I'm validating my idea by creating a landing page and driving traffic to it. What comes next?
I set up my landing page (https://adapted.fit) and purchased Facebook/Instagram ads to collect email signups to validate my idea. I'm getting a conversion rate of about 2-3% but I'm stuck on what to do next.
What conversion rate should I aim for before deciding that there's enough demand for my product?
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I would start talking to the people that signed up. Send them emails, surveys, or even better would be jumping on a call. Try and validate your assumptions about what you think they want. Show them what your thinking (i.e. designs, a demo etc), and try and assess whether you're on the right track
Here is a very simple approach: Do More Marketing.
And by that I mean talk to people. Talking to people outperforms every kind of paid ads you can choose.
Going with paid ads that early is a bad move to be honest no matter how rich you can be and how much money you can inject in ads.
You can start with Twitter. There are so many genuine people to talk to. You can share more about your story and what you're building in there and you can find people who would be interested in what you're doing.
And good luck Albert :)
Hey Amine! Great point that paid ads is a poor move - spending $20 to learn that ads this early is a bad choice is not a horrible investment ;)
I'll put myself out there on Twitter to really explore the problem space more.
That would be a very good thing to do man. Wish you all the best, mate ;-)
Albert i commend you for starting. What i've come across is that paying for ads very early on can be a misleading indicator plus others may say it isn't an efficient use of capital.
I IMO it would be better to grow organically first - do interviews with the demographic who's problem you're looking to solve
Appreciate it, just wanted to get the ball rolling! I see how using ads to get leads can be misleading too early on. Definitely getting more clarity on the next steps.
Lets say we’re certain there is demand for this product i.e. im a former customer, what then?
Perhaps the next question to answer is:
Is this problem substantial enough for other existing customers and not just yourself?
Hey Albert,
It's not sexy or fun but you need to speak to your potential customers.
They will give you the "ammunition" so to speak to create a story and message that will speak to what they need.
And keep marketing! Just make sure that you're asking them for money - you don't have any validation until someone pays you money.
Hey Albert,
Trust you are well.
I have gone through your page, As per my experience as a performance marker I always recommend my customers to use the Funnel approach if you want to target your audience on 1 or 2 web pages, and the funnel approach is like 95 times always successful rate.
Now as you have talked about the Conversion Rate. Let me tell you that conversion rates are depending on a few very important factors like how your ads look, how good your copywriting is, how your landing page is attracting more customers, and not just attracting how much time they are spending on your webpage also an essential thing.
That is why this A/B testing concept is there, whenever you design such a landing page and attract some audiences, Now you need to create different designs to create different experiences for the customers, you can analyze the difference and then you can optimize your designs, ads, copywriting, UI of the page, etc.
From your current page, I can definitely say you are missing out on many leads from this landing page. You need to optimize it and once you are good to go, do the analytics part to get a higher conversion rate.
In a nutshell, this is the one way you can optimize your ROI.
Let me know whether this is useful for you or not.
Regards,
Harsh Joshi
CEO - Aevior
[email protected]
If you aren't already a target user for this product, definitely start talking to someone that is. Ideally find someone who is already making money selling workout plans online, learn what their processes (and, of course, pain-points) are.
As others have mentioned, a small sample-size of online ad conversions has a high chance of being misleading. Talking directly with potential customers will be so much more valuable IMO.
Thanks, Justin! Super helpful advice
Consider the number of audience who subscribe to a YouTube channel vs the ones who pay for the YouTuber on Patreon. The number is into fractions.
IMHO - Expression of Interest is nothing close to paying a $.
In the former - respondents think casually, the feedback being encouraging more than constructive criticism.
In the latter - folks think 10 times, check for free options, validate if it's worth paying for and a lot more.
I would rather suggest:
Try to tun the offline model of your concept. For my new startup FANsi, I have not written a line of code. Instead worked with 4 Instagram Influencers and proved that our concept can improve their monetization. Took commission for our service. And now, actually building the digital product to automate the same.
Ask the respondents to pay. It could be only a fraction of what you'll eventually charge when the product is LIVE. That could be a good incentive for them to get the service for a lower cost, and for you to judge/determine serious buyers vs causal browsers & subscribers.
Paying for users is not validation. How does this product solve a need for your customer? Begin by interviewing these leads with questions about their business or use case.
You make a good point that paying for email leads isn't validation. Appreciate the response!
why did you work on this idea in the first place? Do you know a trainer who needs a site? do you know someone who wants to buy what trainers will sell on your site?
From your landing page it looks like you're doing a 2 sided marketplace. 1 of those should be easy peasy to get, and the other one just gotta hustle. Create demand. Get paying customers.
