Winning the Golden Kitty Award wasn’t just luck, we had a strategy in place to engage top fans and get to the top.
We couldn’t have executed this strategy without the use of LeadDelta.
Here’s how we used LeadDelta and how you can too for your product launches, marketing campaigns, and sales promotions.
The Preparation
Connecting With The Product Hunt Community
Months before the competition, we started connecting with Product Hunt members.
We engaged in discussions, connected with people on socials, and continued the conversation on our playing field, LinkedIn.
While connecting with hundreds of people we needed a way to track who came from Product Hunt as our networks were already filled with people.
To overcome this problem, we used LeadDelta.
Every time we connected to someone from Product Hunt, we applied the appropriate “Product Hunt” Tag to keep track of them and later filter them.
In no time, our list of Product Hunt connections started looking something like this:
Dozens of potential supporters.
Now imagine your whole company doing the same. The number starts getting to a thousand.
Building A Pipeline
After building an optimal list of potential supporters and engaging with them, it was time to build a system of tracking them.
We built this system using Tags.
Here’s the simple pipeline we built:
- Product Hunt – Potential
- Product Hunt – Message Sent
- Product Hunt – Supported
And we used the special “Follow-Up in 3 Days” Tag to set automated follow-up tasks in our google calendar.
Writing Templates
The last part of our preparation was writing Template Messages for connections in every stage of our pipeline.
The goal was to have templates prepared before the competition, and we had everything ready when the day came.
The Execution
The competition started on Monday and lasted for five days.
We got into it all prepared and only needed to execute our strategy.
Initial Messaging
On Monday, we used LeadDelta to filter our connections for the “Product Hunt – Potential” Tag.
After this, we used the initial message template to bulk-message all potential supporters.
Here’s how the process went:
- Click on Filters
- Filter by the Tag “Product Hunt – Potential”
- Select 25 recipients
- Click the Message button
- Select the appropriate Message Template
- Repeat with another 25 until the list is finished
After sending the initial message, we pushed the connections through our pipeline by changing their Tag to “Product Hunt – Message Sent”.
Follow-Ups
We monitored our inbox for replies from connections supporting us.
When someone supported us we pushed them through the pipeline by changing their Tag to “Product Hunt – Supported”.
But not everyone saw the message.
We gave them the benefit of the doubt and waited until the end of the day.
If they still didn’t open it, we tagged them with “Follow-Up in 3 days” Tag, triggering an automated task in our google calendar using Zapier integrations.
Three days later, on Thursday, we filtered our network for the “Follow-Up in 3 days” Tag and sent those connections another templated message.
The Aftermath
Five days later, and after a lot of hard work, we did it, and we won the #1 SaaS Product Of The Year.
The only thing left was to thank everyone who supported us.
We filtered our connections for the “Product Hunt – Supported” Tag and bulk messaged them with an appreciation message and continuing on the conversation.
Conclusion
This was a team effort; nobody can do it alone, and you need a ton of support for a competition of this caliber.
To have all of this support when you need it, you have to build connections with people months in advance and create strategies for winning.
We used LeadDelta for a Product Hunt campaign, but read the article again, and you will notice that this strategy can be used in other campaigns.
Promoting a great deal, inviting people to an event, sales campaigns… All of this can be done with LeadDelta.
