How to influence people on Reddit
to acquire your first 1000 users
Introduction
It’s been a year working with Nintee and I must say that in the first couple of months, I was very anxious.
For quite a few reasons, actually.
To begin with, I was (and still am) the only marketer in the team.
Challenge
Paras, having built a global company out of India doing $35M ARR, expected me to acquire international users from the get go.
The only difference — VWO is a b2b SaaS and we were building a consumer business (health coaching back then).
For a SaaS product, you can highlight the product and its benefits.
But for a consumer product… Well, we did not have any product back then.
We were running our health coaching in Telegram groups, with human (Indian) coaches.
Our website/landing page had 0 reviews/testimonials. It only had a photo/video of Paras sharing his story of how he lost 38 lbs (~17 kg) in the past 2 years.
And a generic sounding pitch, offering free service.
Now, for someone sitting in the U.S., with a plethora of options for health coaching, why would someone opt for us?
Why would someone from the west trust a bunch of remote Indians for something as important as their health?
This was the challenge!
Next steps
I decided to study our competition to figure out what they lacked and how Nintee could be positioned differently.
I discovered that our USP was in actually providing better personal support and accountability, that felt more human.
Since our competitor, Noom, lacked in this front, I decided to target them.
I also asked myself which customer profile would be the best fit for Nintee?
And the answer was Noom users. Because we were building something very similar that they’d already be familiar with.
The most popular players in the US market — Noom or Weight Watchers did not seem so popular for accountability.
And people earnestly wanted that (gap in the market).
How did I know this? By researching facebook groups and reddit.
I got added to the facebook groups of both the competitors and saw what people complained about.
I tried starting 1-1 messaging conversations with those users but was met with a brick wall.
1-1 messaging on facebook messenger / facebook was tough because the messages go to another folder (instead of their main inbox) unless you’re their facebook friend.
Therefore, people hardly read or responded to any of the messages that I sent.
So, I decided to try Reddit.
Using Reddit
Reddit 1-1 DMs were way better — you do get a notification every time someone DMs you.
Even though the DM is in a different folder called ‘message request’ — you do get to see it and decide whether you want to accept the message or not.
I initially joined the subreddits where people were seeking accountability, and DMd them with our website link after exchanging a message or two — that did not seem to work very well.
Mainly because, I realised, people don’t want to be sold to.
They want to feel as if they are choosing to buy.
So I changed the strategy.
I removed our website/landing page out of the equation. (Ofcourse, I also observed the website session recordings of those users using vwo before deciding to do so)
And asked myself — if website plays the role of trust building, how can I build trust on the Reddit profile itself? And made the following changes —
A pinned post at the top of the profile
This post was of Paras’s story losing considerable weight in 2 years
It had gotten a lot of engagement in one of the related subs r/loseit so I was confident that it would work with other visitors on the profile as well
An optimised bio
changed it from being an Entrepreneur (a.k.a salesman)
to highlighting interests, values, and intention
Lastly, I linked the most active social media profile
All this helped establish myself as a more genuine person who’s trying to help.
Once the profile was optimised for conversations, I was ready to hit the road.
Acquisition Strategy
I mainly adopted 4 strategies, and I’ll explain them one by one.
Strategy 1 — 1-1 DMs offering accountability (without website link)
Whenever someone posted or commented looking for accountability, I would just DM them saying that I’m running a free 1-1 accountability program in exchange for a review/testimonial, and whether they’d like to join.
There were lots of subs where people were seeking out accountability already and I reached out to all of them.
However, the conversion for this was pretty low. Only around 1 or 2 converted out of every 10 targeted reachouts.
Strategy 2 — 1-1 DMs building relationships (seeding WoM)
This was like planting a seed — which grew so much that even till this day we are reaping its’ benefits.
The below is a screenshot of word-of-mouth in action —
The user, CurristaJay is someone I befriended and invited to try out Nintee.
She later became an ambassador :) (trust me, as a marketer, nothing beats this feeling!)
Strategy 3 — A post or a comment offering accountability
In this strategy, I would post something like —
Looking for fitness accountability partners. Making a group. Let’s keep each other accountable? DM if you’re interested to join. Must be serious and committed to your goals.
This worked way better, and especially so once someone commented “I want in” or something similar.
Other people seeing their comment would also comment and jump on the bandwagon.
Then I would just DM them individually and respond back to the individuals who had DMd me.
From one such post alone, I was able to acquire about 40-50 users with average traction. If the post went too viral, as it did a couple of times, the number would cross 100 easily.
I used the same strategy for comments. Whenever I commented that I run an accountability group — DM to get added, I would get a lot of DMs.
What I have learned from this is that having people to DM you is way more effective than you DMing people. Saves a ton of time!
Again, in 1-1 DMs, you’re kinda selling (remember, people hate being sold to?)
In a post or a comment, you’re offering free accountability and letting people know / inviting them to choose you — big difference!
Conversion for this strategy was the highest. Out of every 10 inbound DMs, 6 would easily convert.
To convert them, I made sure that my response time was fast enough — almost immediate.
I used to be awake till late nights because US folks were mostly active then. And I tried to get them on a call (google meet) as early as possible / at the peak of their motivation, to manually onboard them.
Strategy 4 — Taking advantage of consumer sentiment
Motivation…motivation…motivation — This is one of the holy grails of Marketing!
I did not know the importance of feeling/emotion/sentiment/motivation earlier, but trust me — this is one of the foundations of Marketing.
Back then, Noom was constantly in the news for laying off their employees, and coaches.
The consumer sentiment overall was very negative — people were disheartened for losing their coaches.
And why wouldn’t they be?
Imagine you spent months developing a bond with someone who helped you level up in life and now suddenly that person is forcefully thrown out of your life.
More so, the company that threw that person out of your life — you’re paying them a monthly subscription fee!
Would you not be disappointed?
I read many posts of users who were thinking of cancelling Noom.
They were ranting on Facebook, Reddit, everywhere!
Noticing this, I decided to post on the Noom subreddit asking users whether they were cancelling their subscription and the alternatives they were considering.
It saw significant traction.
My intent was just to start a conversation with the kind of users who were ALREADY PRIMED to look for alternatives to Noom.
Some users commented that they knew of no other alternatives…
and I just took the opportunity to let them know about the alternative. 😂
Seeing my comment, many others on that thread DMd me.
Many others also replied to my comment to know of that alternative.
And I just kept onboarding Noom users to Nintee. It was epic!
Conclusion
These four strategies were more than enough to help us get the ball rolling.
Once we had a handful of US/UK users working with us, we got reviews and video testimonials from them and our ads started performing.
I also made a video on this subject about an year ago in case you’re interested —
Yours truly,
Rajat Chakraborty
Rajat is devoted to the field of Marketing. He is the only marketer in the world who guarantees results and works exclusively with world-class Founders/CEOs/CMOs on special projects.
P.S.
There are, however, some challenges to Reddit marketing that cannot be ignored. It has strict rules and policies against promotion or spam of any kind. You can be blocked, reported, banned, or suspended for such activities. This is why you need to be really smart to be able to pull off something like this on a repeated basis.
P.P.S.
In hindsight, the problem with our health coaching model was that we couldn’t scale without more human coaches. And Paras wanted to build a more tech-focused business. Scaling the tech-focused way would mean that we would become something very similar to Noom at scale. The only reason we were able to provide better accountability and personal attention was due to our small size. This is why, we, at Nintee later pivoted to broader self improvement / personal growth and development category.