My Reddit post brought me 70 leads. Here’s the process I used.
I recently had an unexpected windfall of leads from a single Reddit post, and I wanted to share the journey, the strategy, and the story behind it.
The Launch That Wasn't
It's day 19 after starting on this new idea. I had an MVP but no customers yet. My sights were set on Hacker News for the big launch.
I crafted an article following Harry Dry’s excellent guide on launching on Hacker News, designed not to come off as an ad (a big no-no there and Reddit).
The Reddit Surprise
On a whim, I cross-posted the same content to Reddit’s SEO subreddit (245k member).
The outcome? Starkly different. While Hacker News gave me crickets, my Reddit went viral: 24k views and 300 comments!
It underscored a vital lesson: persistence is key, and platforms can surprise you, dont give up!
Crafting the Narrative
What captivates a Reddit audience?
Not a sales pitch, but a narrative woven with value. The approach is storytelling first, providing value second.
My focus was on sharing a compelling problem-solving story that provided immediate value of inspiration of how to use AI to readers.
The Title Game
Titles matter. They set expectations.
Marc Lou's insights is really helpful in deciding how to craft a good title: "You know what you’ll get by clicking on it". It’s less about click-baiting and more about click-worthiness.
Finding Your Crowd
Knowing your audience is crucial. My Reddit success was partly due to understanding where my audience lives online. This list will also help you pinpoint the right subreddit.
Lead Collection Strategy
Instead of funnelling potential leads to a landing page with a maze-like path to sign-up, I went direct with a simple form.
This approach was triply effective:
- It improved conversion rates—people could easily sign up, and I could nurture them later via a drip email campaign.
- It prevented traffic spikes, exceeding API quotas or other scalability issues I'm not prepared to handle yet.
- It allowed a paced onboarding, enabling me to iterate based on user feedback.
The Process
Here’s the step-by-step of my Reddit operation after publishing the post:
- Interested commenters received a DM with the sign-up link, crafted to evade spam filters.
- I upvoted each comment to keep track—Reddit’s system made this simple.
- A follow-up comment after 12 hours provided a second touchpoint.
- A welcome email greeted those who signed up, with a free trial for those who provided a detailed professional profile in their sign up form.
- Others were queued for a later onboarding.
The Outcome
From about 150 comments, I garnered 70 emails, with 40 offering rich professional profiles which I extended a free trial to.
I also got 4 paying users in one day! Not even taking the 70 leads into account.
Embrace the Roast
Launching on Reddit can be daunting—you might get roasted.
But the roast comes with a side of invaluable feedback.
It's free, it's from your target audience, and it's a learning opportunity you can’t afford to miss.
Here's the link to the original Reddit post I did for PressPulse.ai.
I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences with Reddit launches. AMA below.
Cheers,
Thanks for this post. I'm preparing my first-ever product launch and was considering Reddit to reach my target audience. After your post, I'm sure that is a good way. Thank you!
Definitely, you'd be surprised how many successful people actually hang out on Reddit
Have you encountered hate on certain subreddits etc?
Mind sharing how you created/what you used for those graphics on your landing page? They're really nice.
DallE and Photoshop :)
I've just discovered indiehackers and I've already come across such an amazing article. Thank you so much for this, it was a great read!
Nice work and thanks for the write up :) My target audience is also on Reddit so your post really helped.
I'd also add that it pays to know the sentiment your target audience has towards things like ChatGPT or AI in general. A quick search for "OpenAI" or "ChatGPT" in your target subreddit to can help shape your post to address concerns or hostility upfront.
Thanks Nick that's actually a great point I forgot to mention.
In my research of past similar products, one was badly roasted because it tried to be deceptive with ChatGPT and the audience did not like it lol.
It looks like the guide you linked to is down, can you go into more detail on writing a post which isn't classified as self-promotion?
For sure, the link is still up for me but behind cloudflare so you might need to try again later.
Here's a good example it mentioned in the guide:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18024277
In general try to focus on the reader and see what value it provides to them by simply reading your post, it can be an interesting story or interesting technical challenge you solved. For example in my case I tried to talk about how I discovered the problem and the differences between GPT3.5 vs GPT4. It described an interesting solution to a problem they have experienced.
Nice work and thanks for the write up :)
Form this article I discovered the unexpected success of a Reddit post that outshone a planned Hacker News launch, emphasizing the lesson of persistence and platform surprises. The key lies in crafting a narrative that adds value and captivates the audience, steering away from a sales pitch.
Inspiring Story. Thanks for sharing
Thanks for this. I am preparing the official launch of my boilerplate and reddit is always daunting. I heard of Hacker News, I guess it depends a lot on the type of product you have. I believe yours goes great with he subreddit you have mentioned. I have to find a way to fit my product somewhere, I will try both.
This is very helpful, thanks @SolarFlare!
I think this is why people recommended me to IndieHackers. I didn't even know about Hacker News before reading this post.
Thanks for the insights.
This is so helpful. I was just looking to post to Reddit about what I’m building since I can’t post on here yet. Very insightful and congratulations on your progress.
glad to have helped!
I got my IH membership by writing an article and offering to post it exclusively on IH, it worked and they ended up featuring it. You can try that :p
Definitely gonna use all these resources for launching. Thanks for sharing them!
All the best with PressPulse!
Glad you enjoyed it, good luck with your launch!
Thanks!
Feedback is one of the most underrated assets we look for as founders. Glad to read you embracing it and really thanks for sharing
Absolutely, without it you are not building a business but a hobby (which is fine, it just won't make you money)
Well done on this and appreciate the blueprint and advice! I'm am doing research on a product and was going to take this week to release a landing page to gather interest and the places where I was concerned, I would not find but the information here and the references to places to consider really helps.
Keep at it, you have a good thing going!
Good luck!
Reddit in my experience is one of the hardest places to post but randomly it can be the most rewarding. Great guide!
It's definitely worth it, give it a try!
Thanks, as you said, platform doesn't matter as much as where your audience is and how to approach them.
Exactly, it's like marketing 101 :)
Excellent job. I'm trying Reddit too. Thanks for sharing your experience!
Thank you, keep us posted on how it goes :)
Great story, thanks for sharing your journey!
Thanks for reading!
Amazing, I have bunch of success on the same sub reddit. I am making a tool specific for blogging seo and in anyway if you want to start blogging I would recommend you to try out my tool.
It will automatically search the most suitable keywords to target and blog writing style for you.
Here a keywords and blog analysis that I made for your business it can be tuned some more to fit your business better PRESS PLUSE AI BLOG ANALYSIS
You can do it yourself at creativeblogtopic.com
Hey thanks for the custom page, appreciate it. I do have a blog on the roadmap so will take a closer look then.
ps one quick note I couldn't quite get your pricing at a glance, I think a simpler pricing strategy might sell better at least to me :) Good luck with your venture!
This comment was deleted a year ago.
Thanks! Just have to keep trying and keep learning!