Growth Challenge: How would you grow/scale DarwinMail?

Hey Joey,

I like the product and your website is really sleek. Reaching almost $500 MRR is really cool milestone to hit. That's beer money right there.

If I were to grow DarwinMail, the first thing I would do is look inwards.

I would take an audit of our positioning. What do we do best? Who are our best customers? Why did our customer's choose us? How did they find us? Why did they choose one plan over another?

I would reach out to our current users to answer these questions. Paying close attention to the psychology of the customers that chose the subscription over the one-time payment would be a priority.

Often times, the businesses that I work with say their customers buy and use their product for reason X. Then, they'll base their positioning and messaging across all channels based on these assumptions.

But then when you ask customers the right questions, the reasons people actually buy can be surprising (but enlightening). From there, you'll have a good idea of where you have the strongest footing. You can lean in on your strengths.

I would adjust our website copy to mirror the desires and language these customers used.

Now that the landing page is aligned with our best positioning, I would start building that messaging outwards. I would look at crafting a marketing strategy based on how our current customer's found us and where they like to hang out.

I would look at creating content that these users care about, publish them on your site, then (like you said) syndicate them to the publications they frequent.

Then, on some of the Bottom-of-the-funnel content pieces, I would create a pop-up form offering the trial package.

As for outbound marketing, paid advertising on relevant websites would be key. Paid sponsorship and guest posts will give nice boosts to conversions as well.

In essence, I'm a big fan of inbound marketing. In my opinion, it's the most powerful way to a sustainable and long-term business. Once you have that fire burning, you can use paid advertising and other outbound marketing techniques to throw fuel on it and raise those growth plateaus.