inlytics.io

"You're an idiot for requiring a credit card for your free trial. Just go PLG." I don't think so. Here's why: → We get over 200+ signups per month → 80% of people who start the signup form go on to enter their credit card (if not more) and start a free trial → 60% of people who start a free trial become a customer → I follow up by hand with each person who starts a free trial, and I offer to work closely with anyone who accepts my help with onboarding Let's say I could get to 1200+ signups per month and 6X this number by removing the credit card requirement. Great, but now I'd have no idea who was serious about evaluating our product. I wouldn't know who to spend time with. The legitimate prospects wouldn't be able to get enough support during their critical eval period. That's no good. And it's not worth the vanity metric of my signups going up by a bunch. — By the way, some people along the way have INSISTED that they're special, and they are interested in Aware but REFUSE to do a trial if they need to put in a credit card. Let alone that this is a giant pain in the ass for us. Guess how many of those people have become customers? Not. A. Single. One. And that's my point. The people who want you to give a mile, and won't give an inch? For a software with a free trial, straightforward refund policy, based in the US, where you're working directly with the founder? And the typical price point is... fifty bucks a month? We're not talking enterprise software here, folks, we're talking small businesses and small to medium size departments of midmarket companies, at the biggest. With THAT as the context... if you refuse to put in a credit card to start a free trial, I know you aren't serious. And our brand has gotten strong enough that I just don't NEED to kowtow to this type of request, whether in a one off sense, or as a whole with our product strategy, in order to grow. — One more thing: if you're a SaaS company with a PLG/freemium model, seriously no offense and power to you. That rocks. We just don't do it that way for our own company. I just need to brush off the people that insist their way is the only valid way and I'm somehow a SaaS dinosaur for requiring a CC to experience our platform.

BLACK FRIDAY HAS COME EARLY. Been looking for a deal on Aware? It's here: Annual plans are -50% off for the first year. (That works out to just $294/yr for one Teams seat.) But only the first 10 people who take this offer will get it. Grab one fast: https://lnkd.in/eDKdrMei Your coupon code is "BF24". You get: 1. All teams and team dashboard features 2. Salesforce and Hubspot integration 3. Profile and post analytics 4. Post scheduling and content queue 5. All of our custom and dynamic engagement feeds Boom. Come and get it. 💥 -- Full details: → Normally, our annual plan is -25% less than the monthly plan. But we're bumping that discount up to -50% for BF/CM. There was confusion on this point last year, so I'm being super clear. → This applies to the Pro, Teams, or Power User plans → New customers only; discount taken at checkout → Rate goes up to normal in the second year and beyond, but I'll make the discount permanent upon your request (literally can't do this mechanism in Stripe any other good way and also include a free trial, sorry) → Ten redemptions max... if you miss it, you miss it, but you can DM for a consolation coupon and I'll hook you up with something → Expires Monday at 11:59pm Pacific Time If you have any Qs, contact us after you start your free trial!

You should acquire companies with relevant SEO. And merge their websites into yours. I've done this TWICE in 2024. Here's how they're each playing out: 1. 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲𝗭𝗲𝗻 𝗔𝗰𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗣𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 (March 2024) → Avg quarterly SEO-sourced SQLs are up +62% → Avg quarterly revenue up +66% Funny how that works? You maintain a great LinkedIn presence, you keep building out your website, you partner with amazing people, and revenue rises along with leads. This was a very partnership-oriented deal, as well. We're paying the former owners of the acquired company based on realized value, not based on a hope and a dream. But I still think you can put hard numbers to the value of SEO, and acquire it. As evidenced by... 2. 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗔𝗰𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗜𝗻𝗹𝘆𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 (September 2024) → Avg quarterly SEO-sourced SQLs up +1000% → MRR up +40.2% in less than 3 months These are extremely correlated. I've been doing basically nothing additional on LinkedIn with my content, even slacking a bit on our influencer program if I'm being honest, and revenue has grown handily. In this deal, like I said above we took the opposite approach and actually offered 100% guaranteed cash over 60 days. But we paid a price that might surprise you, given how much value we have been able to realize. We'll need another several weeks to make back the actual cash flow given that we have costs on the revenue we acquired, but our financial ROI is in the 18X range on this already. I imagine it'll be over 60X easily before all is said and done. -- To put this another way: I spent years trying to convince y'all to invest in this stuff. Many listened. But a lot of marketers stuck their noses up at this and decided to play around with ChatGPT instead. Really, I hate convincing people to do things. But I LOVE putting my money where my mouth is. I'm going to keep doing that.

