Product Hunt Marketing Tips

We’ve been working closely with employees at Product Hunt and “Product Hunters” who specialize in helping businesses with Product Hunt marketing tips.

They provided us with key strategies and tips to help us have a successful launch on Product Hunt.

Before we dive in, one tool that is very helpful with SEO (Search Engine Optimization), ASO (App Store Optimization), and product launch platforms like Product Hunt is Hemingway Editor. To ensure your copy is 1. Easy to understand for the reader and 2. Has a strong search engine ranking, you want to try to tailor your copy to be Grade 3 or less. This was a tip provided by Alex Hormozi and after we put this into practice in our marketing, we noticed positive results within a month.

Goal: When you launch on Product Hunt, your goal is to get between 300 and 1,000 upvotes on your product within a 24-hour window. If you can do this, you have the potential to be featured as “Product of the day” in the newsletter which is sent out to over 5 million people. Typically, getting between 300 and 1,000 is a great sign that Product Hunt will feature your product.

Step 1: Optimize your product page on Product Hunt

1. Name of the product: You have a limit of 40 characters. Write a simple name of your product. In our case, we entered “Tykr Mobile App (iOS and Android)”.
2. Tagline: You have a limit of 60 characters. Use words that are most attractive to your audience. In our case, our customers gravitate toward “Confident” or “Confidence”. In our case, we entered “Clear Confident Investing Powered by AI.”
3. Description: You have a limit of 240 characters. Try to write a short and simple description of the product and make sure you let customers know what value it provides or what pain it removes. Keep it simple! In our case, we entered “The long-awaited iOS and Android app for Tykr is launching which allows beginners and advanced investors to manage their own investments with confidence directly on a mobile device.”
4. Topics: You can select up to three topics. In our case, we entered “Investing, Personal Finance, and Money.”
5. First Comment: This is VERY IMPORTANT. There is a formula so pay close attention. You’ll want to answer these questions and keep Hemingway Editor on hand to simplify the language.
   1. Who are you?
   2. What product are you launching?
   3. What problem does your product solve?
   4. What is the backstory? (This is your opportunity to think like a screenplay writer. Tell the story and add personality!)
   5. What product features have been launched to the public so far?
   6. Why are you launching on Product Hunt?
   7. What is the roadmap? In other words, what can customers expect next?
   8. Finish with “Please let us know if you have any suggestions or feedback in the comments. We can’t wait to hear your feedback on our product launch!”
6. Gallery: You can add 8 images. Each image should showcase a product feature with large text. Our FIRST IMAGE shows our Trustpilot score which adds credibility. Keep in mind, that people don’t care what you have to say, they care more about what your customers have to say. Try to add social proof to the first image.
7. Video: Record a 60-second video and upload to Youtube. Be humble, be yourself, and try to use social proof. Here is our video.
8. Makers: Add your team members as Makers.
9. Promo code: Add a promo code with an expiration date less than 30 days after the Product Hunt launch. You want to create urgency. If you don’t have a promo code, that’s fine. Skip this step.

Step 2: Pre-Launch Marketing (Start marketing 4 weeks before the launch)

1. Leading up to the launch, email your audience every week over 4 weeks, and tell them to create a Product Hunt login and vote for 2 other products. The reason is, that if your customers were to sign up for Product Hunt and vote on the same day, the votes don’t count. Product Hunt added an algorithm that prevents spam bots from logging in and voting. In other words, Product Hunt wants to make sure your customers are indeed human beings!
2. When you select a launch date in Product Hunt, tell your customers to “mark their calendar” with that launch date. Tell them to ONLY vote on that date. They should not vote beforehand because you want to try and get as many votes within a 24-hour window.
3. Create a list of frequently asked questions. Before the launch, send these questions to your friends and have them post the questions on your Product Hunt page. This will start the comment threads which will drive more interaction to your page.

Step 3: Launch Day

1. Launch on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Do not launch on a Monday or Friday as they typically don’t get the highest votes.
2. Launch at 12:01am (Pacific Time). Product Hunt is located in San Francisco, CA. The launches should always start and end at the beginning of THEIR DAY. Don’t promote over your time zone because you won’t maximize a full 24-hour day of upvotes.
3. Try to spread the votes out over the day. Don’t get them all within the first hour of the day. Ideally, you want the frequency of votes to increase as the day goes on. This tells the Product Hunt algorithm that you do indeed have a product that a lot of people are interested in.
4. Try to send between 2 – 3 emails to your audience over the 24-hour period. Every email should say “Our product Launch ends in ______ hours. Please vote before the day ends!”
5. Add the Product Hunt badge to the home page of your website.

Step 4: Rinse and Repeat!

You should be launching a new product or feature on Product Hunt every 6 months. If you have a major feature that you want to launch earlier than 6 months, then reach out to Product Hunt support and ask if you can promote that new product or feature earlier.

That’s it! Hopefully, these Product Hunt Marketing Tips help you create your own successful campaign on Product Hunt.