Hey it’s Opossum here! Welcome to my free monthly Q/A Roundup. Today’s post is on some of the best questions in the last month. Each week I write about a new topic or analyze a new digital business. If you’re not a subscriber, here’s what you missed this month:
Regarding question #2, I'm also working on a landing page to test demand for a SaaS idea before going into development (so there is no product yet). My plan was to collect the e-mails of those who would try to sign up (sign up form asks for e-mail, then the next screen says that the platform is still under development but we will reach out once it's done). The point was to evaluate the number of people ready to sign up and have a way to reach them again once the platform is ready.
But your comment about offering to try the beta version made me pause, as it seems to imply that you should only collect the e-mails for those who explicitly want to be contacted for something specific. Am I reading too much into it or is there something I should be aware of regarding e-mail collecting practices? I'm new to all this so sorry if it's a noob question!
You're reading too much into it. Doing the beta version is a marketing ploy, can help set customer expectations, signals exclusivity, and allows you to find out exactly what the customer wants.
Ok, so you collect all addresses either way, and give an option to test the beta version / get something exclusive to have a subset of users you can get feedback from. It's clear, thanks a lot!
How do you move from a freelance per hour mindset to a product/service consulting mindset? Do you need to develop packaged solutions first or do you gain these from the freelance projects one has done?
Idk what you mean by changing the mindset. There's a ton of pricing models out there and I won't go through all of them but here are a few ways to do it.
- Figure out what your competitors are charging.
- If a client asks you what you charge per hour, don't answer the question directly. You charge per project. You'll have to scope the work. Let's say you have a project that will take 100 hours. You would normally charge $100/hour and charge the client more hours if it took longer. Instead of doing that, build in a buffer of $200/hour and tell the client that the project would cost 20k. You don't have to explain to them how you got to that number.
- Value you provide. Figure out roughly how much you'll save/make the client and do a percent of that number.
- Packaged service. "We build websites for 5k flat". Then have criteria of what is in that package and if the client wants more, have add ons.
Thanks. I used to charge scoped flat fee for a product and then had that the project became something very different - development of a new tool / bespoke dev. Since we were constantly adding new features the scope crept so much we started doing it hourly.
Hence my question likely ties back to providing a service but not getting stuck in hourly features and rather building a productized service. More competitor analysis is needed.
This is the importance of defining your scope early on and clearly communicating what they're paying for. Be a little flexible but when they want something outside of the scope, give your number for that. "Building that feature usually runs $5k"
What are your thoughts on how to handle impacts from the recent google core update. I've noticed a significant drop in daily search impressions. My plan is to just keep on publishing more content for next few weeks and see if anything changes.
First make sure your decrease in impressions isn't related to memorial day. There's a drop off in search demand around the time that people take vacations for obvious reasons.
Second I'd analyze GSC data and see if there's a decrease in impressions likely due to other factor. IE crypto search volume down bad.
Third, I'd look at GSC data and see where you've dropped in the rankings. If you haven't dropped in the rankings, go back to 1 and 2 above.
If you have, then figure out what pages and kw and try to diagnose a difference in what page increased and decreased. Is there a commonality between the pages/domains that increased that excludes the decreased pages/domains. You're going to need SEMRush/Ahrefs to see the historical rankings.
Lastly, unfortunately, there's not a lot you can do to change the direction if you can't figure out who/why domains benefited. Which is most of the time.
I notice that most HARO opportunities want qualified people with credentials - do you also find this and are these the ones you’re applying to? Thank you!
I use HARO daily and respond with a fake persona I made up. My fake persona just claims to be a fitness trainer, most people haven't asked for actual certifications. I've had decent success. The more YMYL you go, im sure they will want actual credentials more often.
Yes. Large media is all about credentialism. The success rate I've had with Opossum vs my IRL identity has been astounding. Essentially 0 success with Opossum.
