20+ Product Hunt Post-launch Tips

Just launching your project on Product Hunt is not enough, you need to get people to upvote, engage, and talk about the launch.

You need to create a buzz!!! 🐝

Yes, pre-launch preparations are important but the launch success will mainly depend on how well you execute the post-launch strategies.

On that note, I’ve prepared a huge list of Product Hunt post-launch tips and strategies that will position your product in the top #5 of the day.

Product Hunt Post Launch

Product Hunt post-launch strategies

If you want to broaden your reach, most of the tips here are kind of must follow. Yes, there are a few ones that might not apply to you depending upon your current situation.

So, here we go:

Show off the Product Hunt badge

As soon as you launch, a badge will appear inside your Product Hunt dashboard, embed it somewhere on your website.

By adding the badge, you will also direct some visitors to your Product Hunt launch page and earn some upvotes & comments.

If your product finishes in the top 10 then you can embed the below-first badge, otherwise the second one.

Top Post Daily Product Hunt Badge - 2
Featured - Product Hunt Badge

Leverage your connections

Have a message prepared from earlier to send to your personal and professional connections across various social platforms and emails.

Politely ask them to support your launch on the Product Hunt.

📢 Do not directly ask anyone to upvote your launch, Product Hunt doesn’t recommend this. Instead, just ask them to support you and let them figure out whether they’ll support you by upvoting, commenting, or reviewing.

Also, do not forget to leverage your team members to support the launch. Have their Product Hunt accounts created weeks before the launch.

Reach out to your existing email subscribers

Be sure to reach out to your email list.

If possible, send them an email a week before the launch saying you’ll be launching next week. And, send another precise and polite email on the launch day asking to support you.

Even if you’ve collected the emails for your personal website or a different project, be sure to notify them about the new launch, after all, it’s you at the end.

Post about the launch in the relevant communities

Have a list of communities prepared from earlier to promote your launch.

The communities can be on:

  • Reddit
  • Quora
  • Indie Hackers
  • Slack groups, etc.

But make sure to not break the community rules.

Write articles and guest posts

Write an article explaining how you launched, how it’s performing, the back story of how you got the idea, photos of your team working, etc and publish it on your blog. Also, keep the stats updated for the next 1 week, at least.

Also, reach out to other bloggers who are in the same niche, ask them to interview you or contribute a guest article to their blog.

Again, you need to have these figured out weeks before the launch.

Go social

Publish short and simple dozens of posts on social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) about the launch and keep it updated for the day.

Especially on Twitter, start a thread about the launch and keep adding new tweets to it as soon as you hit a new milestone.

I would suggest you have, at least, 15-20 social media posts prepared before the launch.

If you’re worried about what to post, here are some ideas:

  • mention that you’re on the Product Hunt today on all your social media platforms
  • let people know about the whole journey of how you started and how it’s going
  • make the posts personal by showing people how your team has been working on the project
  • keep publishing the new updates as soon as you hit a new milestone
  • post photos/videos of pizza parties you had, how hard you’ve worked, and how important this launch is for you, etc.

Only text/link posts do not draw much attention, try to post images or videos of your product along with the text + link.

Run a giveaway

If it’s a premium product, you can run a giveaway and offer the product for free to a few people who qualify.

You can promote the giveaway on social media, your existing websites, and to your email subscribers.

Send your blog visitors to Product Hunt

If you already have a blog then you can add a subtle popup or notification for a day to direct people to the launch page.

Most likely, you will get some valuable visits from your existing blog.

Offer discounts

When you launch, create an exclusive launch offer for all the Product Hunters. Offering discounts to the community members increases the chances of support that you may get.

Promo Code for the PH Community

There’s an option inside Product Hunt that lets you specify a promo code and its expiry date.

Tweet to everyone who upvotes

Whenever someone upvotes you on Product Hunt, tweet a special thanks if you can find the person’s Twitter profile.

You can use this amazing tool to extract upvoters’ Twitter profiles. If you’re having difficulties using the tool, here’s a detailed tutorial to extract the PH upvoters list.

Keep your media kit ready

If your product is outstanding and you’re getting great traction, keep your emails and Twitter’s DM (other social media DMs too) open. You may be contacted by some journalists and bloggers.

And, if you’re not prepared, it may be difficult to cope up with everything. So, it’s always a good idea to have the press kit ready.

If you’re wondering what to have in the press kit, here’s a list of things that you may include:

  • your/business background story
  • facts about the business
  • logo, HQ images and mockups of your product and branding
  • people on your team
  • a list of past press releases
  • contact information, etc.

If you need help creating the press kit, here’s a detailed guide.

Keep FAQs ready

People will have questions and they may ask you in the Product Hunt comments, or on your social media posts or via email or DMs.

And, it’s always a good idea to create a list of probable questions (and their answers too) that people might have.

It’s a huge time saver on the launch day.

Get featured in the newsletter

One way to get featured in the Product Hunt daily newsletter is to be in the top 5 of the day. Plus, Product Hunt suggests creating informative content (mainly listicles) around your product and they might feature you in their newsletter.

Also, this will help you attract organic visitors to your product in the long run.

📢 Here’s a detailed guide to get featured in the Product Hunt newsletter.

Engage in the Ask Product Hunt section

You must be aware that Product Hunt has a huge community. You can engage in community discussions and politely ask the members to provide feedback on the project.

It’s advisable to start participating in the community discussions weeks before the launch. You’ll get to understand the community ethics in a better way.

Keep an eye on the traffic

You may get an unexpectedly high amount of traffic and the product website might crash.

I’d suggest you keep your real-time analytics app open and monitor the website’s live traffic. If the traffic suddenly goes to zero, it means the site has crashed and you need to get it fixed ASAP.

Reply to each PH comments

Unless someone mentions you, you won’t get any notification for the comments on Product Hunt. Try refreshing the PH launch page on a regular interval and reply to every comment.

Comments improve engagement signals and maximize the chances of getting into the top #5.

Reach out to the influencers

As soon the product becomes live on Product Hunt, start reaching out to the influencers and other notable people in the industry for a shoutout.

The chances of getting a shoutout are low (unless you’ve good contacts), but by chance, even a single famous person endorses your product, it’ll skyrocket.

And, not only the influencers, reach out to every person that may support you. Send them a personal message and let them know about the launch.

Again, do not forget to have the message already prepared.

Leverage Twitter

Have dozens of different kinds of tweets ready to be published on the D-day.

The tweets may be a detailed thread of working on your product, or about how you got the project idea, etc.

Ask people who reach out to review

If your product performs well on the launch day, some people may contact you to feature you in their newsletters or blog post.

Ask People to Review Your Product on Product Hunt

You can politely ask them to upvote and review the product (if haven’t already).

In the end, thank everyone

Lastly, do not forget to thank everyone who upvoted you. Send them emails and publish thank you posts on social media too.

Also, if your product has been launched by a top hunter, it’s a very good practice to thank him/her in the first comment.

Related: How to not launch on Product Hunt

That’s it.

If you have a related query, feel free to let me know in the comments below.