Hey Andrew, I initially got the idea when I was looking for workouts to prep for a military school and noticed that most prominent military fitness trainers sold their workouts as PDFs (https://cronusfit.org/programs/cronus-fit-ranger-assessment-and-selection-programming). Also, I saw that a few startups were working on creating a product for monetizing workout content. However, most come from the angle of creating an immersive video experience for clients, which is a big time investment for trainers who are already pretty busy. After talking to trainers, my hypothesis is that an e-commerce platform for creating/selling simple text-based workout plans is what trainers want.
Got it. In this 2-sided marketplace, the challenge definitely is showing that users would pay for workouts that are primarily text-based to potential trainers.
I would spend 100% of my energy on getting customers. paying customers for trainers. Not sure how I would do that, nor have any idea how you would do that. Text-Based workout plans doesn't seem sexy, or buyable. IF you can find customers, you'll be rich!
Talking to trainers might lead you down a lot of dead ends.
Gotta be super clear who is actually paying you money.
Maybe though. if you have actual trainers who are willing to talk to you, then just keep asking them questions about their business and what they WOULD pay for. Because it's much easier to build for a person who wants to pay, then to build something and then go look for payers.
REading your answer to another question here I saw you mentioned social shares and SEO were your two ideas to drive traffic. In this case you're not creating demand, but aggregating it. And if the demand is there I think there are far more ways to aggregate demand than just social and SEO.
Perhaps creating info products and putting them on marketplaces will drive paying traffic to you. people who pay for pdfs of weight loss interviews might also pay for text based training programmes.
so do 100 interviews with people who recently lost 10 pounds and sell the edited interviews for $10. $10 to lose 10 Pounds in 10 days. Learn from 100 people who just lost 10 pounds in 2022. Do the interviews, aggregate the data, ask 5 open ended questions. ask 5 quantitative data questions and compile it into a report. On average how long did it take them to lost 10 pound?
You can do that same thing for $20 to Lose 20 Pounds in 20 days or 30...
and if you sell it on gumroad you can add in an email series that goes out once a day. each one gives one more bonus tip/interview that was edited down. and promote a text based trainer each day.
you can use convertkit for more power and less branding than gumroad.
And sell on AppSumo Marketplace if you can gear one of those interview guides or series towards online business professionals.
"Best Month Ever" Lose 30 Pounds in 30 Days while sitting at your desk. - For $49 Learn from 100 online business professionals how they lost weight, got fit, and still had time to run their business to record breaking profits. Don't wait for next new year's to lose weight and feel better. Start this month with this guide and 30 day email series. Each day you get one big action item. You get the entire guide and all interviews the moment you buy. But in addition I'll send you bonus material every single day for the next 30 days. Just want the bonus emails? Get the first 5 for free sign up here. Or get all 30 without the guide and all full length interview for $5
In this two-sided market, I would guess it's fairly easy to get trainers to express interest in learning about selling their courses on the site. I think the hard part will be getting potential buyers to find the site. SEO? Links from well-known sites?
For sure - having buyers find the programs and convincing them to purchase is the most challenging part. Trainers would be fairly straightforward since hey, who wouldn't want to make more money.
I was thinking of two primary ways to drive traffic:
This is the only and accurate approach to validate your concept; the only way to get an answer is to run advertisements and watch how people respond to this; maybe you can supply in the beginning manual-based services and see if people pay money for it; this is the only way to get an answer. People like to speak and talk a lot, but when they need to open their pocket, everything will be forgotten. You may remark that it's a good idea only when you earn money. People like to talk. Send us an email at www.unicamel.io if you have any questions or need assistance validating this proposal. Emails not validate your idea, paid customers validate your idea.
For further perspective; We'd call this CR quite soild. Something to be very happy with!
We'd aim for 1-3%
It's not so straightforward. I would suggest you make inquiries. Try interacting with those who've signed up and those who land on the page.
Ask them what they think about the product. Ask them why they signed up.
Add a tiny survey to your landing page. That should help you gather insights.
Talk with your potential users!
You conversion rate is not too bad, I'd say.
I'd recommend to either bring more content to your landingpage or not using the dedicated one yourself for social media.
The way you do this here feels for IG/FB as if you are taking people away from the platform. There are lead-forms in IG/FB as well to get those basic signups without leaving the platform.
I had a sneak peak on your landing page. Though I'm definitively not your target audience - I would like to know more e.g. "how would it work?" or "how much does it cost?" - I think any type of conversion rate is only valid if the people going through really know what they are signing up to.
I don't think it's much about the conversion rate. It's more about the $ you'll get. The extreme of this being enterprise services. The # of clients they have is small but the $ those clients shell out is big.
I'd reach out to the people who have signed up. A lot of people may now actually put their real email, so I would have some kind of email authentication so that you know that all your leads are quality.
Also email lists does not validate an idea, don't fall into this trap especially when it comes from ads. If people we're organically searching and find you then thats actually a better tell.
But yh just email them, and try and jump on a call really and have key questions to ask to see if your product would actually solve their problem. Also make sure to talk about pricing too (unless its a free product)
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