How would you market this?
I've recently launched pipewing.com, a place for newsletter creators to find partner newsletters for cross-promotion. Early users really like it and I'm currently growing Pipewing by manually reaching out.
But how would you market such a platform more scalable / automatic? I find it hard to target newsletter creators (no subreddit, etc.). Content marketing would take few month to get results..
What would you do?
Is there a way that you can create a partially authenticated state on behalf of someone else, wherein that person can come "claim" their account? An analog would be how Google Maps already lists local businesses and if a listing is yet unclaimed, a business owner can come volunteer themselves as the proprietor of said business.
Because if so, here's what you could do (and I think it's pretty compelling): You could go to any newsletter directly (there's a lot) and you can even just comb the community here, and create those accounts on behalf of newsletter owners.
Then you can start making connections between people, suggesting who should partner to promote who, and then email the newsletter owner and say "you have X other newsletters willing to discuss cross-promotion".
I'd personally find this enticing. You essentially have a version of a 2-sided marketplace scenario going on. Manually seeding it could be a good way to spur the activity (as many a 2-sided marketplace has done in the past).
Thank you! A good idea! I think this would certainly work. But it looks like a lot of work. If I reach out directly with cold emails, I got a fairly high success rate. So I'm pretty confident that in this scenario, the time is better invested in direct outreach over the approach you've described. I'm looking for a more scalable solution.
Hey! Here are some ideas. Hope this helps.
Since you already have early users, talk to them and learn where they hang out. Find out what services they are using too. Possibly Lucid Press? Go there and their related social media pages capture contact info. Start your out reach and automation from there.
You can use the info you gain to run ads as well. Target people who "like Lucid Press," for example.
A referral program could work too.
Solid advice.
Moreover, I think that your most quality customers will still be the ones you reach out manually(Since your sector is very niche). That doesn't mean you can't automate the process.
You could, for instance, hire a virtual assistant for a a few hours a day(Hopefully you can afford it, some of VA's are relatively cheap) to search manually(using google or forums), manage(In excel for example.) and make initial contact with potential users and then give you the hot leads to just make the final close.
Yes, manual outreach works really well. I would say at least 25% end up signing up. Pipewing is free and will remain free for cross-promotions after all.