Excellent write-up. Reddit is indeed quite tricky. Besides Reddit, where else do you guys post? Which mediums do you find to be your most effective?
2
Glad you liked it! Hoping to write more on IH - love the vibe of this community.
Reddit (specifically r/Shoestring) has been our most successful channel for promoting launches so far. We also do an email campaign for each launch. The emails campaigns have a nice effect of triggering referral behavior, too. My hypothesis is that people find the drumbeat of progress exciting :)
3
Great marketing 101 right there.
Question: have you ever considered reaching out to a sub moderator and offering money to have a personal vouch?
I'm just wondering if seeking some better branding by those in charge would be worthwhile.
2
I'm the founder and moderator of various subreddits, including one with 18.3k subscribers for a hobby that involves spending hundreds or most likely thousands of dollars. I often get approached by companies wanting to give me something in return for help promoting their products. Invariable I always reject them. If I didn't, I could get the lynch mobs coming after me and I really don't want that.
Normally I try to help them, specially if they are not redditors, in how to engage the community to achieve the maximum success in them promoting their product but also being a good community member that helps it grow.
3
I founded a forum which now has over 100k+ members, I know the feeling. I can relate.
2
Thanks for the kind words!
Reaching out to moderators is a cool idea. I could see a moderator endorsement being a nice boost in subreddits the moderator has a strong presence. In r/Shoestring, the moderators aren't around very much.
1
No worries.
3
We're currently testing reddit ads so this is timely. Although we're getting a very cheap CPC, we've had zero conversions. I made a few changes based on your write up to hopefully change that.
So far we have gained 200+ clicks though...
1
That sounds exactly like our experience so far. Hopefully your next round of experiments is fruitful! Glad to hear that the post gave you some ideas. 🙂
1
Still trying to find that one traction channel to take us from 60~ paid users to 100+. We've been testing retargeting and staying around the 1:3 ratio for CAC, but the volume of people isn't large enough yet to really have a large enough impact.
So far what's helped us has been leveraging a FB Group that we built out over 6+ months to 2,000+ members, blog content and I do a weekly Live Q/A session to the group which seems to drive new user signups.
Hardest part is just know what to test and how to test it. With so many strategies per channel, it's very easy to get overwhelmed and stuck before designing a test.
3
Wow! Thank you so much for everyone for the kind words, questions, and upvotes. I've gained a ton from the transparency of posts on IndieHackers, and its awesome to see our story resonate with others.
You may have noticed my co-founder @ForrestScofield in the comments too -- he's the best :) We're here to answer any questions about Wings Flight Club that you may have.
Given the reception, you can definitely expect more posts like this from us soon 🚀
3
I liked the details you put in your writeup. The links to the various reddit posts were helpful. How does Wings Flight Club differentiate itself from services like scottscheapflights?
5
Good question! Scott’s cheap flights is a great service - they inspired us to start Wings Flight Club.
The main difference is software: Scott has a team of people who search for cheap flights manually by searching in momondo and google flights. We use software, which has a few advantages. For one, our service is fully automated, which means we don’t need to hire anyone to expand our audience. It also means that we tend to find flights that Scott doesn’t - we compare millions of flights every night to hundreds of destinations. That volume of searches would be very difficult for even the most industrious human flight finders :)
We’ve also just started to build customization features that help customers reduce the noise in their inbox - they can currently select when they’re looking to travel next and we’re working on a feature that will allow them to specify which destinations they want to travel to most.
1
@ForrestScofield nailed it! In case it wasn't clear to others, we're co-founders :)
@dshuang would be curious to know if that explanation resonates with you. The personalization angle is our big differentiation bet to separate ourselves from Scott and others in the space. Always looking for feedback on how we describe ourselves to potential customers!
3
Personalization makes sense. I like having the ability to set a filter on both the departure city and arrival cities.
2
I had a similar story and struggle. As my app is focused on music, /r/music (16.9m subscribers) was simply not an option. I decided to go from a different angle and posted it on /r/macapps, a much smaller community (19.3k) which the whole point of it is to post apps for mac. All I needed was feedback more than anything. The discussion was very active and the best comment was the following:
My heart was on the floor at that moment. I wasn't ready for a PH launch. Luckily it was a Saturday and I had time to respond to comments. Eventually, that was the thing that pushed everything forward for me. I see that day as my official unexpected launch day.
1
That's an awesome story. Have you done any follow-up posts in r/macapps? I'm sure they'd love to hear that story too!
1
I did a followup when releasing the paid version. Got a bunch of upvotes but no comments hehe
2
Wow. This is fantastic.
Reddit is a tough nut to crack - like you mentioned in your article - the community is certainly not huge fans of advertising specifically.
I think it was a genius move to hit up subreddits - you know the guys on there are exactly who you're looking for.
Out of interest, did you run any paid advertising on Reddit over the same time? Have you done so before, and what were your results like?
3
Hey Jason - we have dabbled a bit with Reddit advertising. In short, the results weren’t great. Although the CPM is quite low, the CTR was very bad, and our conversation rate after click through was about a tenth of what it normally is.
