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content/categories/marketing.yml

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+slug: marketing
+name:
+  en: Marketing
+  zh: 市场营销
+description:
+  en: Sharing some ideas about marketing
+  zh: 分享一些有关市场营销的想法

content/posts/2024-09-30 launch-cassette-one-on-product-hunt/en.md

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+---
+title: Product Hunt, the Best Partner for Independent Developers
+slug: launch-cassette-one-on-product-hunt
+lang: en
+date: 2024-10-11 18:30:00
+categories:
+  - marketing
+description: Launching on Product Hunt as the first step to market the product.
+
+keywords:
+  - Independent Developers
+  - App Overseas
+  - Marketing
+  - Product Hunt
+---
+
+Not long ago, I saw someone on YouTube sharing their collection of cassette players from decades ago, which brought me back to my elementary school days. Although my family was poor and couldn't afford a cassette player, I had seen them at my classmates' homes and even found cassettes on the roadside, which I used as stress-relief toys by turning them with a pencil, having a lot of fun.
+
+At that moment, an idea suddenly popped into my head: why not create a cassette player on a mobile phone? So, I immediately searched the App Store and found many well-made apps that mimic the effect of a cassette player. However, each one seemed to lack something, so I decided to make one myself. After about two weeks, referencing many excellent app designs, I finally launched [CassetteOne](https://weel.one/cassette-ios) on the [App Store](https://weel.one/cassette-ios). CassetteOne comes with some white noise and can connect to Apple Music to play your own playlists, with different interface themes to choose from.
+
+Since I was short on money, I set CassetteOne as a paid app, thinking it would be a good opportunity to hone my marketing skills. Initially, I posted a tweet, like most marketing tweets, setting a limited-time discount price and offering some free redemption codes for a giveaway. The tweet eventually got around 50,000 impressions, nearly 200 likes, and about 50 retweets. The data didn't look too bad, with nearly 10 purchases. However, two days later, with no further promotion, sales remained at zero. Perhaps posting a tweet with each update could bring some traffic, but there's still a long way to go for users to promote it spontaneously.
+
+I had known for a long time that Product Hunt is a great platform for cold-starting products, but I always had some misconceptions about it, thinking that I had to perfect the product before launching it on Product Hunt to achieve good results. This perfectionist trap held me back. This time, I decided not to worry about perfection and just launch a usable version first.
+
+## Launching on Product Hunt
+
+Although there have been many controversies about Product Hunt recently, with many AI-generated comments from account farmers and people offering paid voting services to gain more votes and increase account weight, it is still the best platform for cold-starting products.
+
+To conclude, the launch on Product Hunt went quite well, achieving fifth place of the day with over 200 votes and nearly 50 comments. The data looks similar to the previous tweet, but the actual effect feels better (although sales data is not yet available at the time of writing).
+
+![CassetteOne's data on Product Hunt](./cassette-one-on-product-hunt.webp)
+
+Product Hunt's list updates daily at 0:01 AM Eastern Time, and during the first four hours after the update, the homepage does not display the number of votes for products, and the ranking is random. This prevents products that rank high initially from gaining more exposure and votes, making it difficult for lower-ranked products to catch up. This is a great opportunity for independent developers who can't get a lot of votes right away.
+
+My CassetteOne was ranked first when the ranking was not yet fixed, and someone even posted a tweet recording this moment. However, shortly after the ranking was announced, it dropped to fifth place. When I investigated the reason, I found that a product can be launched multiple times as long as there are significant updates. For example, many products launch separately when adding AI features. When voting for a product, users automatically follow it, and they will receive notifications when the product releases new content. This means that the next launch will come with some built-in exposure. This was a misconception I had about Product Hunt, thinking that I could only launch once, so I waited until the product was perfect before daring to launch. In fact, you can launch at different stages of the product, leaving an impression on the market early and gradually accumulating attention.
+
+Although the final sales result was not as good as the previous tweet, bringing in only about 8 paying users, it's important to note that I have 4,000 followers on Twitter, plus a bunch of familiar friends in my circle. This result can't be compared to Product Hunt, where no one knows me. On Product Hunt, the users are completely strangers, and I can see in the backend that the buyers come from all over the world, including the US, India, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Brazil, with each purchase coming from a different country.
+
+## After This
+
+Meanwhile, as mentioned earlier, there was a tweet recording CassetteOne's first-place moment, which was not posted by me but by an automated bot. This is another benefit of launching on Product Hunt, as many product managers and bots monitor the leaderboard. If you achieve a high ranking, you can gain considerable traffic, and some people will help promote it. For example, if you search for CassetteOne on Google now, besides my own website, the Product Hunt page, and the Reddit promotion post I made, there are also some scattered websites that have included this product. Although most are content farm-type meaningless sites, it's still better than nothing.
+
+CassetteOne didn't spread much because it didn't rank very high, and not many people noticed the fifth place. But if the ranking were better, like making it to the top three, it would likely spread further. For example, I once wrote a [Twitter bot](https://x.com/ph_summary) to translate and summarize the top three entries on Product Hunt daily into Chinese, so even my own bot didn't capture CassetteOne.
+
+Additionally, you can put Product Hunt ranking information on your product's website to increase user trust. It can also attract users to vote on Product Hunt, bringing more attention when you release new features in the future. I have also placed related icons on [CassetteOne's website](https://cassette.one).
+
+## Prepare Early
+
+Product Hunt determines account weight based on the number of votes received, registration time, and other information. Accounts with higher weight have a greater impact on the ranking, so sometimes products with fewer votes may rank higher than those with more votes. Also, if your account is linked to Twitter, your Twitter followers will automatically follow your Product Hunt account, and they will receive email notifications when you launch a product.
+
+Therefore, it's best to register your account early, actively participate in the community, vote, and comment more. This way, when you launch your product, more people will notice it.

