Got 100+ users but no one is replying!
Hello 👋 everyone!
I am Heli, the maker of ContentCale.
ContentCale helps content creators generate their monthly content calendar for various platforms using AI.
Till now I got 100+ users to try out my tool. I mailed them to share their feedback but got no reply.
Is my product missing something? Can you please try it out and share feedback?
Or I am doing something wrong while asking for feedback.
Trending on Indie Hackers
It happens.
Since this indicates that your subscribers are cold, I suggest you nurture them by sending product updates and newsletters to convert them to warm leads.
In each email, encourage them to use your product. Some might unsubscribe and that's okay.
After a few weeks (3-6 weeks), you can try asking for their feedback again.
Got it! Thank a lot! This really helped :)
Wow
Well, it happens sometimes. I have a product which has 600 people sign up as leads and only one of them bought and nobody replies :)
This makes me feel much better, thank you.
okay! Interesting! Does email marketing really work nowadays?
It works fantastically
Great to hear that! I am working on improving the tool after reading all the suggestions and feedbacks in the comments. I can't thank all of you enough!
When we struggled to get the first 100 customers, we didn't do it the usual way. First, we would ask for their phone number or set up a Zoom meeting to interview them and inquire about their reasons for trying our product. After that, we would guide them through the onboarding process and commit to the next Zoom session following the trial.
During the subsequent meeting, we would propose that they make a payment and provide us with genuine feedback.
This approach proved invaluable in helping us grasp the actual expectations of our users and understand why they were hesitant to make a purchase.
This is a very good idea because it filters out the people who are just signing up for the sake of trying a new product and not using it. I like your approach.
Can you please share more about how you planned this? I am a solo maker so can you suggest any tool that helps me to implement this?
Yes, sure.
We allocated some funds to FB/Instagram marketing. The first time we tried to create and customize ads on our own, it didn't bring good results... we only wasted time and money. Then we decided to hire an SMM marketer, and she helped us prepare a small marketing campaign.
However, that was just the technical side. In addition, we (and you need to) prepared for communication with users and asked the right questions in this sense, especially after making an offer for payment... and when they declined :))). There's a book called "The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick that can help you.
In summary, two things: ads on Social Network help you immediately reach your target audience + the right shaped dialogue helps you gain necessary insights and understand the obstacles users face before buying your product.
PS. Besides "The Mom Test," I'd suggest you read "Purple Cow" and "The Lean Startup"... I think they could ignite your motivation and bring new ideas as well. You can find them on storist.me too if you're interested.
I have heard a lot about the book "The Mom Test". I will finally order it today and will check out the other books you have suggested.
Thank you so much for helping me with your very detailed reply.
I checked out storist.me, love the landing page design. Is your tool similar to blinkist?
Shorist.me has significant differences. We pay a lot of attention not to the books themselves, but to HOW to use those ideas.
We call our product interactive summaries because the first part of the learning process - the one we create summaries for - is based on business books. However, the second part is the most interesting one – an interactive part with many unique tasks inside, along with the learning program that is personalized on a particular experience of the user, his professional background and goals.
How does it work?
First, users learns about key ideas of the book – there are only ideas that can be applied in real life, without retelling the contents of the book.
Afterwards, he can go to an interactive case study and solve tasks. In order to make sure that the user “lives through'' the experience from the book, we offer real-life cases in real companies for each summary, in which every option picked by the user, whether right or wrong, is explained.
Finally, the user gets templates of the frameworks, analyzed earlier, in order to be able to copy them and use them in real tasks. Applying the skill into life begins there.
You can to test it for free, as example based on The Mom Test.
PS. Thank you for paying attention to the design. Our designer is beside himself with a smile )))
yes, I got it!! I opened the same book and understood how Storist works and let me tell you it is super interesting.
Will go through it in detail again when I ll get some time today in my night. Keep up the wonderful work!
Thanks a lot! :)) I'll be happy if Storist could help you.
Every week we add two new books to our library in our format.
Do you have product analytics, and know how many of those 100 are actually active users and not just people who signed up and never tried the product?
Maybe they haven't used the product and that's why aren't eager to respond.
90% of them have tried the product. I am a programmer and I have to develop marketing and sales skills. I think the first thing I need to learn is how to write a good email I guess.
