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[Case Study] How Bannerbear helped me launch a side project within a side project that generated 80+ leads in one day

To give you some context: I run Design Buffs, a subscription model for B2B marketers where they can hire a pre-vetted designer in graphic, UI/UX and motion design for 8, 4 or 2 hours per day without having to worry about contracts, hiring, vetting or managing.

Our goal from the beginning has been to create valuable tools & services that enable marketers to get professional designs done in the most cost-effective way. (Obviously, building brand awareness and generating top of the funnel leads has always been top of mind too)

I try to not pay too much attention to competitors in our space and aim to focus on what we do best and what’s in my control as a solo founder. Observing the landscape, I noticed that some of our competitors have been offering free template packs or illustrations to generate leads and add value to their respective audiences.

As a marketer you always want to produce content that intersects with what potential buyers are asking or looking for and the service or product you provide.

I set myself three constraints for this side project:

• We don’t want to jump on the free illustration bandwagon (although we do offer some as well on our website)

• Creating free tools seems likes a viable channel to at least experiment with

• We work with sales & marketing teams in B2B tech, so having Black Friday eCommerce or motivational Instagram quotes would probably not work that well (just an assumption)

To get to the point, the idea came after having done some content research related to Zoom backgrounds and virtual backgrounds in general for video conference tools.

The search volume was quite high and people had a few options:

• Tie yourself in to creating a Canva account :(
• Pay for a Zoom background (USD 4 - 60)
• Use the Design Buffs tool to get it done for free (in exchange for your work email ;) )

In addition, since our launch in 2019 and particularly since the outbreak of Covid-19, we have had what feels like a zillion design requests for virtual backgrounds on Zoom. Clients preferred something that is branded and looks different from the average stock image.

Simply put, marketers wanted Zoom background for internal & external comms. Sales leaders wanted Zoom backgrounds for their sales teams who are on video calls hours a day.

I had two options:

  1. Reverse engineer some of the existing tools and have someone help me build this (I only have limited coding knowledge)

  2. Use No-Code / Low-Code tools to get something up and running quick

So I reached out to a dev friend and he recommended giving Bannerbear a try. I signed up for the free trial and had a play around with their incredibly easy-to-use REST API.

If anyone doesn't know Bannerbear, you can basically auto-generate visuals via API.

How it works is simple:

We use Wordpress & Oxygen Builder and Fluent Forms Pro for all of our forms on our website. The beauty of Fluent Forms are the ability to use web hooks and it also directly integrates with our CRM system, currently Gist.

Luckily, Bannerbear has a free trial for up to 50 images so it’s a good way of testing our hypothesis. I signed up and created a new design template which works like any WYSIWIG editor that you may be familiar with.

We use Fluent Forms web hooks to capture the information when someone fills out the form to create the Zoom background. That triggers a REST API request to Bannerbear. We listen for the image generation to be done (again via Integromat webhooks), figure out if it’s the first or second download of the user and then send an email with the link to download the file.

Plus, we ask for feedback immediately and a short reply to build that initial engagement. I also built in some links to allow people to share with one click via social networks.

Here's the hook:
If they're using the tool for the second time we anticipate that they weren't happy with the first version. What we do in the email is add a line that says:

"If you're still not happy with your background, simply reply back to me and I have my team of designers create one for you, for free. More often that not, machines can't replace human creativity, right?"

It sounds a bit cheesy but so far a few people have clicked through to our website to learn more and also replied back to me. It makes people curious about what we do.

After having built the initial prototype, I shared the tool on my LinkedIn and got the first few downloads from there.

I also wrote an in-depth article on virtual backgrounds and offer the "Zoom Background Generator" as a content upgrade.

This morning (in about 30 minutes from writing this) I also decided to launch this on Product Hunt, something I’ve never done before. I figured it’s better to test it out on a small project first. Any support is of course appreciated :)
https://www.producthunt.com/posts/zoom-background-generator

In times of writing this, we have generated 82 leads and already had three of those converted to schedule consultation calls, e.g. the next stage of the funnel. However, it's clear that most of them are only at the awareness stage, so as we nurture them through we expect more conversions.

On last thing, why I decided to use Bannerbear?

  1. As a maker myself, I’m a big supporter of the Product Hunt and IndieHackers communities, of which Yon (founder of Bannerbear) is also a member.

  2. Bannerbear was first recommended to me by my developer friend Faraz

  3. I love the API first-driven approach to building tools and apps. Also, a big fan of no-code/low-code, as they help you build and test something quickly.

Let’s see how many of these early-stage awareness leads will eventually convert to paying customers as I don’t want to fall into the trap of measuring vanity metrics :)

Leave a comment below. Hope you found this useful and insightful. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me here on Indie Hackers, LinkedIn or Twitter.

  1. 2

    Thank you for such an awesome write up @CKPleiser this is such a creative way to get leads! I love that it’s very low maintenance for you, but also useful for the end user 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

    You could even spin this into a little revenue-generating tool by itself - perhaps they were ok with the design but just want to try different variations, which you could charge for. I know it’s not your main business though, just a thought 😅

    1. 1

      I love your content too, Yon. Can't wait to experiment more with the tool and really get the most out of it.

  2. 1

    @yongfook thanks for building this tool. Super excited about the synchronous release.

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