🗞 What's New: Tips for growing your email list

Need to grow your email list fast?

• From leveraging lead magnets, to creating a "VIP room," founders weigh in below on how to effectively grow a strong email list.
• Many indie hackers overlook onboarding when designing user flows, which is a big mistake. These 5 lessons can help you level up your user onboarding, starting from the very first time a prospect interacts with your product!
• Founder Muhammed Furkan Yilmaz built Freelancer CRM in 48 hours at a hack-a-thon last year, and recently completed a successful exit. Here, he shares how the idea came about, the key to the product's growth, and what's next.

Want to share something with nearly 120,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing

📧 Growing Your Email List

by Josh Freeland

Picture it: You're two months out from a product launch. What methods are you using to effectively grow your mailing list quickly?

Lead magnets

Tyler Scionti says that lead magnets are your best friend:

In the past, I've made the mistake of doubting the power of email. Despite what studies say about email being the highest ROI channel, I just didn't see it.

Then, I did email right. Instead of talking about my product as much, I wrote short (<300 words), helpful emails detailing tactics and solving problems for my audience. Doing this once or twice per week consistently led to an engaged audience, and to sales!

No one wants to "subscribe." People are now much savvier, and fearful of spam. The performance of the subscribe form on my blog is pitiful, but lead magnets play much better.

In order to build a list, the best thing you can do is to create a lead magnet and place it:

• On your homepage.
• In an exit intent pop-up.
• As a link on top-performing blog posts (if they are relevant).
• On its own page, running a PPC campaign to that.

With a series of simple lead magnets and low-budget PPC campaigns, I've been able to reliably add dozens of subscribers a month. As for types of lead magnets, it largely depends on your audience. I have found the following to be helpful:

• E-books.
• Checklists: For example, "Five things your website needs to succeed."
• Templates: This could be a cold email template pack, for example.
• A mini-course or video series: These are more involved, but they work well.

With tools like Canva and Loom, it's simple to whip up a lead magnet (or several) and build a list.

What's in it for me?

Alex Hillman reminds founders that people don't give up their email address unless they know what they're going to get:

Whatever is in it for them must be specific enough for them to believe that it helps them solve a problem. They're "buying" with their email address instead of a credit card!

Nobody wants product updates. They want things that are going to help them right now. You can use this to your advantage by giving them stuff that's helpful, even before they sign up for your product, so they associate your brand name with always being helpful.

To that end, I like to frame it like this: The goal isn't to capture a lead, but to help a user have a better experience.

If someone lands on a page and you give them something useful before asking for an email, they're much more likely to share that email in order to upgrade the experience that they're already having. That helps them put the stuff on the page into action. A relevant checklist, cheatsheet, template, or similar is perfect here. You can even turn a popular blog post into one of your best sources for new subscribers.

The key to all of these things is to zoom out from your product. I like to think of an email list like a "VIP room" for the kinds of people that might want my product or service, and treat it as a way to attract those people and earn their trust before they buy.

That way, you don't get stuck in the trap of asking how to get people to sign up to your product's newsletter, and instead, focus on helping the people who join your list.

A quick list

Upen weighs in with a list of tips to try:

I wrote about this at Zero To Founder, but here are some quick pointers:

• Spend considerable time on marketing the product in the form of updates to communities like Indie Hackers and Reddit to build some traction.
• Offer high-quality free content to drive more signups.
• Work with newsletter authors in your space to see if they can talk about your product. Make sure the newsletter audience is relevant to your target audience.
• If you can afford it, spend a little on ads. This could be less than $100.

Tanzirul Huda adds more:

One effective method is to offer an incentive for signing up, like a free download or discount code. Also, promote your mailing list on all social media platforms, websites, and at in-person events.

Finally, Morgan Kung recommends:

Create a package of resources valuable to your target audience, then invite them to enter their email so you can send it to them. I've seen this work many times!

What are your top tips for growing an email list? Let's chat below!

Discuss this story.

📰 In the News

from the Growth Trends newsletter by Darko

📱 Legacy blue Twitter checkmarks will be removed on April 20.

✅ LinkedIn has launched a free verified badge so you can prove where you work.

⭐ When it comes to online reviews, a three star rating is bad.

💻 Ad groups and keyword forecasts are being removed from the Google API.

🏛 The US government is seeking public comment on how to regulate AI tools.

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

😎 Five Ways to Level Up Your User Onboarding

by Joseph Lee

After spending over seven years at both funded and bootstrapped companies, I’ve learned a ton about what makes a good user onboarding experience. Specifically, I've found that early-stage startups often overlook the importance of initial onboarding in the early days of building. But I’m here to let you know that onboarding is worth prioritizing from day one!

Luckily, there are five actionable lessons that you can apply to your onboarding flow to help supercharge the experience for your customers! Let's dive in.

1. Minimize time to value

Your user onboarding should focus on minimizing the time it takes to provide value to the user, helping them arrive at the "A-ha! moment" of your product.