YMMV though - we only spent about $20 on an impromptu test so I’m sure we could have improved the numbers with some optimization.
2
Oh ok.
That's very interesting.
Their targeting is fairly limited, and if the sub you'd like to target doesnt have enough followers it's excluded as a targeting option - so the hands on engagement approach is certainly the way to go.
I personally found your headline to be really engaging - nice work guys. :-)
As far as targeting, we had exactly the experience you mentioned. r/Shoestring wasn't available for targeting, even though it has more subscribers than some subreddits that were available. I reached out to Reddit about this, and they said that they periodically review their list of targetable subreddits.
2
IMHO it comes down to a relational approach rather than a spray-and-pray one.
The product I'm marketing, Flamelink.io is a CMS for Firebase, and because it is quite niche, the more "traditional" means of digital marketing have not necessarily bore much fruit. I've found that a more engaging, hands-on approach has made a huge difference - it requires a bit more work, but the folks ending up on your website are way more likely to take the product for a spin.
Relevance. Relevance. Relevance.
2
This! A thousand times this!
It’s definitely a slower approach, so it can be tough to stick with it, but I think that’s why traffic from our Reddit campaigns converted to signups at around 50% — nearly double what we’ve seen from other traffic sources.
2
Hey,Congratulations!
How many of them turned to paying customers?What's your MRR?
1
Thanks! The hard work lies ahead :)
As far as MRR, we're really just getting started. We have a Premium product, but right now we're emphasizing adoption of our "free" personalization features and continuing to talk to customers!
Do you think I'm doing it right? I have a track record of failing at this sort of things.
1
Looks like your post is killing it! I think you did an awesome job. Congrats @pupeno 🎉
1
Yes. I've got an analytics company wanting to work on a cooperation deal. This is exciting.
What do you think about posting similar posts in other subreddits?
1
Maybe I missed it. What is the paid product? Or do you earn revenue in a different way?
🙂
1
fantastic post, thanks for sharing this!
1
Thanks for sharing your story/growth strategy. I see your website says "Free forever" for the current service offered. So wondering how do you plan to generate revenue.
2
Nice catch @Jugs007! We should update that - I think "Its' free!" would suffice. We just wanted people to be assured that they could use our core offering for free, as opposed to it being a free trial.
We're experiment with a Premium layer atop the core, free product right now. There are also opportunities to make affiliate revenue from actual bookings! Perhaps our experiments with Premium would be a useful post for the next time...
1
Yeah your experience with premium would be helpful. Great post BTW. I tried signing up and then realized it's for US and Canada only.
Excellent write-up. Reddit is indeed quite tricky. Besides Reddit, where else do you guys post? Which mediums do you find to be your most effective?
Glad you liked it! Hoping to write more on IH - love the vibe of this community.
Reddit (specifically r/Shoestring) has been our most successful channel for promoting launches so far. We also do an email campaign for each launch. The emails campaigns have a nice effect of triggering referral behavior, too. My hypothesis is that people find the drumbeat of progress exciting :)
Great marketing 101 right there.
Question: have you ever considered reaching out to a sub moderator and offering money to have a personal vouch?
I'm just wondering if seeking some better branding by those in charge would be worthwhile.
I'm the founder and moderator of various subreddits, including one with 18.3k subscribers for a hobby that involves spending hundreds or most likely thousands of dollars. I often get approached by companies wanting to give me something in return for help promoting their products. Invariable I always reject them. If I didn't, I could get the lynch mobs coming after me and I really don't want that.
Normally I try to help them, specially if they are not redditors, in how to engage the community to achieve the maximum success in them promoting their product but also being a good community member that helps it grow.
I founded a forum which now has over 100k+ members, I know the feeling. I can relate.
Thanks for the kind words!
Reaching out to moderators is a cool idea. I could see a moderator endorsement being a nice boost in subreddits the moderator has a strong presence. In r/Shoestring, the moderators aren't around very much.
No worries.
We're currently testing reddit ads so this is timely. Although we're getting a very cheap CPC, we've had zero conversions. I made a few changes based on your write up to hopefully change that.
So far we have gained 200+ clicks though...
That sounds exactly like our experience so far. Hopefully your next round of experiments is fruitful! Glad to hear that the post gave you some ideas. 🙂
Still trying to find that one traction channel to take us from 60~ paid users to 100+. We've been testing retargeting and staying around the 1:3 ratio for CAC, but the volume of people isn't large enough yet to really have a large enough impact.
So far what's helped us has been leveraging a FB Group that we built out over 6+ months to 2,000+ members, blog content and I do a weekly Live Q/A session to the group which seems to drive new user signups.
Hardest part is just know what to test and how to test it. With so many strategies per channel, it's very easy to get overwhelmed and stuck before designing a test.
Wow! Thank you so much for everyone for the kind words, questions, and upvotes. I've gained a ton from the transparency of posts on IndieHackers, and its awesome to see our story resonate with others.
You may have noticed my co-founder @ForrestScofield in the comments too -- he's the best :) We're here to answer any questions about Wings Flight Club that you may have.
