Product Hunt is a site where over 3 million people every month discover new products. They have a competitive ranking system of displaying new products every day based on user upvotes.
We recently got the #1 title with our product MightyMeld for Tailwind, if you have been scouring through numerous blogs and articles seeking guidance on achieving a similar feat, you're in the right place.
Today, we're delving into our experience getting to Product of the Day, let's get into it.
Pre-Launch Preparation: Setting the Stage
Our target was ambitious – getting 700 votes and 200 comments. Based on recent launches, we predicted such support would secure us a spot among the top three products of the day. However, lacking a substantial social media following or online community, we had to get creative.
Our first step was to enlist a seasoned Product Hunter, Samar Ali, who had thousands of followers. Knowing that Product Hunt informs the followers of hunters when they hunt a new product, we valued the exposure these email notifications provided to potential supporters.
We leveraged Product Hunt's pre-launch feature, setting up our campaign teaser two weeks in advance. This allowed us to build anticipation and accumulate over 150 eager followers before our official launch.
After that, we initiated meaningful connections within the Product Hunt community, fostering mutually beneficial relationships with tons of active users and fellow makers. We supported multiple launches and hoped to get the same support in return on our launch day. This took a lot of time but proved instrumental in getting support and feedback on launch day.
To garner support, we crafted a compelling landing page, highlighting MightyMeld's key features and benefits. We complemented this with visually appealing banners and videos to captivate potential voters. We paid close attention to Product Hunt's launch kit, ensuring we followed all suggested guidelines.
Launch Day: Executing the Plan
Product Hunt launches have a 24-hour cycle that starts at the beginning of every day in Pacific Time. We set our launch time for 12:01 am PST and began asking for support as the gates opened. Our initial maker post, brimming with enthusiasm and product insights, set the tone for engagement. We mobilized our network, spanning social media platforms, the Product Hunt lovers community we built during pre-launch, and personal contacts, rallying support for our launch.
Product Hunt does not show product rankings for the first 4 hours of each cycle, to provide a level playing ground for product makers as early viewers decide which products are hot for that particular day. On the fifth hour, products are displayed in order ranked by weighted upvotes. From this time forward, attention goes to products in the top five. Knowing this, we diligently engaged with our audience early, starting with folks in Asia and Europe where it was already morning. We responded to comments as soon as they appeared on our Product Hunt page, and solicited feedback across all our social media channels.
We used one single message, a sole call to action: support us on Product Hunt, if you use Product Hunt. We prioritized active Product Hunt users over newly created accounts because not all upvotes are equal. Product Hunt values active users more. This singular focus streamlined user engagement and facilitated a cohesive campaign.
Throughout the day, we consistently shared progress updates and continued expressing gratitude for the overwhelming support. Third party Product Hunt tools such as Product Wars came in handy. We monitored our performance, adapting our approach to maximize visibility and engagement.
With the above playbook, not only did we secure 'Product of the Day' but we also clinched the third product of the week and the prestigious 'Devtool Product of the Month' title with MightyMeld for Tailwind.
If you have any other Product Hunt related questions, reach out and I will be happy to answer them.