We shipped a big revamp to the Aware UI! Took Mac a few weeks of clearing out tech debt, but we needed to stay scalable 🔥 Highlights: ↳ Faster and more responsive ↳ Date range selectors make more sense ↳ Better use of white space ↳ Buttons etc are more standard ↳ Add commonly used snippets to the post scheduler ↳ Commonly used bullet points (like these, ha!) available in scheduler Bunch more stuff too. Oh, and: MRR is up 46.2% last 3 months. Let's go 👏🏼

Give away your best insights. Completely free. Here's why you shouldn't be worried about "your secret sauce": 1. IT'S NOT ACTUALLY SECRET Other people are going to give it away first. Maybe they're wrong, or not as smart as you. But they'll give it away, even if it's not public yet. Whatever it is that you think is so special, you're not the only one who knows it. And you'll get left behind, if you're hiding in your corner hoarding your perspective, expecting to be paid just for sharing it. 2. PEOPLE DON'T PAY FOR KNOWLEDGE The value that people pay you for is not in the insights themselves. It's in the *tailored application OF those insights* to their specific business. Or in you flying out to deliver those insights to their company, in person. Or in you putting your reputation on the line to certify something. Even if you sell information products: what you sell is the placement of all of your knowledge, into a coherent and digestible format so that people can consume it in a way that helps them drive outcomes. The point is, you should be treating your Perspectives, Insights, and Knowledge as "free marketing products". Your actual paid product, is the application of that perspective. -- I've been walking the talk on this, personally. I've been consistently posting on LinkedIn for 7+ years. I share the good stuff. I'm not violating privacy, and I'm not sharing actual trade secrets. But I'm giving away serious value in Perspective, Insight, Knowledge. Free. I even flew down to Apollo.io HQ last year to shoot a video course - again, free! - where we talked about giving away your best stuff on LinkedIn. If you haven't checked out this course yet, it's on apollo[dot]io/academy. Have a look. -- All of this sharing? It's driven tons of revenue for companies I've founded. I'm making huge time investments in educating people about LinkedIn, and Aware (a LinkedIn management tool for creators, agencies, and sales teams) is growing rapidly as a result. This stuff pays off. Believe me. Share your sauce publicly and see how far it gets you.

So our customer service is pretty good. It could be better. But here's how we do: Median First Response: 1.6 hours Median Response Time: 12 minutes (Time To Close, I don't really care about because that's just when we hit "close" on the ticket, and we give it a few followups if a customer hasn't responded re: our ticket, before closing.) That's factoring in overnight inquiries from EU/APAC customers. Travel and vacation (which I'm currently on. Ha. Hello from Tulum!) This is with a skeleton crew of me and my cofounder Mac doing it all ourselves, in addition to everything else under the sun across the business. There's a reason that only 2 people have cancelled their subscription to Aware, and listed "customer service" as the reason (and they both said they hit it by mistake and apologized, when I reached out to confirm that was a real thing). Our product isn't perfect. It never will be. But the least we can do is TAKE CARE of people. Best we possibly can.

The debate about content formats can be fierce. → Make video! Post selfies! Carousels are dead! But comparing formats is a waste of time. Let's look at two Top Creators: Sam Browne 🦖 and Brianna Doe. Then let's break down the average engagement of their posts of different formats. Sam's Carousels → Average # Comments: 206 Brianna's Text Posts → Average # Comments: 189 Why is the comparison between formats a waste of time? Two reasons: 1. Their brands make an extremely healthy, similar amount of revenue. Should you be posting carousels then? If deciding based on engagement alone, it would seem so. But if the financials aren't drastically different, how do you decide? 2. It's just not about "the format". It's about the story. Sam has a wonderful, lighthearted, pleasing, and very insightful message: the torch of which he carries day in and day out with a strongly consistent brand aesthetic. Brianna's voice and message are bright, insightful, and equal parts mellow yet biting, depending on the day. The kicker? In each post, both Sam and Brianna choose the format that works the best to tell the story they want to tell, of THAT particular piece of content. Now, sure: → There are some advantages (that I've talked about) of using richer visual media. In particular, integrating high quality video and carousels into your content allows you to stand out and connect with your community on a deeper level. But this is no substitute for the core fact here: People follow Sam, and Brianna, and other creators, because they just plain: → Like them as people → Value their contributions → Enjoy their content → Get value from what they publish Day in and day out. I bet if Sam started ONLY doing video, you'd like him just as much. Or if Brianna started primarily posting carousels, you'd still appreciate her words and message quite a bit. They both invest in their brands, make great incomes that increase the value of their businesses, and what they do works for them. Find what works for you. Lean into the formats that feel good. But don't forget: It's your WHOLE PRESENCE, holistically, that draws people in and encourages them to actually spend money within your corner of the ecosystem. P.S. It doesn't matter which bullet point you use :) → This • This ↳ Or this

