Today, we’re excited to launch ContactRescue on Product Hunt and we thought we’d share our process and results with you. Here’s to hoping for lots of upvotes and of course, website traffic. If we succeed then we suggest doing what we did. If not, we’ll go ahead and rename this “how not to launch on Product Hunt” 😃

Quick background: ContactRescue magically turns your email archives into a complete and up-to-date address book or CRM. It’s part of the One More Company family (along with Evercontact and Senders). Recently launched as a standalone service, we thought it was time to spread its wings on Product Hunt.

We’re using the official Product Hunt launch guide as well as a few extra items outlined below.

Here. We. Go.

Plan Ahead

Plan ahead. PLAN AHEAD. The best Product Hunt launches are planned weeks, if not months, in advance, coordinating team members to bring out the very best in your profile and rollout. For example, our design and marketing teams coordinated to secure necessary assets, review page designs, and plan a seamless campaign on social media.

The Basics

First and foremost, you’ll need access to Product Hunt in order to feature (“hunt”) your product. Simply sign up on their website or tweet @ProductHunt saying that you’re a maker who needs an invite to post . We were surprised to learn you don’t need to have a known hunter to post it, you can do so yourself.

Adding your URL (and any supplementary links), your product name and a brief tagline (<60 characters) are pretty self explanatory. We went with, “Magically get your address book up-to-date and accurate,” a catchy and clear (if general) description of ContactRescue. Do make sure your tagline demonstrates its merit; focus less on encapsulating the entire product and more on pinning down its primary purpose. It should also be social media friendly.

Visual requirements are a gif or image, to act as an attention-grabbing thumbnail (we went straightforward with our logo), and a product gallery with whatever media you find worthy (note that the order of uploads matters and videos always take precedence). We tried to keep our uploads as social media friendly and as clear as possible for optimal exposure.

Tag your product with three to four topics; we kept them directly relevant to our product’s functionality with “Productivity,” “Tech,” “Email,” and “Sales.”

List the makers of your product. Ideally they are on Product Hunt and if not get them signed up prior to launch. Makers should be able to chime in should people start commenting and asking questions. Do a maker comment. This should kick off the conversation, helping to give more context about the product and why you are here. It’s nice to add a promo code too. We included an offer of 20% off, exclusive to the Product Hunt community. Also, encourage feedback.

Social Outreach

Any company social profiles should, of course, support the launch and your team members should also be encouraged to post about the launch themselves. Their posts can be as simple as “hey, check out what I’ve been working on recently!” Be sure to link directly to your product on Product Hunt, not Product Hunt homepage.

You might also shout out hunters who have recommended your products in the past or who have recommended products in a similar space. Once again, no need to beg for upvotes or a recommendation.

Shoot an email to current users/subscribers notifying them that you recently launched. Your goal isn’t just to expose your product to new users but also to receive valuable feedback or glowing recommendations!

Bonus fun

Create a Collection – Creating a collection of other products is a great way to gain some buzz on Product Hunt in a particular space. Obviously, include your own product in the collection. Publish in conjunction with your launch and hopefully get some attention to the collection (with your product featured) and if lucky, in the next Product Hunt newsletter. To improve engagement, make sure the collection is unique, well-titled, and targeted. For example, for ContactRescue’s launch, we created the collection, Post-summer productivity tools to get you back on track.

Twitter Ads – We realized it was fairly easy to find a list of top hunters and up-voters. It took some time, but we compiled the twitter handles of top hunters as well as those who recently upvoted products. Upload at least 500 as a twitter custom audience and promote your post to them.

No matter the outcome, remember to enjoy the rollout of your product. Let your passion and hard work loose on your page.

Our Results!

(as of 1:48 pm EST 8/18)

Total upvotes: 1,107

Site Visits: 465

Top Comments:

Jonathan Moyal: “I love when a product I use and love makes it to the front page of Product Hunt.”

Ryan Hoover: “Very interested in trying this. My Google and iCloud contacts are a mess.”

Hillel Fuld: “Omg must have this.”