How I'd do marketing for a bootstrapped Customer Support tool (free)
Every business needs to do customer support and doing it well is a fantastic way to stand out. Here's how I'd try to think, position, launch and make Customer Support business grow –the calmer way.
Hey, Clément here! This is a free edition of my newsletter. If you’re not a subscriber, here’s what you missed:
Part 1: Positioning my project
I always start marketing by figuring out what my overall project will (or will not) be. In this case, I looked at the vendors like Zendesk, Help Scout, Intercom, or Hubspot. They all offer whizbang features such as live-chat, collaboration stuff, automations and workflows. They bill per number of contacts and add-ons.
It’s complex. So I’d emphasize a straightforward, no-fuss angle instead.
Who would use such a product? My first guess is small businesses. I’ve already felt the pressure of tens of live-chats notifications in a support shift. Owners can’t be online around the clock and they don’t need multi-users real-time workflows or granular permission systems. They want to provide great answers, build warm relationships, and pay a fair price. I’d double down on that.
I'd start my product with a simple forum to work as knowledge base and public roadmap. Pricing would be flat, to go against competitors’ models. Straightforward.
Part 2: Marketing, from launch to beyond
You don’t need to write a line of code to work on a launch.
I’ve made quite a few hypothesis based on my beliefs, now it’s time to validate them. First thing is to get a landing page out and instead of talking about features or anything, I’d tell a story. I’d figure out a message that can reasonate with what I want to build. I’d make it as personal as possible.
I'd share this page in communities to call for testers and hope for a bit of visibility: IndieHackers, Social media, Reddit, ProductHunt Community topics, etc. To make it more personal and give further explanations, I’d record myself in video and post it on my Twitter.
But most importantly, I’d start blogging on the topic and being more active. Where do people are talking about customer support? What questions do they ask? How can I help them with non-bullshit answers?
It'd now be open to public. Website would be ready – no fancy animations or mainstream copy. I want visitors to feal it’s no fluff, easy to use software. Readers should feel it’s something different. And I need to be able to iterate fast.
Getting more customers
When it comes to acquisition, there are 3 groups of people:
The ones who already know me, follow me, and like my work. I'm sure they supported me since the manifesto phase
The ones who don’t know me, but are looking for a customer service tool that’s not a live-chat
The ones who don’t know me, are hating their live-chats, but are not yet looking for anything in replacement
People looking for an asynchronous customer support tool
I'd list my project to the Software Directories (G2, Capterra) and social websites (Indiehackers, Betalist, Betapage). Even if this gets me 80 visitors per month, that'd be enough for my first signups. It’s free and it can work forever.
Second, I’d watch keywords on social media (e.g Twitter) and add saved searches for competitor and live chats related keywords. For example:
alternative AND (zendesk OR intercom OR freshdesk OR helpscout)
or(issue OR problem OR alternative) AND (bot OR support)
I’d reach out personally to just tell in a non-intrusive way about my project.
Leading with ideas
I’ve always believe that people who like what I have to say are more likely to like what I have to sell. So I'd blog about my journey growing this business: wins, mistakes, plans, updates. This would be an open window for anyone to see how I run Good Customer Service – from product to Marketing. I’d share convictions, celebrate milestones and show new features.
Building authority in the industry
As a Customer Support platform, I’d want to show expertise in providing great Customer Support myself. So I'd create a content series to promote better ways to do for my industry. It'd contain long-form posts featuring good practices, thoughts, essays and sharing great customer experiences I come accross. I'd edit the content into smaller chunks to share it.
I'm sure repeating that process would be enough to get me to an honest revenue level. What comes next depends on the trajectory, and I’m sure it’ll be clear for you. In time.
Some extra initiatives
I wouldn't consider them right now, since they need the business to run already:
launch a referral program for my customer base. 3 months free if you refer a new paying customer
optimize my knowledge bage content for SEO (rewrite questions, add more content to existing answers, create new questions based on search keywords, answer questions in my communities with links to my forum)
bring together my best pieces of content into a book and promote it
Final words
There’s definitely room for a bootstrapped Customer Support SaaS! In fact, there are many markets to address: verticals (e.g e-commerce, creators), sizes (e.g solo business owners) or platforms (e.g Shopify). Maybe an open-source tool would make sense because customer service involves a lot of personal data.
Please don’t run too many market studies and build something instead. This something can be just a manifesto, a Twitter poll, a newsletter. All you need is to find the untapped market you'd like to serve and double-down on your differentiator.
That's all, thanks for reading! I had a lot of fun thinking about how I’d launch this. Do you know anyone who’d like to build an indie alternative for Customer Service SaaS? Or even better, who's currently working on one? I’m rooting for them!
Great post, thanks for sharing it!