Hello Meets Critique & Future Growth Strategy
What is HelloMeets?
- It conducts Meetup. So, like-Minded people can meet.
- Website: https://hellomeets.com/
What is this critique thing all about?
I am writing product critiques to improve my product sense. So, here is my 4th product critique and growth strategies suggestion.
Device Setting: Chrome Browser & iPhone X
Website Critique
Landing Page
My first impression
- The landing page makes or breaks a business. Here is the L0 CTA “Meet. Learn. Share the knowledge!” This gives me an understanding that users meet, someone come up with an agenda they learn and share knowledge. CTA sounds like Hellomeets is a meetup organization where people talk to each other and share information. (This sounds exciting, I want to see how I can get value out of this?)
- There is another CTA under it “Stay updated about our upcoming meetups”. As a user, I might think these are online or in-person meetups. Hmm. Since I see they’re asking me about my city details they’re in-person meetups. (Here, city details can be extracted from the user session details and we can save users from filling one extra detail.)
- Post CTA, there is a signup form. As a user, I still haven’t gotten any value out of the website yet. And the signup form is asking me for a commitment, as a user, I am not ready for it.
- By filling the signup form, the user will get regular emails about the events. It’s necessary to keep the emailers super relevant so the user doesn’t feel spammed and clicks on the emailers which improve the conversion. In order to keep emailers relevant, we require information like interests and city information. Our aim should be to get the most amount of information from the user with the least amount of effect. Having around 10+ categories can increase the cognitive load. This can be simplified into lesser categories Analytics, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Product Management, and Sales. As you can see the Interests category is over the CTA which further discourages users to read them.
- I do like the detailed testimonial which is given sadly as a user, I don’t read 100+ words of testimonials for a website I just opened. Testimonials are part of social proof. We tend to believe the testimony of people in positions of power or positions similar to us. Hence, showcasing testimonials of people working in more popular companies like Flipkart, Amazon, Google, etc will hold more weightage than the current selection.
Mobile Landing Page
My first impression
- Half of the page is covered with “Meet. Learn. Share Knowledge.” and the other half is signing up for a newsletter. I would stick to the point that maximizing sign-up form is a local optimization for getting more users. Ideally, the landing page should talk about “What is in for User”, “why you should trust you”, “how can they use it” and then “reaffirming the value for the user”.
Second Page
The second page i.e. the page when you scroll after landing
My first impression
- Looking at the number of events and the number of cities it is organized in gives me confidence over the website.
- When the website says “47892 Community” it is not very intuitive or easy to understand at first glance that these are the number of participants. Since “Community” is a social unit, not a unit for counting people this can be confusing. It should be ideally changed to “Community members”.
- Under Featured Speakers, as a user, I want to listen to what Hemesh Singh the CTO of Unacademy talked about. When I clicked on his tile, I got a 404 error. So, I tried all other speakers thinking it was a bug and all featured speakers resulted in 404 errors.
I think since the event was over the event link got expired which is why it is showing a page not found.
Here when a user clicks on the speaker’s info to learn more about the event that showed intent for the second time(the first time is opening the website) from the user to learn more about the website/product.
Here rather than showing the user 404 we can show them the value of the product by:
- Embedding a video and slides from the event. I understand Hellomeets keeps all its content behind a subscription but they have to keep some free videos so users understand the value faster. TTV or time to understand value can be reduced by showcasing some videos for free on websites. And at the footer, they can show upcoming events rather than showcasing blogs.
- This way the story which the user will perceive is what value we give (by seeing the older event video) and this is how you can also get it (upcoming event tiles).
- If showcasing free event video is out of the question, an alternative can be when a user clicks on the featured speaker’s title, Hello meets can show a CTA “We believe the best experience of events is live” and then showcase the upcoming events there. This might have increased TTV but can also increase new event sign up from first time users.
Third page
My first impression:
- I love the happy faces in the event photos. I think this explains the value without any words. They show the users what the product stands for and also creates a sort of FOMO. In both cases, it drives the sign up higher. Using a combination of photos, featured speakers, and then nudging the users to sign up.
Redesign Idea:
This redesign is focused on 3 aspects:
- Value: This redesign focuses on showcasing the value and what Hellomeets stands for in less than 30 seconds. Showcasing past event details and CTA “Meetup. Learn. Share knowledge” gives users a holistic idea of what this website is all about.
