How we collected 200+ leads before our launch and it's still counting

Last week, we started to build an audience for our side project - saasscreenshots.com and I wanted to share how we collect 200+ leads in one week.

👉🏻 0- Build your audience first! You have many things to do if you want to collect emails or make a list of followers before your launch. You can build a landing page, schedule your launch on Product Hunt and start sending posts through your social media accounts.

We built a one-pager through WordPress and integrated Mailerlite to collect emails. We used templates that WP provides. And currently on the free plan of Mailerlite. Sixty-three people shared their email addresses with us.

On Product Hunt, there is a new feature to schedule your launches. We are planning to launch our product on Feb 15. At the moment, 37 people are on the waiting list. PH will notify them when we launch our product. To schedule your launch, you can check this article.
https://www.producthunt.com/launch/preparing-for-launch

We started to use our LinkedIn and Twitter accounts actively last week. We only have a few followers, but it seems more professional to post daily.

👉🏻 1- Find your main competitors and check who shared a tweet related to them. Afterward, you can send a DM to the accounts who engaged.

On our end, saasframe is one of our competitors and we made a list of people who got engaged with them through Twitter. If you want to make it more specific, you can also use the advanced search on Twitter, such as filtering tweets with likes higher than 5.

Regarding the copy of the message, you can use a similar copy like this one:
"Hi XX, I saw that you engaged with saasframe long time ago.
We are going to launch a screenshots database in the coming month, which may grab your attention. Would you like to be notified when we launch the project? The name of the website is, saasscreenshots.com"

👉🏻 2- Make a list of your high-target keywords and reach out to people who shared a post including those keywords.

Our targeted keywords are; saas page, saas pages, saas landing page, and saas pricing page. Both on LinkedIn and Twitter, we searched tweets/posts including those keywords and sent a DM/connection request to the account, including a message similar to the previous one.

👉🏻 3- Define your Ideal Client Profile (ICP) and try to reach them through different platforms.

Our main ICP is product marketers/designers, UI / UX people, and content writers who have been working for SaaS companies. In addition, we want to target UI / UX agencies that provide a service to SaaS companies. To reach them, we used two ways.

----- The first is, being a free member of the LinkedIn Sales Navigator and filtering accounts that are my 1st and 2nd connections.

----- The second is, using Followerwonk to check whose Twitter bios include SaaS writer, SaaS design, SaaS marketing. After that, we filter accounts regarding their followers/followings and then reach out to them through Twitter. You should use Followerwonk to find your potential users.

👉🏻 4- Check the products that made a launch on Product Hunt and reach out to accounts who left a comment under the product page.

We made a list of product launches related to SaaS on Product Hunt and reached out to accounts who left a comment. On our end, there are more than ten products that we highlighted. Our copy looks like this:

"Hi XX, I saw that you engaged with xx's Product Hunt launching a while ago.
We will launch a screenshots database in the coming month, which may grab your attention. Would you like to be notified when we launch the project?
The name of the website is, saasscreenshots.com"

👉🏻 5- Build in public and create a project page on Indie Hackers.

Once a week, we share updates regarding our project on Indie Hackers. Our number of followers is currently low, but we will continue sharing updates here. Who knows, one day, our post might take place on the first page. Here is our IH page for SaaS Screenshots.
https://www.indiehackers.com/product/saas-library

👉🏻 6- Find related groups on Reddit.

There are many subreddits related to SaaS on Reddit. You can use the list below to find the subreddits. Also, there is a free tool you need to use to be notified when there is a new post related to your keyword. It's like a Google Alerts for Reddit. f5bot.com is the name of it.

http://redditlist.com/

👉🏻 7- Make a list of communities that you can ping.

There are many SaaS communities related to marketing and design. We made a list of those and will reach out to them to promote our solution to their audience by offering a commission from each sale.
In addition, we find many design communities/resources to promote our solution.

👉🏻 8- Keep posting content related to your launch and update your followers by the launch day.

I have been actively using my LinkedIn and Twitter accounts for a month and sharing posts related to updates. I started to share screenshots that I like on Wednesdays, which helps us grab the attention of SaaS companies.

What do you do before you launch a product?
Anything you want to add, leave a comment.

If you want to be notified when we launch our latest side-project, here is our website: saasscreenshots.com