How to reach users who do not use the service?
Hello IndieHackers 👋.
I'm bad at marketing and I want to fix that.
One of my projects has more than 3 thousand registered users. About 30 of them are active and running on the free plan, and only 11 are on the paid plan.
How can I properly reach out to inactive users (with the right email marketing) and ask why they stopped using the service?
And how to ask users to leave feedback to make sure the service meets their expectations.
Please share your experiences with how you do it.
Thanks in advance.
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When was the last time you sent any communication to those inactive users?
Are they registered and never used the product, or were they active for some time after they signed up?
Generally speaking, the more you can customize your approach based on the user's past behavior, the better.
If you know they were active for some time after the signup, you can use that to personalize the communication and ask them if something in the product was missing for them and/or didn't meet their expectations.
If you know they never even used your product, try to identify if they were simply not interested, signed up by mistake, didn't understand how to use the product from the beginning, etc.
In both cases, think if there's anything you can offer them in return for them engaging again. Can you offer them a discount? Or simply let them know what new features you launched in the meantime so that they know there's new value added to the product.
I'd strongly advise you set up a scorecard for your users. It seems like you're targeting users who might need media kits for their personal brand or business. This is actually an excellent topic for evaluation. In 10-15 questions you can help your contacts rate themselves on their "Media Magnet" status and provide insightful, actionable advice for them based on the outcome...most of which will likely point back to your platform (or roadmap).
Once you have the scorecard in place you can add a banner to your app/landing page and also blast an email to your user base. Even with users who are active, you will gain interesting insights which might help inform the next steps for your roadmap.
All that said, the key is really in providing value to the inactive users without directly pushing them back to your app. Show them you care about the problems they face and that you're there to help. The rest will take care of itself.
Obviously you can focus on your old customers but the likelihood that they’ll reply with feedback is low in my opinion.
Focus on your current customers, ask what them how the service can improve, what other problems do they face, etc.
For the new customers I’d use sites like Reddit (target ideal customers subreddits) and indie hacker to ask for honest feedback on the UI, pricing strategies, etc. There’s plenty of people on here who’d happily help :)
Best of luck!
Classic case of trying to please everyone.
Don’t spend your time reaching out to those who don’t use your product. Instead, spend your time talking to those who use and already pay for it. Get to know them WELL and find out how to improve your product for Them! That’s how you narrow in your target audience. That’s how you get a great product and raving fans.
Probably an InApp Widget that pops up at the right bottom (not like chat but with quick feedback buttons) to start with.
I had a similar situation after launching on ProductHunt. I also thought for a long time what to do to activate users. I started doing regular mailings both during the trial and at the end of it. And then I did a reverse lookup by email addresses, partially found my users on LinkedIn. And then I realized that these were not my ICPs at all and I had no chance to activate them. And those who were ICPs either started using the product and didn't like it or became paid users.