I now use HARO for only my IRL projects since it's shown to be a waste of time as an anon.
Regarding question #2, I'm also working on a landing page to test demand for a SaaS idea before going into development (so there is no product yet). My plan was to collect the e-mails of those who would try to sign up (sign up form asks for e-mail, then the next screen says that the platform is still under development but we will reach out once it's done). The point was to evaluate the number of people ready to sign up and have a way to reach them again once the platform is ready.
But your comment about offering to try the beta version made me pause, as it seems to imply that you should only collect the e-mails for those who explicitly want to be contacted for something specific. Am I reading too much into it or is there something I should be aware of regarding e-mail collecting practices? I'm new to all this so sorry if it's a noob question!
You're reading too much into it. Doing the beta version is a marketing ploy, can help set customer expectations, signals exclusivity, and allows you to find out exactly what the customer wants.
Ok, so you collect all addresses either way, and give an option to test the beta version / get something exclusive to have a subset of users you can get feedback from. It's clear, thanks a lot!
How do you move from a freelance per hour mindset to a product/service consulting mindset? Do you need to develop packaged solutions first or do you gain these from the freelance projects one has done?
Idk what you mean by changing the mindset. There's a ton of pricing models out there and I won't go through all of them but here are a few ways to do it.
- Figure out what your competitors are charging.
- If a client asks you what you charge per hour, don't answer the question directly. You charge per project. You'll have to scope the work. Let's say you have a project that will take 100 hours. You would normally charge $100/hour and charge the client more hours if it took longer. Instead of doing that, build in a buffer of $200/hour and tell the client that the project would cost 20k. You don't have to explain to them how you got to that number.
- Value you provide. Figure out roughly how much you'll save/make the client and do a percent of that number.
- Packaged service. "We build websites for 5k flat". Then have criteria of what is in that package and if the client wants more, have add ons.
Thanks. I used to charge scoped flat fee for a product and then had that the project became something very different - development of a new tool / bespoke dev. Since we were constantly adding new features the scope crept so much we started doing it hourly.
Hence my question likely ties back to providing a service but not getting stuck in hourly features and rather building a productized service. More competitor analysis is needed.
This is the importance of defining your scope early on and clearly communicating what they're paying for. Be a little flexible but when they want something outside of the scope, give your number for that. "Building that feature usually runs $5k"
What are your thoughts on how to handle impacts from the recent google core update. I've noticed a significant drop in daily search impressions. My plan is to just keep on publishing more content for next few weeks and see if anything changes.
First make sure your decrease in impressions isn't related to memorial day. There's a drop off in search demand around the time that people take vacations for obvious reasons.
Second I'd analyze GSC data and see if there's a decrease in impressions likely due to other factor. IE crypto search volume down bad.
Third, I'd look at GSC data and see where you've dropped in the rankings. If you haven't dropped in the rankings, go back to 1 and 2 above.
If you have, then figure out what pages and kw and try to diagnose a difference in what page increased and decreased. Is there a commonality between the pages/domains that increased that excludes the decreased pages/domains. You're going to need SEMRush/Ahrefs to see the historical rankings.
Lastly, unfortunately, there's not a lot you can do to change the direction if you can't figure out who/why domains benefited. Which is most of the time.
Appreciate the reply. I’m sure there will be tons of info about the update released over next few weeks anyway.
I notice that most HARO opportunities want qualified people with credentials - do you also find this and are these the ones you’re applying to? Thank you!
I use HARO daily and respond with a fake persona I made up. My fake persona just claims to be a fitness trainer, most people haven't asked for actual certifications. I've had decent success. The more YMYL you go, im sure they will want actual credentials more often.
This. Depends on the niche on how much they'll dig into your background.
Yes. Large media is all about credentialism. The success rate I've had with Opossum vs my IRL identity has been astounding. Essentially 0 success with Opossum.
I now use HARO for only my IRL projects since it's shown to be a waste of time as an anon.