The right audience is mandatory
I often read that ProductHunt is necessary to reach a broader audience, and having your product not reach the top 5 is considered a failure.
But this doesn't apply to everyone.
You need to consider which audience your product is targeting and focus there.
Granted, if you can reach the top #5 in ProductHunt, you'll get great visibility that is always welcome, but that won't necessarily translate to quality users or even paid users.
(If you did a successful launch but got no paying customers from PH, raise your hand).
Let me share a history of why targeting the right audience is important.
During the weekend, @staticmaker1 posted a tweet (thank you so much!) talking about PDFShift. It got 320k+ views (as of writing) and resulted in an impressive spike of visitors:
This was a 35x from my usual number of daily visitors.
You would believe that going from ~215 daily visitors to ~7,500 would also generate a spike in the number of new users, but it turns out that the audience wasn't the one interested in converting HTMLs to PDF, so the number of new users didn't follow that 35x increase:
Don't get me wrong here. I'm very happy that @staticmaker1 mentioned PDFShift in their tweets. This brought some great visibility for PDFShift and planted the name in the mind of many people that might think of PDFShift in the future. I'm really thankful they mentioned PDFShift 🙏
But the result proves that the appropriate audience is a key aspect when getting recognition for your product.
If @TomCruise writes a tweet about your product (I'm mentioning him since he's getting the headlines with his upcoming movie :D), you'll get a TON of visitors, that's for sure, but not so many will convert to actual users. And in these users, most of them will be lost and won't understand what you are offering. They aren't your appropriate target, that's all.
For this reason, ProductHunt isn't always necessary. And failing to finish on the top 5 isn't a fatality for your product if it isn't the right audience.
So, repeat after me: "The right audience is mandatory when sharing your product"
Nice insights, Cyril. What would be the best way to find the right audience?
For example, I'm still looking for the right groups/communities to get feedback and more paid users for my tool IconMage (https://iconmage.com).
For IconMage, I'd go with active communities that have this need: Subreddits for apps developers (Android/iPhone), startups, entrepreneurs. It can works here for IndieHackers too.
Don't hesitate to follow people on Twitter and have your project in your bio. Works the same for Facebook (and Facebook groups for similar approach as Reddit).
I'm pretty sure you also have the feeling you know some other places you could reach out.
Some of them, like Reddit, requires work to integrate into the community. If you go straight to talk about your product, you'll get flagged ;)
Hi Cyril,
Thanks for your article do you have an advice for determining the right audience for your product? You mentioned Twitter, was that the best place you found for your PDFShift audience?
Communities are where it works best (specific subreddits, Facebook groups, Discord/Slack channels, Forums, etc). It really depends on your product and its target (which is definitely something you need to clearly define first ; the "persona").
Just be aware to not fall on the idea to target a broader (big) community just in the hope that 1% converting here will be better than 5% converting in a smaller but more on-point community, because it will also be harder to be recognized there.
Start your way to small communities, and when you'll have traction, it will be easier to get remarked on bigger ones because some people will be on both and will recognize you and help you (upvotes).
That makes sense, I'll try and find some small communities. Thanks Cyril!
Thanks for sharing your experience and insights.
This helps many to focus on right route than the much talked route.
You are welcome :) Glad I could help!