Remoteur is a bi-weekly newsletter of remote jobs for pros based in Europe. This is the story of how I built and launched it with €53 and no existing audience.
Idea
Remote job boards are mostly US-centric, how about Europe?
My research on Google Trends, Google Search (specifically in “Searches related to remote jobs”), Twitter, Quora and Hacker News convinced me to build an MVP.
At first I thought at another job board, then I decided for something quicker and easier to launch: a newsletter.
Name
I needed a short, meaningful and memorable name: the Big Tuts experiment (some kind of “Quora meets Kickstarter” short-lived platform I launched with Massimiliano and Adriano two years ago) made me extra cautious with cheeky names, so after combining “remote” with “Europe” I came up with an innocent and french flavored “Remoteur”.
Domain, Twitter, Revue and logo
After I recovered from the surprise of finding that remoteur.com was available, I bought a hosting plan for just €29 and opened an account on Twitter and Revue.
I chose Revue over Mailchimp & Co for its simplicity and focus on community: I was pretty sure they would help me to increase my newsletter visibility. And last but not least, I found a coupon code to get 3 months of the Pro plan for free.
Next step: the logo. I’m not a graphic designer, so I downloaded a free ready-to-go logo from logodust.com, courtesy of Fairpixels.
Value proposition
After setting up my custom domain and having made sure the DNS records were updated, I wrote this value proposition:
“Remote jobs in Europe delivered to your inbox bi-weekly. First issue goes out July 4”
I chose and announced a close date for two reasons:
- to make a public commitment and launch without second thoughts;
- to instill a bit of fear of missing out something “real”. First issue would be sent at the latest within four days.
Spreading the word
Designer News
My post on Designer News got 6 upvotes, no comments and a tweet to their 14K followers.
But here’s the best thing: the lack of competition - I chose to post on Friday, the least competitive workday - allowed me to stay on the Designer News front page for the entire weekend.
My post on Reddit was basically ignored (9 views) by the 46K readers of the Digital Nomad subreddit. With 123 views and 4 upvotes the same post on the SideProject subreddit (18K readers) went slightly better.
Quora
I found these related questions on Quora:
- What are the best ways to search for a remote job in engineering/development within Europe?
- What are the best places to find remote jobs in Europe?
- Can you suggest a remote or flexible jobs portal in Europe?
- What are the best free job posting sites in Europe?
I answered with a quick post been viewed 1.5K+ times so far:
Check out a free bi-weekly newsletter called Remoteur: every other Tuesday I go on a treasure hunt and share some of the best jobs for Europe-based remote workers
Twitter and Slack
I retweeted first Remoteur’s tweet to my 600+ followers and posted the link on Unicorn Think Tank, a Slack community of CRO and marketing experts I joined in May, adding this message:
Hey guys! I’m launching Remoteur, a free bi-weekly newsletter with remote jobs for pros based in Europe. First issue goes out July 4: it would be great if you could subscribe, share and/or show some love. Thanks!
Hacker News
My post on Hacker News got 3 upvotes and no comments. As for Reddit, I’m not involved in that community, so I didn’t expect to get much traction.
Cold messages
I sent a cold email to Jane Portman and a similar DM on Twitter to Heidi Pun, two european pros I chatted with on Product Hunt:
Hi Jane/Heidi,
I hope everything is fine!
Maybe you remember me as the maker of Big Tuts on Product Hunt. By the way, I’m launching Remoteur, a free bi-weekly newsletter with remote jobs for pros based in Europe. First issue goes out tomorrow, it would be great if you could show some love.
Here’s a handy pre-populated Tweet to help me spread the word: https://ctt.ec/K6GEo
Thanks! :)
Fun fact: they both tweeted!
First issue
Five days later at 11am CEST I sent the first issue to 224 subscribers, here are the (very good, according to Mailchimp and Upstart.me) stats:
- 48,66% opened
- 66,97% clicked
- 0 unsubscribed
Spreading the word (again)
Another cold message
Less than two hours after sending the first issue I wrote a cold email to Revue, basically asking to be featured in their gallery of hottest newsletters:
Hi guys, what a breeze! Just sent out to 224 subscribers the first issue of Remoteur (remote jobs in Europe). It would be an honor to be featured in your gallery, any chance?
Revue’s founder Martijn de Kuijper replied a week later:
Hey Silvio, thanks for reaching out! I just added your newsletter to our Explore page!
