How would you grow this digital product?

by Ryan

Hey everyone! I was hoping to get some advice on how I should grow a digital product. I'm currently building ChromeExtensionKit and have already done my typical launch strategy of submitting to a number of sites (Betalist, Reddit, HN, etc) which got a fair bit of sales, however I'm wondering where to go next now that the initial launch hype is dying down.

I feel a bit lost in terms of where I should focus my growth efforts. I don't have a large audience of Twitter so what I'm currently leaning towards is potentially focusing on Content Marketing (blogging, etc) in the browser extension space, but I'm not sure if there are more effective channels I should be focusing on. I've also thought about ads, but I'm not sure that would work great with this particular product.

I would love some feedback or suggestions on some additional channels if anyone has any ideas!

Ryan

on August 21, 2020

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Hey Ryan,

As someone with a decent sized Chrome extension, I'm fairly confident that partnering with extension owners to help you both grow is the optimal approach. (I'd also have loved to have had your resource when I started!).

The same problem that blights you - not having a clear strategy for growth - affects every extension developer. (Even the CWS, which is a distribution medium I'm grateful for, is hugely saturated these days). We're all very keen for anything that brings new users.

I'd adjust your target audience / tribe a little...
1. Your premise is to help people kickstart their new extension. But as a tribe, they're not likely to have their own audience yet, so co-promoting with them isn't ideal (yet).
2. However, part of your pitch is "grow your audience", and that appeals to every extension owner. Even ones with their own large audience. I'd focus on helping all owners grow their extension (which will build your name as an expert, and new extension starters - the ones who will pay - will flock to you).
Some ideas:
- Like @Johan_Bavaud said, interviews with successful extension makers on how they did it. You publish the interview, they link to it.
- Focus content marketing / SEO on round ups of the best (non-competing) extensions. E.g. 'best Chrome addons for realtors'. Ideally you'd want searchable terms, but simply becoming the hub for 'best Chrome addons' is a great goal (which is surely searched a lot, including by extension owners looking for marketing inspiration). Again, you can co-publish with owners. A more curated CWS.
- A newsletter, not unlike PH, for 'Chrome add-on of the week'.
I'd be happy to support you in this - reach out to me any time.
andymitchell

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6 years ago
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  Thank you for taking to time to write up this extremely valuable advice! I have linked back to the kit from my own extensions and have seen some great results so I can't believe I overlooked the possibility of reaching out to other extension developers to partner up in a similar way, that's a great idea. I also love the blog ideas and potentially creating a newsletter that does some sort of weekly roundup.
  
  Out of curiosity, as an extension developer yourself, what would you be looking for in order to partner up with this product? One thing that comes to mind is some sort of affiliate program, but I'm not sure if there are other potential forms of partnership as well.
  
  Ryan
  
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  6 years ago
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    I'd probably not participate in an affiliate programme... I'm finding it slightly hard to explain why, other than I don't want to lose respect in my customer's eyes.
    
    The kind of partnership I thought would suit you was to co-author content with other tribes (those of successful extension owners).
    
    Suppose for example, you owned bestchromeaddons.com (as a marketing hub alongside ChromeExtensionKit). If you had Domain Authority, or even if I simply believe you'd get it one day, I'd be keen to be featured on your site.
    
    So, we could do an interview (like IH) about how I grew my extension, and promote it on bestchromeaddons.com. In return, I'd link to it from my blog, bringing us both inbound.
    
    And/or, if like AppSumo you did a round up bundle of the most useful chrome addons for a specific demographic, and I was listed, I'd happily reciprocate by promoting the bundle on my blog.
    
    Another thought...
    
    I've noticed there appears to be a trend for paid reports of deep review/curation of SaaS products, to help decision makers pick. There's at least one YC startup doing this. Basically, Which? magazine for SaaS (is Which? international known?? Maybe just a Brit thing!). The presence of these startups validates the value of deep curation.
    
    I think there's great value in you being a more thoughtful CWS. A Which? magazine for CWS.
    
    I'd be even keener to be featured on something so thoughtfully done, co-authoring content with you.
    
    Over time, your brand would become a reputable badge of honour. Like a Michelin star. I'd happily put a 'Bestchromeaddons.com Award' badge on my website.
    
    andymitchell
    
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    6 years ago
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      This is really insightful, thank you!
      
      Ryan
      
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      6 years ago
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  When you've got a bit of spare resource, I'd try this campaign...
  
  There's lots of extensions in the CWS that are great ideas, but unpolished, and by engineers who love to build (often open source) but not market.
  
  Perhaps you can buy one of those for ~$1000, and turn it into a case study of growth - as you apply everything you've learnt to turn it around.
  
  It's likely to have a good ROI for you...
  
  It'll be a really engaging PR endeavour for your audience to follow. A drama of "will he / won't he succeed", and authenticity of proving you can deliver.
  
  You can flip it for profit after you've grown it.
  
  I saw this done really well with JungleScout, an app to find the best opportunities as an Amazon seller. The owner made a case study by using his own app to create a new product line, where all the profits were donated to Doctors Without Borders: https://www.junglescout.com/blog/3-lessons-selling-56k-on-amazon/
  andymitchell
  
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  6 years ago
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Hi Ryan,

First of all, congratulations on your launch!

B2C:
- Grow thanks to the current users: what have you set up to activate this channel (which is certainly the most important of this short list)?
- Content marketing is a good idea to start with (have you thought about offering your customers to be interviewed to show what is possible to create with your kit? It gives them a specific backlink in addition to a bit of visibility).
- Position yourself as an expert in chrome extension development. I've been following Chris from https://gomakethings.com/ for some time now and his daily newsletter is well made.
- Search ads are a very good idea to start with paid acquisition channel (I'll avoid push ads given the specificity of your product). However see if the LTV allows you to do that...
B2B:
- Could dev agencies speed up the extension dev of their clients thanks to you? If so, you need to analyze who chooses to introduce new tools in this kind of companies and how to reach them.
Hope it helps !
Johan_Bvd

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6 years ago
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  This is incredibly helpful, thank you! One idea I was playing around with was to add a "Showcase" to the website that shows off some extensions made by customers (in an effort to also push some traffic their way). I think I'm going to invest some more time into this because I think your point on utilizing current users is a huge one and this would satisfy that a bit more.
  
  Ryan
  
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  6 years ago
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