You’re treading water on LinkedIn. But Top Creators are gaining engagement. What are they doing differently? Our proprietary data shows about 2/3 of Top Creators seeing MORE reach in 2024 vs 2023. On their typical post. Top Creators include people like Brianna Doe, Sam Szuchan, Melissa Gaglione, and Ruben Taieb. And many more. But 2/3 of everyone else are LOSING reach, on average. The best? They have two main ingredients: → Substance → Style Substance is real knowledge, know-how, understanding of a particular field or industry. Style is the production quality of their profile and their material: a consistent, aesthetically-pleasing media presence, including high quality copywriting. When you combine those two TOGETHER, you have a recipe for gaining ground in a crowded market. If I had to pick one? It would be: → Substance Plenty of the people who make enormous gobs of revenue and income from LinkedIn are great writers but don't invest a dime in visual media. Those people are not: → Shooting skits → Creating carousels → Doing elaborate giveaways So if you can: do both. But if you can only pick one? Pick substance. Do the work to unpack your core message. Figure out the real underlying problem you are solving, for whom, and what perspective shift your customers need to go through to realize that shift. Talk about THAT. If you can design it all well, all the better 👊🏼 -- P.S. It's pretty much just the last several months ALONE that I've been investing in design. It's been a great investment. But I made millions without it. I'm just shooting for acceleration now :)

I've seen firsthand how LinkedIn commenting can lead to a $40k sale. With a sales cycle of just 4 hours. It happened like this: ↳ I was commenting on a post written by X ↳ I tagged someone else (Y) on that post ↳ Someone else, who HAD NOT ENGAGED PUBLICLY, sent me a DM ↳ It said, "Great to connect! Do you know X and Y? Do you do the same things as them?" ↳ I said, "No, those guys X and Y are great. My company does Z." ↳ He said, "Got it. Perfect. Because I have some spare budget left over from last quarter that I need to use, or I lose it. Can you send me an invoice this afternoon ASAP, so I can squeeze this in now and work with your team this month?" That was a pretty life changing moment. Not because someone spent $40k on consulting with my company, that's just a normal day. The crazy thing was: WE HAD BARELY SPOKEN. My very first interaction with this person was earlier that morning. The purchase order arrived soon after, and I had to scramble to get an MSA together *after the invoice* which is highly unusual, to define scope. This sank home the awesome power of TRUST. As you go about your day networking on LinkedIn, keep this in mind: ✅ People will infer your credibility based on who seems to know you, and who you seem to know. LinkedIn comments can help you share and earn trust, fast, and across a wide surface area. This isn't weird: it's a natural human instinct. Now, you're not always going to make five figure sales that easily (that was sure was). But you can and should be demonstrating your credibility with your engagement. -- Major h/t again to my friends over at --> Apollo.io/academy, where you can find my 35-minute LinkedIn course, completely free.

There’s no way to grow on LinkedIn in 2024 if you’re not engaging. Sure, you might maintain what you have. But attention is becoming increasingly competitive. It’s no surprise that, after an extensive study of millions of LinkedIn posts, we found that the median number of post engagements DECLINED 25% when evaluating 2024 vs 2023, on the whole… …while Aware users, on average, GAINED 11% more in terms of their median number of post engagements. It’s true: not every Aware user is totally maximizing the value of their account. As much as I wish each user would log in every day: they don’t (although, to our credit, about HALF of them do! Our DAU/MAU ratio is nuts.) But we DO notice that our customers come to us with two things: 1. The INTENTION to grow their LinkedIn presence 2. POWERFUL TOOLs to make good on that intention When you think about it… how could it NOT be true? When you engage meaningfully with relevant people in your network, comment on their content, increase the surface area of your digital presence… in what world could that do anything BUT have a strong positive impact on your personal brand? On the brand of your company? Sure, you can’t just half ass it and write nutty or thoughtless comments, and call it a day. But the data is starkly clear. Engagement is a make-or-break factor on LinkedIn. Fun fact: LinkedIn agencies understand this extremely well. They either collaborate with their clients to do it for them with guidance, or spoon feed them the posts to comment on, because they know that posts alone don’t cut it. Adapt, or decline. I think it’s high time more of us committed to doing what it takes. – DISCLAIMER: Several “big accounts”, in terms of followers, don’t engage much any more, you might say to me. Fine. But I know some of them. Some of them are seeing stagnation in their business, they’re raising money at bad valuations, they’re under stress, etc. Now: in no uncertain terms, I DO NOT want to simply equate Buying Aware And Doing Commenting, with, You Will Necessarily Make More Money. Not at all. It doesn't work that way. But, it’s an attitude: are you still interested in building relationships? Or have you sort of given up on that and are riding on your past successes? If it’s the latter, your presence and your profits are not long for this world.