I opened a Facebook page just to spend €20 for this ad:
My target audience was 18-45 aged people living in Europe and matching (at least) one of the following:
- Interests
Digital nomad, Smashing Magazine, Web developer, Web design, Marketing, Growth hacking or Copywriting - Behaviors
Small business owners - Employers
Work from home - Job title
Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) - Life Event
Away from hometown
The results? 27.747 impressions, 521 clicks and less than 20 newsletter subscribers. I’m sure there is considerable room for improvement.
I'll need:
- a more persuasive copy (“Next issue goes out July 18” on a July 6 post is not the best use of the urgency/scarcity principle);
- an eye-catching image;
- a book/course on the subject (“Facebook Ads Manual” by Mojca Marš seems to be a legitimate candidate, but I'm open to suggestions).
Product Hunt (asking for help)
Product Hunt is an integral part of launching a new product these days: mindful of the unsuccessful launch of Contento (a now-defunct Big Tuts pivot), I wanted to ask someone with a larger followership - and able to submit products directly, without having to go through the review process - to post Remoteur for me.
I found out that Nichole Elizabeth DeMeré, who is - among many other things - moderator at PH, has a Submit a product for review for Product Hunt form on her site.
Here’s what I wrote, asking to be posted the following Friday:
Hi Nichole,
as you surely know remote job boards are mostly US-centric. That’s why I decided to go on a treasure hunt every two weeks and share some of the best jobs specifically for Europe-based remote workers.
Launched 10 days ago, first issue went out to 224 subscribers on July 4, next one is scheduled for July 18. Remoteur has already been on Designer News front page, being featured on PH would be a blessing :)
Thanks for your time!
She replied a few hours later:
Hi, I’d be happy to post this product for you on Friday.
Product Hunt (launch day)
The Product Hunt leaderboard resets every day at 12:01am Pacific. So if you want to get the best initial traction you should submit you product early in the morning, and that’s exactly what Nichole did:
I tagged the Product Hunt post with “Hiring and Recruiting”, “Nomad Lifestyle”, “Email Newsletters”, “Tech” and “Website” to get a chance to appear as an alternative of famous remote job boards like We Work Remotely or Remote | OK, then I added a couple of screenshots and wrote a greeting comment.
I asked to be included into the PH collection “Find a Remote Job”, but I was late to the party: “Collections are closed” Jake Crump of the PH community team told me, “but we do encourage you to make your own and promote it! Get creative, PH retweets cool collections”. Anyway, being included in Raffaele Gaito’s Italian Products collection has at least cheered me up a bit.
At 1pm CEST I reluctantly sent an email with no value for my 330 subscribers to celebrate the Product Hunt launch, trying to be extra cautious not to directly ask for upvotes (it’s against PH netiquette).
Here are the stats:
- 52,73% opened
- 18,97% clicked (29 clicks on the Product Hunt image link)
- 5 unsubscribed
I published a post on Facebook and spent €4 to promote it: my target audience was 18–40 aged people living in Europe and interested in Product Hunt. The results? 741 impressions and 12 clicks.
Unfortunately Remoteur has been “only” the 8th most upvoted product of the day, so I couldn’t get extra visibility with PH newsletters: a product has to be in the top 5 for the daily version, top 6 for the weekly one.
By the way, Remoteur subscribers doubled thanks to Product Hunt (and PH upvotes doubled since launch day)!
What I've experimented
- I changed the mail subject from a generic “Remote jobs in Europe — Issue #6” to a more specific (and hopefully catchy) “#6: Remote positions at Github, Jungle Scout, Super Spicy Media and others”;
- I advanced the idea of a giveaway to get people to tweet about Remoteur;
- Remoteur subscribers and I are in the same niche, so I thought it would be a good idea to share the books I’m reading (even better with a coupon code);
- Along with this I edited the welcome message from Revue’s default:
Thank you for subscribing to Remoteur!
You will receive updates straight to your inbox, but you can also check out the profile page for past and future issues.
Oh by the way, I wouldn’t mind if you gave my digest some love through Twitter or Facebook :-)
To this one (hopefully more personal):
Hooray, you’re subscribed to Remoteur! You’ll receive updates straight to your inbox, but you can also check out remoteur.com for past issues.
Thanks again for subscribing, much appreciated. I send every other Tuesday, so look for the next issue very soon.