- Trust: Having group photos of past events early on gives social proof of the website being legit and having distinguished industry leaders as presenters create FOMO. Users don’t want to miss out on important business frameworks and learnings, thus this will justify the cost of the event when the user signs up for an event.
- Action: Having understood the value and having trust in the website, this is the perfect time to ask for user details.
Critique of Emailers
My First Impression
- The subject headline clearly talks about what is the value, “Meetup” & “customer research”.
- The body of the email is broken into parts that let the user read it in less than 1 minute.
- When a user finds the value in the emailer the CTA at the bottom “Get your ticket here” helps with the conversion.
I would like to A/B test with the emailers with some things:
- Before this email, I hadn’t heard of Wingify. Firstly, I had to google what Wingify is in order to understand if the meetup is going to be relevant for me or not.
- Secondly, since each event is chargeable at 399/499 I wanted to know more about the speaker to check about his experiences and learnings. So, I had to google the speaker too.
If both of these concerns were answered in an email, the user will have fewer doubts which will lead to faster conversions.
- These emailers are very crisp in information but lacking some human component to them. I would add an image of the speaker in emailers. Other than giving a personality to an emailer it will also promote conversion in the cases where the user might have seen the speaker in a YouTube video or if they follow him on Twitter. Images connect 60,000 times faster than words.
- Adding a button for “Get you a ticket” rather than simply a text field, improves the click-thru rate drastically.
Organic Growth Strategy:
These are my personal thoughts on how higher growth can be achieved.
- Referral Program: If you refer a friend who signs up for an event(paid for it) you get 1 free entry. This increases new user sign-up (referee) and since the referrer is coming back we are building up user retention.
This is the strongest strategy since this converts both people who are looking for meetup events to learn and people who are not. People can’t find Hellomeets using Google since other companies’ SEO is way too effective. The referral program bypasses this and the referrer connects similar-minded referees.
Here my assumption is the content has real value to the user in terms of networking and knowledge acquired from the guest speakers.
Even if the referrer abuses the referral program and keeps on referring new users, we are getting 1 new user who is attending the event that generates cash (plus point) and the referrer keeps on coming to new events(further solidifying his retention).
If person A refers 50 people — 50 new paid users are acquired and A’s retention is set for the next few months.
Examples of referral Program:
- Lenny PM at Airbnb whose team worked on a referral program for the hosts says “Instead of just competing for keywords and placement on Google and FB like everyone else, you leverage your existing user base to help you drive growth. When done right, these programs pay for themselves many times over, and you can easily test and tune the incentives to make them increasingly more efficient.”
- Dropbox’s value was data storage and they increased with more people referred. Here, for hello meets the value is “events”, “networking” and “experienced guests” so you offer more exclusive access to referrers.
2. Free video and blogs which users find organically
Having 30 seconds of video(reels) from an event that showcases one golden nugget and that can link either to a full youTube video or blog.
If we showcase users — “What is in for the” quickly we can justify why they should fill up a newsletter form or sign up for a new coming event.
Currently, I see there are only 3 videos on youTube out of 100+ online events that have happened. These free videos are breadcrumbs for getting the user to the real content.
- Figuring out what distribution strategy works:
- Peter Thiel says “Poor Distribution not product — is the number one cause of failure.”
- Usually, there are 1 or 2 effective distribution channels that are efficient in terms of having a positive CAC and which bring in the right audience which you want. In order to do that one needs to experiment with each of the distribution channels by writing posts or use paid ads.
- Some effective distribution channels:
- Google Ads
- YouTube
- Before using a distribution channel, have a target audience, relevant content, and strategy on why they will convert. And when new conversions start flowing keep on redefining your strategy. Chances are most channels will fail. But the good news is you now have data from all the tests you just did, which will inform what types of things are, and are not, resonating with customers. Look at messaging you’ve been using, or dig deeper to see at what point each channel failed to deliver customers.
- I first came across Hellomeets on Twitter when one of the PMs I follow was giving a talk so I clicked on the link but seeing the 499 Rs price tag I closed the event. Since I didn’t think it was worth it. Later, I went back on my decision but saw a long payment form, so I quickly churned it out. I finally paid for a new event a month later because I admired the guest speaker for some time now. This time I went through the long payment form since the learning value for me was more.
Fin:
I am writing product critiques to improve my product sense. If you have suggestions please feel free to comment or DM me. :)
