How do you use PH's Ship tool? Has it been useful pre-launch?

Question

Hello everyone! Hope you are having a good week so far.
Our team and I are working towards building a Ship page to prepare for the launch. We wanted to ask you what you used it for and how; and if you found it useful.

Thanks a lot! I'm looking forward to reading you :)

Chris Messina · Accepted Answer

Personally I haven't seen much value in Ship. It was built before TestFlight existed, and may be most beneficial to products that can't use something like TestFlight to beta test a pre-release version of an app. It also semi-competes with Intercom, but is a far less built-out customer messaging solution.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but I typically advise the founders I work with to not bother with Ship.

Margarita Shvetsova · Answer

@dawn_veltri1 @martina_hackbartt this is a great example of how to use your Ship page even if it's not the paid plan :) just find suitable discussions you can jump in and share your experience while adding the link to your Ship page (or you can also create your own discussion related to Ship). Just mentioning something about your Ship page without the link works too (most people know they can find it in your profile).

I have already said in one of the threads that I consider the Ship page to be your business card - you can drop it here and there and get both feedback and new subscribers!

Dawn Veltri · Answer

We use our Upcoming page through Ship for awareness and to gather emails pre-launch. It's also one of the top drivers of traffic to our website. Pay the money to promote it, so it will show up on the upcoming page. It's a very affordable for the amount of traffic it's driving to our website.

https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/raek-2

Mohsen Kamrani · Answer

Just started today, and hoping it can help us. I just paid for one month, which means I'm paying $20 extra, but I prefer to assess the effectiveness without investing more money it int (we're startups after all so extra $800 can still solve some problems ;) ). Wish you luck on your (pre)launch.

https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/utopiops

Bertha Kgokong · Answer

@margarita_s88 true, spot on --- ship page is only useful for just one month. I just leave it there, you can never have too many back-links on the internet :)

Lior Galante Cohen (Vaza) · Answer

We launched our ship page mainly to start building an audience prior to our launch. We also offer subscribers a discount for when we launch and use this platform to share some exciting news/updates and behind-the-scenes moments with them.

Would love to hear what you guys think of our page: https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/amy-2

Would love to see ReSkript's page when it's up!

Margarita Shvetsova · Answer

@berthakgokong I paid for a month too, and for a week it was in the top-3 or top-5 products. But then it went down and there were no more new subscribers (about 2 weeks after paying for it). I would gather some subscribers, then pay for it for 1 month and then cancel the subscription. The Ship page still stays there. I am not sure though what to do with it - take it down? Leave as is? Even if people subscribe after the launch, it doesn't help after the launch.

Bertha Kgokong · Answer

We did not get a lot of action from the ship page, even after paying for it ... we kept it for two months, then cancelled. The first couple of days after paying for it - its featured on the upcoming products page and you get a few subscribers per day, but it goes down the list with time as new products come in and eventually --- we were not even getting a subscriber a week.

So in our experience, it has diminishing returns --- initially there is something there, but the value of it drops significantly with time.

Martina Hackbartt · Answer

@lior_galante_cohen Hi Lior! Thanks a lot for sharing. I hadn't thought about offering subscribers a discout but sounds like a great idea. And Amy's ship page looks great!

Johann Molinari · Answer

@dawn_veltri1 thanks for the feedback, very insightful

Matt Laybourn · Answer

@berthakgokong @margarita_s88 Thanks for sharing - super useful to know. I've been looking into it, and wondered about how long it was effective for.

Dawn Veltri · Answer

@lior_galante_cohen Thanks Lior! I subscribed to yours as well.

Lior Galante Cohen (Vaza) · Answer

@dawn_veltri1 Your ship page looks great Dawn, I subscribed!

Martina Hackbartt · Answer

@dawn_veltri1 Hi Dawn! This is great advice. I've been suscribed to RAEK for some time already. Thanks a lot :)

Martina Hackbartt · Answer

@m_kamrani Hi Mohsen! Let us know how it goes! And the best of luck for your pre launch as well :)

How do you use PH's Ship tool? Has it been useful pre-launch?

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