The Basics: Your Product
Now that we've covered the basics of what your website should contain, it's time to talk about essentials for your product itself.
- Add a Knowledgebase or Documentation: It's essential always to have a way for buyers to get answers from you. A knowledgebase is an excellent tool to let your customers find solutions for themselves, thus freeing your team to answer more complex questions. We recommend using an all-in-one customer communication management tool like Communication. These types of products already have the essential things needed to provide Live Chat, Email (tickets), and Self-Serve Support options like a knowledgebase. Fortunately, our parent company (Little SaaS) is the maker of the Communication app, so if you are interested in using this for your upcoming campaign, let us know and we'll give you a special plan dedicated to those launching at PitchGround.
- Add a Live Chat option: Live Chat is a great way to let your users ask you questions they have on the fly. The Communication app mentioned above covers this, along with letting you choose how you'll be offering customer support. It's crucial first to mitigate issues with self-serve options like chatbots and knowledgebase, then move on to human-powered interactions for more complex issues. For sales-related questions, it is always advisable to allow your buyers to contact you directly via chat as buying decisions often rely on trust, and buyer trust will increase if they know people are backing a product at all times.
- Set up a Registration and Onboarding page: We advise that you set up a specific page for users coming from PitchGround to register. Make it straightforward, like this:
A few things to note about this example: 1- They have a specific URL for PitchGround buyers to register. 2- They make it clear that this is a collaboration between their app and PitchGround. 3- They have a place for the redeemable coupon and an email for registration. These are really the two things you need to register people and validate their purchase. Everything else should be handled via the onboarding sequence, which they will enter after registration. ⚠Remember that registration is the first step, then comes onboarding. The less information you collect from users during the registration process, the more likely they will register. Removing barriers to register is key to a higher rate of registrations. Onboarding users is key to the successful adoption of your product. Onboarding begins after the registration stage when buyers are redeeming their code. An excellent example of a proper onboarding flow can be found at ClickUp. Click on their "Sign Up" button and take notes on how they onboard their users.
- Set up a Product Tour: Product tours are one of the best ways to ensure buyers are properly onboarded and have an idea of how to use your product's main features. This saves you (and them) time and helps them adopt your product quickly into their daily workflow. We've launched some excellent product tour SaaS at PitchGround like Dashfrugal, among others. We're constantly looking to have this type of SaaS at PitchGround, so be sure to check the deals page for similar apps and grab an LTD.
- Set up Onboarding Email Sequences: The last step to having a great onboarding system is setting up an onboarding email sequence. If your user drops off at any point during the onboarding process, it's important to get them back on track by sending them email reminders about the next steps to complete the adoption of your product. Here is an excellent guide from HubSpot on how to do this.
- Run Security checks: You're finally ready to launch your app and you've got a website all set up. But before you publish, there are some security checks that need to be run first. You don't want to go through the whole process only to find out later on that someone can hack into your site and wreak havoc on it. Here's what needs checking: - Is your web server protected with an SSL certificate? - Are any of the files or folders uploaded as part of this project not publicly accessible? - Do you have passwords protecting sensitive areas such as admin sections? If so, make sure they use at least 10 digits and include upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers and symbols like !@#$%^&*() We're by no means security experts, so make sure to do proper research on this topic and adhere to the industry standards.
- Ensure your app is 99.99% Bug Free: The most important thing an app developer can do is to ensure their app is bug-free before launching it. It's not enough to painstakingly test your product and think you'll be done with it after the bugs are fixed--you need to make sure there's no room for any error at all. This means ensuring that every function of your application, from login processes to payment transactions, works flawlessly out of the box. The only way you can achieve this goal is by thoroughly testing each new release on a wide range of devices--old or new, big or small--before releasing them publicly. We understand there is no way to have a 100% bug-free app, but those who take the time to make sure their app does what it's supposed to do well and without issues, instantly reap the benefits. And those who don't, instantly suffer the consequences.
This should cover the essential basics needed for your app before a launch. If you feel that we missed anything or you have any other feedback on this page, feel free to let us know.
