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What am I missing so people sign up for a workshop...
# ask-a-growth-question
j
What am I missing so people sign up for a workshop I'm hosting? I'm working on hosting a 3-hour workshop on how to go from an idea stage to having a fully-functioning SaaS MVP, with Q&A included. The price is $450, but $370 until March 31st (someone can get a $50 discount if they tweet about the event, too). Is that too expensive? I'm hosting on eventbrite. Since I posted it a few days ago I've gotten 50 page views, but so far no ticket sales (the page views slowed as well). Since the job market is an embarrassment to society I realized I've had to do my own thing so I need to sell my own stuff (knowledge, classes, etc.). Anywhere else I can market this? I've posted on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. I even created a script to generate how many days left until the event for Twitter or LinkedIn. Should I just keep posting daily to remind people? To add context I don't have a very big following. Not terrible, but I think the most I've gone viral is 5 people retweeting a tweet.
j
Selling a class is tough unless you have a community already to market too. Channels like Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn don't convert well without a ton of followers. What I have found that works the best for webinars (limited success with paid training, I'll admit) is marketing to a known group or partnering with someone that has a following you want to reach. Building an audience first and then serving them with products and services seems to be the way to go. I know you have limited time so building an audience might not be in the cards so maybe find an already established community and ask the organizer if you can promote to them.
j
I've been trying to build an audience for the past 5 years. Any tips on how to do it? I'm very engaged on social media. I post a lot of tips & tricks for tech (focusing on posts for startups, small & medium sized businesses with a tech flavor); and comment, repost, and like a lot of other peoples' post. It seem like the magic other people have I lack. Like I said, viral for me is when 3 people repost one of my posts.
j
I'm experimenting with a dedicated Facebook Group where folks can get together and talk about Story-Driven Startups (https://www.facebook.com/groups/storydrivenstartups). I also have an email list (~1,500) that I have collected as well. Honestly, one of the best ways is how this group (and the PLG group) do it on Slack. Really stellar. So maybe @Stefan Despotovski can do a best practices webinar (or channel) to explain how they build Growth Marketing Pros. Seems like a great case study in building a community. I know I'd buy that for a dollar 😉.
s
Try to offer as much value as possible to your target for free, that is the best way to build up a community and a loyal fanbase.
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Also @Jarie stay tuned for more 😉
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j
That would be nice. Any blog post I read to grow a following is something along the lines of "With your current following, post X, Y an Z." Bro, I need a following. I need it yesterday! 😆
s
@Jordan H (open for work) Who is your target audience, and how is developing a fully functional SaaS solving their biggest pain point?
j
@Simon Page Thanks for the question. My target audience is entrepreneurs and small & medium sized businesses. Directly from the post:
This workshop is ideal for the following businesses:
• Small businesses needing an app for their service
• Entrepreneurs with an app idea for a new business (I guess I mean product 😕)
• Businesses/entrepreneurs needing a website
• Businesses needing an app for their own needs
I've found that starting small and scaling has been a big pain point after consulting with entrepreneurs over the past few years. I'll come across folks that have an app idea and want 50 features developed within 1 month with a budget of $700. I wanted to show a guide on how to scale the features so that developing the app is possible.
I suppose all this culminates in a bigger question: how do I gain a following? Here is my current strategy (that obviously isn't working). • Know my audience. Startups, small, and medium companies (with a focus on startups & small)
I suppose all this culminates in a bigger question: how do I gain a following? Especially after I've been active, but stagnant for the past 5 or so years? Advertising for the paid event is the first time I've tried selling something in probably a year. Everything else I've given away for free. Here is my current strategy (that obviously isn't working). • Know my audience. Startups, small, and medium companies (with a focus on startups & small) that are needing application development. • Post content (my goal is weekly but I'm spending 50+ hours a week simply networking so I don't post that often) that provides something of value for free. I make sure to have some valuable insight that a company or team can benefit from. I post it on my website blog, which also directs me back to me as a full stack developer. • Celebrate others' successes (mainly on LinkedIn), provide resources for people with questions, and I even share different things I'm working on. I'll repost and comment something positive on someone else's post that I also find valuable (especially if they don't have a strong following either). • I've even gone so far as to ask people directly to like or repost certain posts or tweets (I've seen the big wigs do it, so why not me?). This seems to be the formula laid out in every blog post I see about growing a following, yet for me I'm not doing something right. I've been trying different things to for the past 5 or so years, and my tribe has barely grown an inch. The only time I had a wildly successful tweet was commenting a reply about ADHD medication that people found funny. I think I got 400+ likes and 400+ retweets.
j
Why don't you make a 5 - 10 min YouTube video with a little bit of content from the course, sort of like a teaser? It will help people know what to expect from the course, and if it's valuable & spreads organically, it might get you more eyeballs.
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j
@James Great idea! Thanks.
j
Also, maybe it's clearer on your landing page, but from what you've described here, I'm not 100% sure what the focus of the course is, if any? (eg. marketing, FE/BE development, all-rounder, etc.) I reckon you want to be clear about the prerequisites (do I need to be able to code? which languages? etc.), and what types of entrepreneurs the course will be suited for.
j
Oh, landing page for my business? Here it is if you want to check it out: damngood.tech Full stack application development. Basically something that (others tell me) is in high demand right now.
The only work I've been able to get lately is doing mock-ups for startups despite having a work history of having a senior role with much more complex projects.
j
Maybe your audience is folks that have ADHD that want to build an MVP. Maybe that's the hook. My guess is that building a SaaS MVP for those folks is a lot harder than most.
j
Good thought. I'll explore that avenue.
s
A couple thoughts: 1) for this webinar/training it doesn’t sound like your audience should be small business, sounds like it should be solopreneurs or want-to-be founders since you’re starting at “idea” anyone beyond that stage likely already has the basic idea of how to make an MVP, they just need the money resources. 2) a 3hr $400 course is a lot to commit to (both money AND time) if you’re not familiar with the presenter. That would be why you’re struggling to get signups. As youve already identified you need yo followers that “know” you and are willing to take the leap and drop a few hundred bucks on a course b/c they trust you. You need a classic online-course sales funnel, which relies pretty heavily on email funnels. The short tips etc you post on your social channels is a good start. Next you gotta start posting 5min How To videos for your target audience. Then in those videos you need to pitch something that will get people to give you their email address to receive some kind of download, Free Templates are always something people want. Then you do a free 20min training video only for people on your email list. Then from there you start offering paid courses. It ain’t easy! But once you start getting people on that email list it is somewhat passive income you can keep farming in. #1 thing though is you need people to trust your skills and see you as an authority, so post in an authoritative tone and try to get people to give you their email address!
j
Those are my mailing lists. The coding clinic is a free event I hosted to teach people development. I got 9 signups, only 1 person seemed genuinely interested, but he was only very new to the tech field and didn't yet have work. I was hoping I'd get at least a few employed junior developers (thinking they could see, "hey, this guy knows what he's talking about," then talk with their hiring manager), but that never panned out. The Newsletter is my blog. So far 0 signups. I encourage people to subscribe to the mailing lists. I put the newsletter signup on my homepage and at the bottom of every blog (at least I try to remember, odoo doesn't have a way to do that automatically). I write from a voice of authority. People have said they way I write entertains them. I've been doing this for close to a year (or more).
I must be doing something wrong. The reaction that I get on social media is an occasional like, maybe a reshare. About half the time I get no reception whatsoever. My focus is tips & tricks for development teams working on full stack architecture. Do I need something more focused? Like, say, just articles on Docker?
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