Marketing week #3 – here's what happened
by MacksHello everyone, I'm checking in again with another marketing week update!
Previous updates:
Friday, Jan 6
I posted a short to YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
Saturday, Jan 7
Since I was starting to get some daily downloads but not hearing much back from new users (and they can download the app without leaving their email address), I built a little feedback widget for Cakedesk:
Sunday, Jan 8
I posted a short to YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
I published article to Medium: Don’t use Word to write invoices for your freelance business
I posted a German article on the Cakedesk website. This is a long-term SEO measure for some very competitive keywords but I guess it's good to start early!
Monday, Jan 9
I posted a new short to YouTube, Instagram and TikTok
Tuesday, Jan 10
My guest article on a German business blog went live that contains a subtle little promo.
I posted on the WorkOnline subreddit but my post got deleted. :(
I posted my "How to write a web development proposal" (which was pretty successful on Reddit last week) to some Facebook groups but got basically no attention. I don't even know how to find these videos in the groups anymore. I don't like Facebook!
I also posted the same video to dev.to but it didn't get much attention there either. Probably because it's a fresh account where I don't have any followers or anything like that.
I posted another short to YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
I also left some comments on some articles about Freelancing on Medium. Hoping to get people to check out my profile and then see my other articles. Not sure if that's an appropriate strategy for Medium since the comments for an article are always a little bit hard to find.
Wednesday, Jan 11
I reached out to 10 influencers on TikTok. I offered them coupon/discount codes for giveaways or revenue sharing. One responded, offering to publish a video for $750. I don't want to spend money like that yet though, while I'm not making Money from Cakedesk.
Posted Cakedesk to Designer News.
This actually got me some visitors and was on the front page for a while, even though it only has two upvotes in total. The upvote was from my friend. 🤓
I noticed that a lot of my pages weren't indexed, so I created a sitemap and submitted it to Google Search Console. Tip: If you're using Next.js, this is really easy with the next-sitemap package.
Thursday, Jan 12
Published a small article about writing invoices in Germany (another long-term SEO measure):
Posted another short to YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
Week in review
I'm definitely starting to see more traffic come to my site and I've been averaging 3.7 downloads per day for the last 7 days.
The TikTok videos seem to be working OK. YouTube is also starting to pick up a little bit. I'm getting some users from these videos even though they're not going super viral or anything like that.
I was trying to do a lot of things at the same time: SEO articles, vertical videos, Medium articles, reaching out to influencers. It's spreading me a little thin and really draining my energy.
What's frustrating me at the moment, is that I have some downloads but I'm not getting feedback from users. I'm thinking about asking for a contact email either before/after download or during initial setup.
If you have feedback or suggestions about my marketing efforts, please leave a comment! :)
Have a great weekend!
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These posts are really cool ! Would be curious to know what kind of breakdown you see between the different acquisition channels: video content vs search vs written content (IH, blog posts)...
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Hey, glad you like the posts! Here's a breakdown of my conversions of the last 30 days by traffic source.
Direct traffic and search engines will be from videos posted to Reddit, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, since I didn't link the app there directly.
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Conversion rates for videos are not bad at all. Keep up the good work +1
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Love reading these every week :) Re: not getting feedback from users. Have you thought about 1:1 onboarding? I read a couple of companies do this - if I recall correctly, Superhuman has a case study about it.
How it might work - set up a call with each user to get to know their interests, background, etc. Give a quick demo, and be around to answer questions. It might lower your download rate, but it might give you a better quality of early adopters.
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Hi Allison, I'm glad you're enjoying the posts!
When I first launched Cakedesk, this is how the onboarding worked. Those onboarding calls were super helpful actually and a lot of them converted into users/paying customers along the way. You're right, maybe I should think about doing that again 🤔
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Going to have to try next-sitemap. I've been managing mine manually and it's been a massive pain. Thanks for the tip! 🍻