Best from Italy,
P.S. Here’s a handy pre-populated tweet to help you spread the word about Remoteur :)
Recently I’ve edited the P.S. part, mentioning the giveaway:
P.S. I'm planning to do a little giveaway once we cross the 1000 subscribers line, share Remoteur for a chance to win 3 business books :)
- Finally, I changed the “Join me in following this newsletter? Remoteur http://www.remoteur.com” pre-populated tweet into “Join me in following Remoteur, a newsletter of #remotejobs in Europe http://www.remoteur.com” and then “Subscribe to Remoteur newsletter and RT for a chance to win 3 business books http://www.remoteur.com #remotejobs #giveaway”.
What's/went wrong
Slow growth
With about 3 new emails per day, subscriber growth has been pretty slow but steady since the initial launch spike. Open and click rates are decreasing, but I guess it’s a normal physiological response as the subscribers increase.
Poor Google ranking
Remoteur’s WooRank score is only 56.1, so there’s considerable room for improvement. But I’ll have to replace Revue’s landing page with a custom one.
Few shares/RTs
Most of the companies I mention on Facebook and Twitter ignore “their” post: honestly, I would have expected more shares/retweets. Maybe I could make my posts more “visual” with tools like Canva or Buffer's Pablo, but I’m afraid it would take too long (and Buffer's inability to tag Facebook pages is already killing me).
Subscribers too rarely tweet, despite the giveaway and the pre-populated tweet.
Automated DM on Twitter
I set up Crowdfire to automatically send a direct message to each new follower of my personal profile on Twitter: “Hi there, thanks for the follow! Interested in getting a bi-weekly digest of remote jobs in Europe? Subscribe for free: remoteur.com”.
I’m an introvert and I easily (and erroneously) feel guilty for being too pushy, but this time I knew I wasn’t wrong: one week later one follower replied with “Already did that organically, stop automating everything man”. As I should have imagined, people discover my profile from Remoteur, not viceversa.
No more annoying and useless automated DMs from me, I promise!
What’s next
Here’s what I’m going to do in the short term:
- a book giveaway to celebrate 1K subscribers;
- a custom landing page to get 100% control and overcome Revue limitations in terms of SEO, analytics and unfurling (the way Remoteur previews look on social media and messaging platforms);
- I’ll consider advertising on Facebook (again) and/or sponsoring an email newsletter relevant to Remoteur’s niche;
- I’ll try to promote Remoteur and participate regularly in 1-5 targeted Facebook groups I’ve joined recently.
What’s my monetization plan
In order of preference, here are the different options I’m thinking about to make Remoteur a sustainable project:
- One slot with a clear and relevant sponsor for each issue (e.g. Offscreen Dispatch);
- Charging companies for promoting their open positions;
- Charging subscribers with a small monthly fee for a premium version, like Owen Williams is doing with re:Charged (Revue is working on this feature, as far as I know);
- Affiliate links;
- Turning Remoteur into another job board (that’s a very long shot).
But first I’ve to at least double my subscriber base.
Thanks for reading!
I’d love to hear your thoughts, please share your comments below. And if you’re a remote worker based in Europe, check out remoteur.com
Originally published on Hacker Noon on September 12, 2017
Silvio,
Really helpful post! A lot of articles promise this kind of help, but yours actually breaks it down for us. Our product, Shelf, (http://bit.ly/2xLfArX) just launched on Product Hunt and I was looking for ways to keep the conversation going. I am kind of surprised that the cold emails worked so well! I might want to try that out. Definitely keep up the great content!
Kat
Thank you Kat, much appreciated.
About cold emails: sometimes a genuine (re)tweet or comment are enough to break the ice and start a conversation. The key is being nice... and trusting the reciprocity principle :)
BTW, congratulations for the PH launch!
Thanks so much!
Wow, nice results! Congrats :)
Thanks! Let me know if you need any tips... we learned quite a bit from the experience.
Inspiring and helpful post! I read it and was very useful for me at this stage, now I'm launching in Product Hunt.
I was a subscriber of Remoteur before going so big :D
Best!
Thanks, good luck with your launch! :)
Thank you so much!!
great article :) fun to read! About your facebook ads. If I calculated it correctly (total spend $20) you have a cpc of ~ $0,04 and a conversion rate of 4% which is also not that bad (correct me if I'm wrong). I think with optimizing and A/B testing you can double your conversion rate maybe. The question is whether facebook ads are the best way to spend your dollars, but that's a whole other discussion :D
Thanks! Your calculations for the "one day" ad are right, for the PH promoted post I spent €4 and gathered 741 impressions and 12 clicks (cpc of €0,33). As I mentioned in the article, not bad, but I'm sure I can do better: I need to study :)
About the way to spend my euros: I'm really fascinated by the targeting possibilities offered by Facebook, and it's relatively cheap. I'll try again and let you know!
yes please. I'm also super interested in facebook ads. I might start with retargeting ads soon for an online shop I'm consulting.