Ask for their Instagram / LinkedIn and connect directly with them. People usually are way more open to chat with a person than with a NPS flow
Wow! this is actually a great idea!!! You are a superstar!!!
With only 100 users, personalize the email. Look up the person/company - find ways to connect on a 1-to-1 basis. Connect with them on LinkedIn or Twitter and reach out there. Good luck!
This is a great idea. And for the future users, I am thinking to integrate videoask for the feedback.
I am also thinking to send a video to these 100 users to know if the tool really helped, if they want something more, etc.
What do you think?
It feels like VideoAsk and a canned video are a bit of the opposite of establishing a direct and meaningful connection with your user base. These tools are all about keeping up with your customers "at scale". You're not there (yet!), which you should see as an advantage for building 1:1 relationships.
If you want to encourage people to share their feedback, you could consider offering them a small gift as an incentive. And don't give up just yet! You could try emailing them again, but this time, make it more personal and explain why their feedback is so valuable to you. Another idea is to create a community for all your users, which would allow you to build stronger relationships and connect with your audience on a deeper level. Good luck! :D
Currently, I am offering 50% off to my first 100 users but I have mentioned it at almost the end of my landing page. I should mention it at the top of my landing page.
For the community, should I start a discord?
And yes, I am not giving up on this idea :) Thanks for your reply!
yeah, discord sounds good :D
It is natural. What I recommend is to start charging the service. When users pay for your service, they become significantly serious about your product. And they would request many things to get the benefit of their payment. That is the key in your situation.
Thanks for your reply.
I have a paid plan and a free plan. Are you suggesting me to remove free plan?
I think you should get more relevant users who are serious enough to pay for your service. I don't know where did you get those 100+ users, but try finding a better channel to acquire more relevant users who feel the actual pain of creating a content calendar. Or you can directly reach the content writer group or Upwork freelancers to get feedback on your product.
Okay. This week, I am planning to approach content creators and agencies. Let's see what they say. I am also active on Twitter to promote ContentCale directly and indirectly.
Give some freebies, or offer valuable content that can solve their issue.
Also choose the right time to email based on their timezone.
Oh right!! I totally missed the time zone thing! Thanks a lot!
You can give them some user coupons in exchange for interview opportunities. You can also use product analytics tools to see if users are actually using the product
I am already using a tool that shows me how users are using the tool(heatmap and screen recording).
And yes, I will implement the user interview and coupon thing on Monday. So may people mentioned to do that and I think it's a great idea and it will filter out people.
Cool, what product are you using?
Microsoft Clarity
How did you acquire those users?
If they are not your target audience (i.e. content creators like yourself), maybe the problem is not in your product, but in those 100+ users.
Initial users are from Producthunt. After that, I got some users from Twitter, and some from a platform called "There is an AI for that"(they listed my product on their website).
Some of them are creators, some are marketing and digital agencies.
On my end I usually grap their whatsapp (could be any other instant messaging app) and when I'm in the mood I send a message and star talking as a regular person. See, you only got 100 people. Try to humanize this feedback process and people will talk to you.
Got it! But aren't people hesitant to share their mobile numbers? I should ask for their LinkedIn or Instagram.
I had the same felling, than I tried and people shared. Sometimes we think others are like us. But most of the people don't care.
Imagine if you could access directly the person that's in charge of anything that you use. Would you fell more comfortable knowing there is someone out there to help you with the product ?
That's great! I think you are right. We tend to think everyone is like us and we try to approach them that way.
Thanks for your reply :)
You can try Email Warmup, a technique to build sender reputation so that your emails won't land in Spam but land in Inboxes. This is very crucial if you are sending same templated emails in bulk regularly.
yes, I am sending emails in bulk.
I have 200 registered users. Same situation. People just don't like replying via email to give feedback.
A question you can ask yourself is how many times have you given feedback to a product via mail?
I think if some incentive is given, some users might reply. Haven't tried it yet though.
haha! you are right! I was thinking the same thing 2 days ago that I haven't replied to any email asking for feedback and how am I supposed to think that all the 100 people should reply to me!!!
I suggest inviting them to participate in paid user interviews, such as offering a free upgrade of the plan or giving a discount upon renewal. This approach is much more effective than simply requesting feedback through email.
Additionally, one-on-one interviews are particularly helpful in uncovering users' genuine thoughts and aspects that may have been overlooked.
Agreed! I am thinking to do a 1-to-1 zoom call to understand what they are thinking. and offering a plan upgrade is really a great idea.