Given the reception, you can definitely expect more posts like this from us soon 🚀
I liked the details you put in your writeup. The links to the various reddit posts were helpful. How does Wings Flight Club differentiate itself from services like scottscheapflights?
Good question! Scott’s cheap flights is a great service - they inspired us to start Wings Flight Club.
The main difference is software: Scott has a team of people who search for cheap flights manually by searching in momondo and google flights. We use software, which has a few advantages. For one, our service is fully automated, which means we don’t need to hire anyone to expand our audience. It also means that we tend to find flights that Scott doesn’t - we compare millions of flights every night to hundreds of destinations. That volume of searches would be very difficult for even the most industrious human flight finders :)
We’ve also just started to build customization features that help customers reduce the noise in their inbox - they can currently select when they’re looking to travel next and we’re working on a feature that will allow them to specify which destinations they want to travel to most.
@ForrestScofield nailed it! In case it wasn't clear to others, we're co-founders :)
@dshuang would be curious to know if that explanation resonates with you. The personalization angle is our big differentiation bet to separate ourselves from Scott and others in the space. Always looking for feedback on how we describe ourselves to potential customers!
Personalization makes sense. I like having the ability to set a filter on both the departure city and arrival cities.
I had a similar story and struggle. As my app is focused on music, /r/music (16.9m subscribers) was simply not an option. I decided to go from a different angle and posted it on /r/macapps, a much smaller community (19.3k) which the whole point of it is to post apps for mac. All I needed was feedback more than anything. The discussion was very active and the best comment was the following:
My heart was on the floor at that moment. I wasn't ready for a PH launch. Luckily it was a Saturday and I had time to respond to comments. Eventually, that was the thing that pushed everything forward for me. I see that day as my official unexpected launch day.
That's an awesome story. Have you done any follow-up posts in r/macapps? I'm sure they'd love to hear that story too!
I did a followup when releasing the paid version. Got a bunch of upvotes but no comments hehe
Wow. This is fantastic.
Reddit is a tough nut to crack - like you mentioned in your article - the community is certainly not huge fans of advertising specifically.
I think it was a genius move to hit up subreddits - you know the guys on there are exactly who you're looking for.
Out of interest, did you run any paid advertising on Reddit over the same time? Have you done so before, and what were your results like?
Hey Jason - we have dabbled a bit with Reddit advertising. In short, the results weren’t great. Although the CPM is quite low, the CTR was very bad, and our conversation rate after click through was about a tenth of what it normally is.
YMMV though - we only spent about $20 on an impromptu test so I’m sure we could have improved the numbers with some optimization.
Oh ok.
That's very interesting.
Their targeting is fairly limited, and if the sub you'd like to target doesnt have enough followers it's excluded as a targeting option - so the hands on engagement approach is certainly the way to go.
I personally found your headline to be really engaging - nice work guys. :-)
All the best.
Thanks @JasonTLDR!
As far as targeting, we had exactly the experience you mentioned. r/Shoestring wasn't available for targeting, even though it has more subscribers than some subreddits that were available. I reached out to Reddit about this, and they said that they periodically review their list of targetable subreddits.
IMHO it comes down to a relational approach rather than a spray-and-pray one.
The product I'm marketing, Flamelink.io is a CMS for Firebase, and because it is quite niche, the more "traditional" means of digital marketing have not necessarily bore much fruit. I've found that a more engaging, hands-on approach has made a huge difference - it requires a bit more work, but the folks ending up on your website are way more likely to take the product for a spin.
Relevance. Relevance. Relevance.
This! A thousand times this!
It’s definitely a slower approach, so it can be tough to stick with it, but I think that’s why traffic from our Reddit campaigns converted to signups at around 50% — nearly double what we’ve seen from other traffic sources.
Hey,Congratulations!
How many of them turned to paying customers?What's your MRR?
Thanks! The hard work lies ahead :)
As far as MRR, we're really just getting started. We have a Premium product, but right now we're emphasizing adoption of our "free" personalization features and continuing to talk to customers!
I'm trying your approach here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/analytics/comments/8nitg2/show_reddit_ive_developed_an_application_to_help/
Do you think I'm doing it right? I have a track record of failing at this sort of things.
Looks like your post is killing it! I think you did an awesome job. Congrats @pupeno 🎉
Yes. I've got an analytics company wanting to work on a cooperation deal. This is exciting.
What do you think about posting similar posts in other subreddits?
Maybe I missed it. What is the paid product? Or do you earn revenue in a different way?
🙂
fantastic post, thanks for sharing this!
Thanks for sharing your story/growth strategy. I see your website says "Free forever" for the current service offered. So wondering how do you plan to generate revenue.
Nice catch @Jugs007! We should update that - I think "Its' free!" would suffice. We just wanted people to be assured that they could use our core offering for free, as opposed to it being a free trial.
We're experiment with a Premium layer atop the core, free product right now. There are also opportunities to make affiliate revenue from actual bookings! Perhaps our experiments with Premium would be a useful post for the next time...
Yeah your experience with premium would be helpful. Great post BTW. I tried signing up and then realized it's for US and Canada only.