content/posts/2024-09-30 launch-cassette-one-on-product-hunt/zh.md

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+---
+title: Product Hunt, 独立开发者最好的伙伴
+slug: launch-cassette-one-on-product-hunt
+lang: zh
+date: 2024-10-11 18:30:00
+categories:
+  - marketing
+description: 将发布到 Product Hunt，作为产品推出市场的第一步。
+
+keywords:
+  - 独立开发者
+  - App 出海
+  - 市场营销
+  - Product Hunt
+---
+
+前不久在 YouTube 上看到一个人分享他自己收藏了几十年的磁带机，仿佛又把我拉回了我还在上小学的那个年代。虽然我家穷，没有磁带机这种东西，但在同学家里还是见过的，也在路边捡到过磁带，并当作解压玩具用铅笔转着玩，玩得不亦乐乎。
+
+这时我脑子里突然冒出一个想法，何不在手机上实现一个磁带播放机呢。于是马上跑到 App Store 里搜索了一通，发现已经有很多做得不错的 app，都是在模仿磁带的效果。但每一个都觉得差了点啥，于是决定还是自己做一个。花了两周左右的时间，参考了许多优秀 app 的设计，最终上架了 [CassetteOne](https://weel.one/cassette-ios) 到 [App Store](https://weel.one/cassette-ios)。CassetteOne 内置了一些白噪音，也可以连接 Apple Music 播放自己的歌单，还实现了不同的界面主题可供选择。
+
+由于现在手里有点缺钱，于是将 CassetteOne 设置为了付费应用，与此同时想着正好可以锻炼锻炼自己的营销能力。一开始我在 Twitter 里发布了一条贴文，像大多数营销贴文一样，设置一个限时优惠价格，提供一些免费的兑换码来抽奖。最终这条推文曝光量有 5 万左右，点赞数接近 200 ，有接近 50 人转发。其实数据看起来也不是太糟糕，最终购买的也有接近 10 人。但两天过后，在完全没有了宣传时，销量就始终保持在 0 。也许后面每次更新时再发布一条推文，也能获得一些流量，但这离用户自发地宣传还有很长的路要走。
+
+很久之前我就知道 Product Hunt 是一个很不错的冷启动平台，但一直以来对它都有一些误解，以至于产生了必须先把产品做到尽善尽美，然后再去 Product Hunt 上发布，才能获得比较好的效果，这种有点陷入完美主义陷阱的想法。但是这次我决定，不要那么在意完美，先做一个能用的版本，发上去再说。
+
+## 发布到 Product Hunt
+
+虽然最近关于 Product Hunt 的争议挺多的，而且里面充斥许多养号用户的 AI 评论，为了获得更多的投票，提高账号的权重，也有人在做收费拉投票的生意。但目前它仍然是产品冷启动的最佳平台。
+
+先说结论，这次在 Product Hunt 上发布的效果还不错，最终获得了当日第五名，一共 200 多个投票、接近 50 个评论。这个数据咋看起来和之前的推文差不多，但实际效果从感觉上来说是要好一些的（虽然截止本文发布时还看不到销售量）。
+
+![CassetteOne 在 Product Hunt 上的数据](./cassette-one-on-product-hunt-zh.webp)
+