Couple of things.
Are the emails legit?
It's not uncommon for users to use email aliases. Especially when 'trying it out'. Just a little glace over the email addresses will be enough.
Is your email or domain clean?
Check if your domain isn't blacklisted for spam. Very common occurrence.
Check the emails' wording.
You may have used words that triggered spam filters and sent the emails straight to spam.
How many times did you contact the users?
For many people, once may not be enough.
If it's not any of the above, just let it go. I'd share it on either Reddit or IH (or some other forum) and ask their feedback.
Also, try reaching out to some small-time YouTube reviews channels to see if they'd give your product a review. Long shot, but, doesn't hurt to ask.
I am doing Google logins so emails can't be wrong. I have to check the remaining things and I have sent emails 2-3 times.
I will ask for some YouTube review channels. It's a great idea. Thanks for your reply :)
I have the same experience, users just don't give feedback via email..
Everybody says you should just ask your users for feedback but I think many people just repeat this phrase without having real-world experience.
I get 1-3 pieces of feedback and suggestions per day from the "feedback" widget on my website but if I send an email to 15k of my users for their feedback I don't get a single reply, it's wild.
I can relate to this phenomenon as I have never responded to feedback via email. Checking my emails is something I do before starting work every day, during times such as waiting for the elevator, commuting, or grabbing my coffee. I usually add important emails that require a thoughtful response to my to-do list. However, feedback on the products I use is never on that list.
Mate, if you’re not getting a single reply from 15k users, it's not them. It's you. I've made a reply to this post with a list to check. You should go through it, just to make sure.
Yes, your list makes sense of course, that's the basics.
Not getting a single reply from 15k was a slight exaggeration, it might have been a handful of replies, but still in the 0.0x% territory.
What about you, do you just repeat the things that you guess to be true or do you want to share your real-word experience of contacting users for feedback?
Most users in general won't bother with providing any useful feedback. That's just the way it is.
I'd get some of my friends to do some beta testing. Or some online acquaintances at some of the forums I'm active in.
There's a forum that I'm a part of where they have a dedicated section for beta testers and reviewers. So there's that too.
I've seen some platforms offer discount codes, and other 'incentives' in exchange for detailed reviews. Those may work very well.
Honestly it's just trial and error. No guarantees whether anything would work or not.
Right! I tried one platform called yesRamen and got one very detailed feedback which was actually very helpful. I should try some more platforms like that.
Yes, thankfully friends and forums are easy to gather feedback from :)
Thank you so much for your reply :)
Can you please share which tool you are using?
No tool, I simply send them with a PHP script from my fastmail email address.
Thanks for sharing :)
Thats insane but I believe it. This happens in the work place too, you ask a team for feedback and you get nothing. Ask them 1:1 and hear them sing. Getting feedback HAS to be a personalized request.
I used to have the same issue but I think the best way is to create a newsletter and get in contact with them frequently.
Got it! I have one more query, what should I share them with frequently? For example, if I send email every week, what should I share?
Is email the best way to get feedback on a product? I'm currently getting feedback on my app Bold and I'm using https://videoask.com/ and asking people what they think right on my app. Would a more direct approach help?
Does videoask work for you? Do your users actually record a feedback video?
I would have thought that for us creators a video feedback obviously is the most valuable but it's such a huge hurdle for users. I doubt many would do it even for a $100 Amazon giftcard.
I get mostly text responses, the platform gives users the option of text audio or video. My video is really informal and I don't ask a bunch of questions. i've enjoyed it so far. you can see it at https://app.bold.dating
I was thinking the same. How is Videoask working for you? Are you getting feedback from your users?
yes i get responses. My video is really informal I ask for open ended/general feedback. You can see it at https://app.bold.dating
Thanks for sharing! I think I will add the tool to my product on Monday. Thanks again!
Definitely not just you. I launched my new unlimited software development subscription service today (poket dev) on product hunt and have gotten loads of traffic but still no call bookings/subscriptions/etc. Since I'm at a high price point I do think it could be different, so your price could also have something to do with it, although high pricing is NOT a bad thing. I think it could take multiple months for me to get my first subscription even with thousands of leads.
I have just seen your website and first of all, loooove the design!
Users of ProductHunt are not your target users so you may have got traffic but you should try somewhere else where businesses are looking for devs.