Months of development, planning, designing user experience and a stunning interface. As a result - two startups failed miserably. But instead of disappointment - an analysis of the accumulated experience and a rapid shot with the third attempt.
In this article, you will learn the story of promoting the SaaS web analytics service Hotjar. From zero to 60,000 beta subscribers in six months.
Hotjar
Hotjar is a service for advanced internet marketers, analyzing user actions using heatmaps, session recordings, online surveys, and sales funnels. The goal is to increase website conversion, and it does an excellent job.
The founder, with over a decade of experience in this field, had a clear understanding of the customer problems the service would solve. He was that very “typical user” of Hotjar.
From the very beginning, they launched a beta version with closed registration and a minimal set of features. Parallel to development, the team collected feedback from the first users, regularly made minor changes, and released updates.
Preparation for the Beta Launch
Teamwork Check
It’s not enough to pull the best colleagues in their field into the team; you need to ensure they work well together. Therefore, Hotjar invented its own tool "Prioritizr" for brainstorming and prioritizing tasks two weeks before. It helped identify critical refinements, thanks to which the project was completed in a short time.
Viability Check of the Idea
Hotjar's mission is to make the process of website analytics and feedback collection more accessible and affordable, or even free.
As soon as the vision and main features for the launch of the first version were defined, developers Eric (backend) and Mark (frontend) began working on the ability to record actions on the page (visits, clicks, scrolling, button presses) and visualization of the data obtained.
At this stage, they decided not to bother with the name or company registration. It only delayed the product launch. (I get stuck here a lot LOL!)
Within four weeks, the team was convinced that the concept was technically viable. Jonathan (product manager) began designing the administrator and listener interaction experience to visualize the product and announce it on the site as soon as possible.
Defining the Minimum Functionality for Feedback Collection
Since Hotjar is a comprehensive solution, a detailed project plan was compiled for a successful launch, describing all functions and testing scenarios.
The team held brainstorming sessions on the theme of "how to simplify functionality," so the plan was rewritten several times. Eventually, the time for developing and testing the beta version was tentatively estimated at six months.
Development of Tools and Processes
Now they chose the name Hotjar and registered the company. Past experience saved a lot of time.
The first expenses went to tools for organizing work - Jira, Hipchat, and Google Apps (for business).
For project management, they chose agile methods, and the plan was rewritten into user stories. The work was divided into weekly sprints - at first, the team set priorities and estimated the timing of tasks. Then the development was paused, the results were discussed, priorities were reset, and a new sprint began. As soon as something was completed, an update was released.
An iterative approach allowed for a quick response to changing needs and emerging problems.
Advertising Campaign
Start selling even during the development stage!
The plan is simple: create a mock-up of the main page at the idea stage, let visitors "feel" the future product and subscribe to early access to the beta version. While development is ongoing, collect feedback and promote the product, so as not to leave everything to the last moment.
In the first stage, they faced a common problem: there was a possibility to pull only a few sites, and infrastructure expansion was gradual. Therefore, it was necessary to control the speed of new user joining.
The problem was turned into an opportunity. An early access waiting list was introduced, which helped control the process and "heat up" the demand. When receiving a registration request, the candidate was placed in the last position on the list, for example, under number 900.
In parallel, Hotjar launched a campaign for reposting links to friends through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn with a unique registration URL, the more friends – the faster the move up the list. A number of other incentives were also used:
- Six months of free use for inviting 5 friends;
- A Hotjar logo t-shirt for those who entered the Top 200;
- A lifetime free account for those in the Top 20.
Thus, Hotjar killed two birds with one stone: scarcity generated demand, and promotions created healthy competition. During the beta-testing stage, the service received 60% of registrations thanks to such a marketing campaign.
Hotjar also used its own tools to analyze pages:
- Surveys to find out how visitors learned about the company - this allowed for establishing new channels for promotion.
- Heatmaps - with its help, the functionality was rewritten to solve UX problems.
- Searching for remote testers: the team watched users trying, for example, to register in Hotjar or use some function via Skype.
- Questionnaires to collect feedback from those who were still "in line".
Promotion
One way to test an idea is to tell people from your personal "network of acquaintances" and get feedback. Strangers, unlike close friends or relatives, will not flatter for the sake of maintaining good relationships. Hotjar had 5 co-founders, and each had a large network in their industry, which helped to quickly and easily test the idea.
The next step was to attract website owners and communities to testing. In Hotjar, such famous platforms as Erlibird and Betalist were used. The startup even made it to the top of the day on ProductHunt
Subscriptions to free versions were sent to blogs and news sites, so they could see for themselves the convenience of the product and, of course, write about it.
Hotjar offered to talk about it to different communities, in some cases, it was possible for free, in others - it was necessary to invest in mailings or custom articles.
Facebook advertising was tried on Hotjar based on positive experience from past projects: news feed messages for those interested in design and marketing worked 100%.
Beta Referral Program
The founder of Hotjar believes that the key to success is structured processes and established communications.
Undoubtedly, developers want to communicate more with users. But a few thousand user sessions are quite enough to understand in which direction to move. For this, the following possibilities were implemented:
- Internal communication for communication with users;
- A forum for discussing ideas, collecting feedback, exchanging user stories;
- A process and flowchart showing how messages move within the team;
- Trello boards for storing notes on common problems, errors, and requests;
- A product roadmap;
- An "Epic" about how to communicate with all Hotjar users.
There were also surveys on standard topics: "rate Hotjar," "what would you like to improve," etc. The combination of inbound and outbound marketing quickly improved the service.
Regular Updates and "Heating Up" Demand
During beta testing, the CEO of Hotjar was responsible for sending out the announcement of weekly updates to both active users and the waiting list. What was planned and what was achieved over the past week.
It is important to find time to address each user personally - whether it's a message about new functionality, a fixed error, or a processed request. Such an approach to communication with users in Hotjar has created not only an active and loyal community but also a real fan club. When users are happy, the number of referrals grows naturally.
Thanks to dialogue with users and regular updates, Hotjar took off in 7 months. During this time, the service was tested on 22,803 sites, 6,646 conversations were held with users, as a result of which 69 new features were launched and 231 errors were fixed.
6 Recommendations from Hotjar's Experience
- Experience in your field is the most important thing for startups. It creates a "sharp" vision of the future product.
- Define goals as early as possible and break the launch into iterations, using the right tools.
- Analyze the target audience and evaluate the attractiveness of the product during development. Under no circumstances wait several months before the release of the "finished" product.
- Start with a minimum set of features, go through it several times.
- Hold promotions. Stimulate the first users with prizes - and don't be cheap. You only have one chance to make a first impression.
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It's hard to say which feature will be successful and which will not.
Test, test, and test again.
Many thanks for reading!