collected the best Product Hunt videos from 2021. And some of them are pure masterpieces.
My favorites are Mighty and tl;dv.
What about you?
That’s it!
What have you enjoyed about this issue?
See you on Tuesday 👋
Absolutely not a CTA 🗿
No pressure. Whenever you are ready.
1) Get 50 actionable marketing models in MakerBox Frameworks.
Level up your marketing. Stress-free.
2) Let me roast your landing page.
It will be painful. You will get more paying customers from it.