+Product Hunt 的列表是按天更新的，每天美东时间的凌晨 0:01 会更新当天的列表，而在列表更新的前四个小时里，在主页不会展示产品的投票数，排名也是随机的。这样有一个好处，就是可以避免一开始排名高的产品就会获得更多得曝光量，而获得更多的投票，使得排名靠后的产品没法追赶。这样对于没有能力在一开始就就获得大量投票的独立开发者来说，是一个很好的机会。
+
+我的 CassetteOne 在一开始排名还没有固定时，投票数一直在第一，还有其他人发的一条无人问津的推文记录了这个时刻。但是当排名公布后不久，一路直跌到了第五。当我在查找原因时，才发现原来一个产品是可以发布多次的，只要有重大更新就可以单独发布，比如很多产品在添加了 AI 功能后，都会单独发布这个功能。并且在给产品投票时，会自动 follow 这个产品，当这个产品以后发布新内容时，都会收到通知。这样就意味着在下一次发布时，就会自带一部分曝光。这也是我对 Product Hunt 有误解的地方，之前以为只能发布一次，所以一直在等产品做到尽善尽美，才敢发布。其实完全可以在产品的不同阶段都发布一次，这样可以在一开始就给市场留下一点印象，并且可以逐步地累积关注度。
+
+虽然最后看销售量，结果并没有之前发推特带来的效果好，只带来了 8 个左右的付费用户。但是要知道，我的推特有四千粉丝，再加上朋友圈里一众熟悉的朋友，这个结果肯定是不能和在完全没有人认识的 Product Hunt 上对比的。在 Product Hunt 上，带来的完全是陌生的用户，在后台能看到购买的用户都是来自世界各地的，有美国、印度、德国、澳大利亚、荷兰、爱尔兰和巴西，基本上每个购买都来自不同的国家。
+
+## 在这之后
+
+与此同时，前面也说到有一条无人问津的推文记录了 CassetteOne 投票数保持在第一的时刻，这条推文并不是我发的，而是其他自动记录的机器人发的。这也是在 Product Hunt 上发布的好处之一，因为有许多的产品经理和机器人都在盯着这个排行榜，如果取得了较高的名次，就会有人获得可观的流量，也有人主动帮忙发帖宣传。就像现在如果在 Google 上搜索 CassetteOne，除了我自己架设的官网、Product Hunt 的页面、Reddit 上我发的推广贴外，还零星有一些网站收录了这个产品。虽说大多是内容农场类无意义的网站，但也比完全没有要好一些。
+
+CassetteOne 因为排名不是很出众，能关注到第五名的人不是很多，所以并没有怎么传播。但如果成绩在好一点，比如进到前三的话，相信会传播得更远。像是我自己就曾写过一个 [Twitter 的机器人](https://x.com/ph_summary)，用来将每天 Product Hunt 排名前三的条目翻译为中文并总结起来，所以我自己写的机器人都没能搜录 CassetteOne。
+
+此外，你还能将 Product Hunt 的排名信息放到产品的官网上，用来增加用户的信任感。同时也可以吸引用户到 Product Hunt 投票，为以后再次发布新功能时带来更多关注度。我也在 [CassetteOne 的官网](https://cassette.one) 上放上了相关的图示。
+
+## 准备要趁早
+
+因为 Product Hun 会根据获得投票数、注册时间等信息来决定账号的权重，权重越高的账号投票排名的比重也会更高，所以有时会出现投票数少的产品排在投票数较多的产品前面的情况。而且如果账号和 Twitter 绑定后，Twitter 的粉丝会自动同时关注你的 Product Hunt 账号，在发布产品时，已关注你的用户将会收到邮件通知。
+
+所以最好尽早注册好账号，并积极参与社区，多投票、多评论，这样在发布产品时，会有更多的人关注到你的产品。