The Product Hunt launch is one of the most exciting event of every startup journey. Not only does it help you reach a broader audience, but you also get to see what people think and how they interact with your product.
If you're not familiar with the platform, Product Hunt is an online community that posts new products each day (launches). Launching on Product Hunt exposes your company to hundreds of thousands of early adopters who visit the site every day looking for new things to check out.
On November 12th, we launched Videoform with full preparation on Product Hunt. Allow me to give you a sneak preview of how we planned for the entire week's rollout so that you may as well know how it works.
I also included a story on how we came up with the idea!
Who We Are👋
At Videoform, we are a team of 7 consisting of developers, designers, sales, and marketers. Here is a brief introduction to our founding members.
Abhishek Ekbote - Founder & Head of Marketing
Abhishek is a doctor-turned software entrepreneur. He helped Videoform increase organic search rankings and create compelling content for readers to share. As a result, the company's traffic went up by 10x in 6 months.
Anirudh Ekbote - Founder & CTO
Anirudh is the tech mastermind behind Videoform. He loves to code and write about technology, and he is also responsible for the culture at Videoform, keeping it transparent for everyone.
Dinesh Akuthota - Founder & Head of Sales
Dinesh is the head of sales behind Videoform. He had worked as the Head of Marketing & Communications before joining Videoform. This experience helped him work with more than 500 businesses and gave him a deeper understanding of customer needs.
How We Met🤝
The story of Abhishek, Anirudh, and Dinesh starts from running a successful marketing services company for over 2 years.
The dynamic trio decided that it was time to build their own SaaS product as they grew weary and bored with running a service company over time.
The team discovered that their technical skills and leadership experience were quite distinct yet complementary within the first meeting and decided to work together.
That's how it all began!
How We Found The Idea 💁
The idea to start Videoform emerged after many customers of the previous product requested a platform for marketing & sales when we were focusing on only marketing.
The discovery was that a lot of businesses had a problem with conversions, particularly in the area of cold outreach. This is how the trio planned to bring videos to sales prospecting and drive sales for customers.
This idea led to the launch of Videoform, a tool that connects sales teams with prospects via face-to-face with a personalized approach🙌.
Sales teams can now use Videoform as the company's go-to sales tool because it just makes sense - who doesn't want more engagement from their prospects?
In short -
The first week - We made a plan
The following month - We started coding💻
The next quarter: We wanted to release the product💥
The Realization of The Problem💡
This pandemic has been a huge challenge to overcome. The team identified two challenges in cold prospecting and built a product to help sales teams increase conversions using videos in their outreach.
- Challenges in lead generation
- Lack of human-to-human interaction
Normally, a salesperson would first look through a lead's LinkedIn profile and discover some intriguing things that only they could use to personalize the email.
Assume your prospect is an email marketing specialist who just posted an article about the latest best practices. So, a salesperson would take note of this and send an email like "Hi John, your recent article on Email marketing is fantastic," then segue into establishing a relationship.
This is where Videoform comes in - Video outreach transforms the same old cold email prospecting approach into a more personalized method. Instead of sending a text email, salespeople may send videos in emails or InMail's to prospects instead. This increases your email open rates and click-through rates by a long shot.
You see, people love videos as opposed to text🎆, so this itself is the winner. Prospects can have a two-way conversation to respond with video, audio, or text as the video email will have a relevant call to action button.
Therefore, Videoform is an innovative way of using video content that generates leads, closes more deals, and makes it interesting and engaging for prospects!
The Solution✌
Videoform's innovative technology is the missing piece in today’s online conversations, and it enables businesses to make a lasting impression with prospects.
Video has the potential for higher conversion rates (and therefore increased revenues). Using a video as part of the sales process will increase ROI by as much as 88%, according to a research from HubSpot.
By encouraging the sales team to record a video and share what they do, or why it matters - even 2 minutes of explanation can go miles in building trust with the audience, and sending it via email is the best strategy.
We wanted the prospects to take a specific action. Whether it’s reaching out for the project of their dreams or checking out who the brand is and what products can help them achieve those goals more quickly?
The answer is simple- guide them through an offer through videos with a call to action button🏁.
What Does VideoForm Do?🤔
Videoform creates personalized, interactive videos for the modern salesperson. Anyone can use the tool to send emails and connect with prospects using tools like Gmail or LinkedIn without any extra work on their part!
Videoform lets a salesperson convert ordinary video touchpoints into two-way conversations that let customers feel closer to the brand. Whether for product demos, testimonials, or even customer support, Videoform will engage the audiences with interactive videos in ways never seen before!
We help your brand tell its story with the power of video🎊. You can be in control and create unique, engaging content that will captivate audiences!
Preparation For Product Hunt Launch
Product Hunt is a platform for new product introductions. It's been the catalyst of success in so many different ways, from media attention and investor attraction all the way down to sales! So this is what we prepared while launching the product.
1. Finding an Awesome Hunter
Having a good hunter is the key to winning half of your battle. It can mean launching your hunt day without hiccups because they'll submit a product on Product Hunt and all their followers will be notified either via email or through PH's notification system- so having several thousand people jumping at it right away might bring an advantage.
We contacted at least six hunters and they were all enthusiastic to hunt us. However, our schedules did not match up. Finally, Kevin William David, Co-Founder of CreatorStack (11,923 followers on Product Hunt), agreed to hunt us.
2. Social Media Posts
A week before the Product Hunt launch, we started planning the social media posts to publish on various channels.
We organized a comprehensive strategy for Facebook postings, a brief blog article, a Q&A post on Quora, Slack groups, Twitter, and Reddit. Creating a milestone social media post was also added to the list.
- The best way of handling a question and answer session on launch day is by prepping answers. This is why we prepared answers for lots of questions that can be easily altered and copied for pasting into various conversations with users as they come up with questions- it’s like having an instant conversation starter at your fingertips!
- We prepared a “Hello World!” comment 2–3 paragraphs describing the company, how and why it was created, the problem it addresses, and goals for the product, which will be posted once the hunter launches the product.
- Sending personal messages to all the well-wishers on the launch day is important. We prepared some engaging messages to request their support and feedback.
3. Videos and Images
When it comes to Product Hunt launch, videos and images are the key. We intended to create a video a week before the launch, but we had a minor setback in creating videos just as we were getting started.
But with the help of our versatile team, we were able to create the video. Along with the video we put together 5 to 10 images, logos, and attractive Gifs to impress the visitors.
4. How We Divided Roles Inside Our Team
To make sure that this launch went smoothly, we divided the roles inside our team for different tasks. This is just one portion of the list we prepared; we split up additional roles on the side:
- Building email list
- Content for emailers
- Prepare basic Q & A of the product for the support team
- Product tagline & description
- Video and pictures
- Animated logo
- Social media posts (3 Days)
- Posts on all personal LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter Accounts
5. Emailers to all the Customers
We developed an interesting email content to be sent in a series so that the customers won’t forget about the launch day with just one message:
- 3 days before the product hunt launch
- 1 day before the product launch
- On the day of launch and the day after it
The email is short and sweet requesting people to take time and give feedback on the product without being pushy.
Product Hunt Launch
Videoform is live on Product Hunt🎉🎉! With the help of Kevin William David, we are hoping to make it a huge hit🎇.
Please support us by giving feedback on how awesome this SaaS product is for sales teams and marketers alike.
Vote for us here: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/videoform
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