So handy! Especially that pre-populated twit part. Did you learn it by yourself (the marketing) or it was long-process of reading blogs, indiehackers, etc? P.s. I subscribed to your newsletter ;)
Thanks! Here are my marketing gurus/sources:
Thanks for including me @Silvio! Just updated https://devmarketing.xyz 👍
Thanks for the detailed write up! Solid effort 💪!
Glad you like it! To be honest I was afraid to be a bit boring :)
Ciao Silvio, congrats for this :) My advice is to 1) put in the title your long tail keyword and add an H1 to the homepage (that atm is only branded) and 2) don't waste too much time on social media (especially paid) nor hackernews, growth hackers etc. I've personally been on front page of reddit, growth hackers, inbound and some other and the effort you put to get in there has no so much value in terms on conversion and new users. Just go with email outreach, is definitely the best way to get press coverage and get in front of people. Cheers, Alessandro
Ciao Alessandro, thanks for your valuable advice!
P.S. Just saw you're Umberto's collegue... It's a small world! :)
definitely :)
Great and inspiring post. Thank you.
Thanks! Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions ;)
Great job Silvio. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Thanks for reading and commenting, much appreciated :)
Really helpful and a great idea as well! I have just signed up for the newsletter myself :)
Thanks, you flatter me! :)
Wow! Thanks alot for a step by step guide! Great contribution to my current research on building audience topic.
I guess besides the landing page if you write some posts on Medium on remote work related topics that can give you a nice boost of subscription s.
Sure thing! Maybe some interviews too: I guess they could be valuable/interesting, don't you think?
Just came across this, and was delighted to see that it's 1700+ subscribers now. Great work @Silvio!
Was wondering if in your newsletter you reference remote jobs where the person joins as a full-time hire, as a contractor or both?
Also, do you think it makes a difference? Would love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks Sukayna! Most of the jobs I come across and include on Remoteur are full-time. Anyway, I don't hesitate to include contract ones (and clearly specify it) if they look interesting, like the opportunities at Mozilla and Medium on the latest issue (http://www.remoteur.com/issues/eu-friendly-remote-jobs-at-medium-lingokids-quaderno-and-others-111791).
Full-time employees and freelancers are certainly different, but I think both categories can find Remoteur useful and consider a switch :)
Absolutely! And thank you for the quick response. Wishing you the best of luck!
You too! Best from Italy ;)
That's very insightful article! Thanks for sharing!
We launched a product (http://enthrll.com) couple of months back. And we tried the various platforms just like you and we tried to keep close track on what is working and what is not. But sometimes, you see no hope and you lose the track.
However, we are planning to get back to our marketing plan and your article is really encouraging. There is hope at the end of the tunnel :)
Thanks Ankita! Yep, sometimes it's the product, other times the marketing, a combination of both... or just bad timing/luck (you can learn a lot from other people's mistakes on https://www.failory.com).
I think the keys are being genuine, helping each other, learning by doing, sharing our victories/failures... and keep pushing to build something people want. Good luck with Sherlock Holmes' Messenger, or anything else you'll launch in the future! ;)
Have you tried Twitter ads? They work pretty well!
Not yet, I'll look into them. Thanks for the tip! :)
Thanks Silvio, very interesting read and congrats!
About ads, have you considered trying LinkedIn sponsored posts?
Not yet, I don't know much about them to be honest. I'll look forward for their cost/efficiency, thanks for the suggestion!
Maybe I should try to post "my" jobs on a LinkedIn company page too, I think it's curious many famous job boards don't post on LinkedIn: is there any reason I don't know?
Nice post, as it shows your progression and how marketing is done. I also use cold emails and since I work with reporters getting their attention can be difficult. Since I also blog I utilize tools like whoranksfor.com and searchvolume.io along with a few others you use. Whats your favorite tools?
Is there any way to bookmark posts?!
drag and drop to your bar
Not that I know of. How about the good old Pocket? :)
the comment is enough :) now i can come back here by looking at my recent history
This comment was deleted 3 years ago.