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Ask: How do you design the sales funnel for products

6 points by johnmurch ↗ HN
Say you are building a SAAS application. How do you design your front end sales (beta accounts, free month, ebook, etc.) which leads to backend sales (consulting, yearly contract, etc.)

In terms of gamification - building viral loops like finishing profile (80% complete, e.g. linkedin) how do you keep track of those viral loops and integrate/design for them in product.

Hopefully it make sense, just looking for some tools/sites/ideas other than a pen and paper

2 comments

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grep
I'm also very interested in this question.
sdotsen
Note, I'm not an expert, I just run a free SaaS application (http://www.ikeepm.com). When I first started I tried 2-3 designs. There were certain words I was using that didn't yield good results. Ultimately, I tried copying what seemed to work for other SaaS companies. I tried to be original but I'm not a CSS/HTML expert.

Two things I learned, people like photos. So I added large photos showcasing some of the features. I also added larger buttons but the most important factor was not requiring the user to confirm their email addresses. Sure I get fake accounts, but I'll take that over losing customers who get frustrated over "lost" emails or not being able to get started within minutes.

I changed my signup process by requiring just their email address and a password. Once they signup/login, they can immediately use the service. I plan on rewriting the app soon and putting out a new design. It can definitely be better, but I just havent found the time to do it. So far it has worked well for me.