FINALLY! <3
I know for most of you, it is quite normal and something okay, and even for me as well, I have a bigger goal with this SaaS product as well.
I have been building SubtitleO since June, and it took a very long time for me because of some initial issues with the developers, new things in the market, etc. But I sorted that out by building a very strong team with people I can trust and who can go a long way with me.
Getting the first 5 customers is a really great validation that tells me that I am on the right track with this project.
I was nervous because we started getting 1000+ free users signed up to our platform but the conversion rate was low.
The reason that I have found is:
not having a clear idea of what they are getting in the paid plan, not having added bonuses of features in the pro plan
And we are working on it with a super keen interest now. Hopefully, we are going to see a good amount of conversion rate because all the feedback that we have got till now is not just good, but it is GREAT!
The things that we have done till now with SubtitleO for marketing:
SEO blogs
Email marketing to the free users
Listings on AI websites
Creating shorts for social media
Linkedin outreach
Google Ads
Facebook Ads (turned off because of super high CPC)
We will need to focus more on content marketing and social media content as our target audience is waiting for us there.
Did I miss anything? Please ask me in the comments, and I will be happy to talk about it. Have suggestions? Please have a talk.
Hey Suraj,
Congratulations on your first 5!
Given that you have over 1k free users there’s obviously an appeal to what you’re offering and the website. So I’d keep doing what you’re doing there (though I have some suggestions - see below).
It’s normally way easier to up-selling to, or retaining, existing users than acquiring completely new ones so I’d definitely focus on up-selling the paid service to existing users. I’d look at AB testing the CTAs and conversion points in your funnel; and in your emails.
Having just tried it out, one thing I’d say you’re definitely missing is that you see to let people use the free service without supplying any email etc. I’d look at adding in a step after the processing that requires an email address before they can access the result. That way you have a definite way to follow up and upsell.
In terms of some immediate, specific, thoughts browsing your website (in no particular order):
I’m rather surprised there’s not an example video on your homepage. Makes me wonder why. it would be especially great to see a couple of real users’ videos.
My first question was to wonder about the privacy, security and copyright on the uploaded and generated content. This doesn’t seem to be addressed in the privacy policy. I’d want some pretty convincing stuff about uploads not being kept, how long they’re held for, who can access them, etc. And clarification that you take no ownership of the resulting outputs. Or what credit you expect. And I’d summarise a bit of that in the FAQs as well as the proper details in the legal bits.
I’d get a copywriter to review all your copy and help write variants for AB testing. Much of it is great but there are bits that don’t read quite right and I don’t think you can have that given that your product is built on understanding language. Example: the “Contact Us” text in the footer: “We will revert you back within 24 hours” isn’t correct English. (FYI - I’m no copywriter but change it to “We will get back to you back within 24 hours.”). There are also errors in the Terms page which would make me worry.
Again, given the focus of your product I think you need to ensure every single bit of text on your site is entirely optimised for easy reading. A few bits are not (eg the text that summarises SubtitleO on the left in the footer).
It’s definitely worth thinking about adding a $5 or a pay-per-use tier to see if that makes any difference.