To achieve this, consider ways to deliver a meaningful quick win in your onboarding flow, without requiring prospects to put in too much work.

Examples of companies doing this well:

• SmallPDF users can convert or compress a limited number of files without an account. This turns users into advocates and customers once paid use cases come along.
• Freshline uses interactive product demos to help users self-educate and understand the value of its features, without a paywall or registration.

2. Move unnecessary steps to post-onboarding

Consider deferring time-consuming aspects of registration (email activation, setup, downloading apps, etc.) to a second step after the initial onboarding process, ideally after the customer has already realized value.

Why? Founders often conflate users with customers, but they’re not always one in the same. You should be putting your best foot forward to impress users that are in the process of onboarding, not giving them additional tasks to work through.

Tactics include:

• Moving email activation or confirmation to the second or third time the user logs in.
• Reducing the perception of upfront time investment. Adding a progress bar can help with this.
• Ensuring that onboarding is action-oriented, rather than informational.

3. Onboarding can spring from anywhere

Onboarding isn’t confined to just your product’s registration page. In fact, it starts from the moment the prospect first interacts with your company, whether that be through an ad, sales email, or landing page.

This highlights the importance of having clarity on who you’re targeting, which problems you’re solving, and how your product empowers this intended user.

Make onboarding a continual experience. It shouldn't be limited to a single point in time. Your product and customers will expand and evolve, so your onboarding should, too.

4. Tie onboarding to activation goals

For my startup, Supademo, a customer is considered activated if they create more than one demo, then share or embed it as a link.

To effectively encourage activation during onboarding, figure out your company’s activation goal, then ensure that you have sufficient prompts, breadcrumbs, or tooltips to entice users to take action towards this goal. Remember to strike the fine balance between persuading customers and nagging!

5. Stop sending nagging emails

Last, but not least, stop sending nagging emails! Instead of asking users to come back repeatedly, consider your email frequency and whether your email content actually adds value, celebrates wins, or helps solve their pain points.

Try onboarding emails based on:

• Customer action: Instead of overloading users with instructions during onboarding, send targeted guides if and when the user interacts with that feature.
• User wins: Celebrate moments of success by reaffirming the benefit with the user.
• Metrics: Provide a snapshot of weekly or monthly platform activities, ideally highlighting how your product is making their lives easier or better.

Getting this right will turn your email marketing into a source of value! By incorporating some of these practices, you can create a user onboarding experience that helps users become better at what your product enables them to do.

I encourage you to get creative with your customer onboarding!

Will you incorporate these tips into your onboarding flow? Share below!

Discuss this story.

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🚪 Muhammed Furkan Yilmaz's Successful Exit

by Muhammed Furkan Yilmaz

Hi, indie hackers! I'm Muhammed Furkan Yilmaz, and last week, we exited our micro-SaaS that we created in 48 hours at a hack-a-thon.

Here's what happened!

The challenge

Our journey began in January 2022, when my business partner Ali Kemal Serbet and I participated in a 48 hour hack-a-thon organized by Komünite. As former freelancers, we intimately understood the pain points and struggles that our peers faced. This fueled our determination to create a solution empowering freelancers to manage their projects, clients, and finances seamlessly. Thus, Freelancer CRM was born.

The greatest challenge we faced was turning our idea into reality within the hack-a-thon's tight timeline. With only 48 hours, we had to prioritize our tasks, collaborate efficiently, and maintain our focus.

We ultimately managed to create the first version of Freelancer CRM!

The growth

Throughout our journey, we encountered several obstacles. The most significant challenges were reaching the correct target audience, dealing with competition, and managing growth.

To overcome these, we relied on our network of fellow founders and supporters who provided invaluable guidance and encouragement. Our resilience and perseverance also played a critical role in overcoming the hurdles we faced. We also made changes to our subscription system to create more revenue.

Freelancer CRM has reached several milestones in just fourteen months. We attracted over 800 freelancers, developed a desktop application, unveiled a new Figma design, and generated revenue without spending on marketing. Our success is a testament to our hard work, determination, and ability to adapt.

Check out more details about the hack-a-thon in our Indie Hackers post from last year!

The lessons

Here's our advice to other founders:

• Conduct thorough market research to validate your idea, or be your own customer before trying to sell anything.
• Develop a clear, actionable business plan.
• Seek guidance from relevant communities.
• Be prepared to face challenges and adapt to changing circumstances.
• Stay focused on your goals, even when things get tough.

What's next?

Today, we're thrilled to announce that we've completed a successful exit! The amount is confidential, so we can't share that. Our journey from ideation to execution has been nothing short of incredible, and we couldn't be prouder of what we've accomplished in just a year.

As we look to the future, we're excited to explore new opportunities, grow our product, and continue supporting the freelance community. We're immensely grateful to everyone who believed in our vision, provided guidance, and helped us succeed!

Discuss this story.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Josh Freeland, Darko, Joseph Lee, and Muhammed Furkan Yilmaz for contributing posts. —Channing