Going through my downloads & screenshots folders to move all my research and inspirations into P2 is a treasure chest or blogs I meant to write up.
I found an old annotated screenshot of HelloBonsai’s footer from back in 2019.
THIER FOOTER. That part of the website people – including me – often just for their navigation, social links, and legal info.
Obviously, I have a billion screenshots of their product and features. But it’s the footer that shows the best lessons of launching a successful Saas product.
Here’s the footer from 2019.
Look at them using that space to get inbound traffic from their target demographic (freelancers)
Q: What do they know about their audience?
1 . They’re not sure how to charge. They’re probably googling that. So they offer a page with a rate comparison tool across different professions and in different countries. (free product & SEO goldmine).
2. They have no clue about what even goes in a contract. So they offer some free templates (email list lead magments). (These are gone now)
3. Their freelancers! They’re looking for work! Offer a list of jobs (free online tool).
4. They’re on the fence about what the best tools are, do a bunch of articles comparing your tool to the big competitors on the market (SEO pages). They’re probably searching for “is [your competitor] worth [price per month]?”
5. They’re new to freelancing, if they’re googling all of this.
So bonsai offer a “freelance MBA” (free thought product) to help those freelancers feel smarter about the business. That’s repeat visitors and an email in your mailing list.
Yes, this footer is further helping their SEO signals and getting subscribers onto a mailing list they can warm up.
But you know what else is important about the footer?
A person who’s scrolled all the way to the bottom of your site and is still reading the footer is like a girl who jiggles her keys at the end of a date. (Hitch reference!)
In this case, your visitor is waiting for something to convince them to make that commitment to you. They’re on the fence but want to be persuaded.
Help them get there.
Also, If you consider all those little tiny free tools they’re offering to capture the attention and build goodwill and excitement from their audience, you’ll realize they could have launched those tiny free products before their freemium product was ready.
And they probably did.
And that’s what you can do right now.
Don’t feel like every feature has to be inside your product. Include some smaller, free, helpful content and tools on your site for your target audience before you launch. and fill out that footer.
Because people wonder if your product is worth it and more likely to subscribe or at least try you out if they feel you’re being generous and helpful.
With product awareness – and after getting enough subscribers to be profitable- you can shrink back these offering back like HelloBonsai have. Today those features all tucked away inside a free trial.
But remember: before launching and while growing your initial user base: give, give, give.
So. What do you know about your audience and what they’re googling?
How can solve that pain on your footer? What reservations do they have? Put a link addressing that on the footer. Not just an FAQ. A page for the most frequent reservation. and the next most frequent.
Moodthy Alghorairi is a product designer and digital consultant behind Wyld.Media. She’s been designing digital experiences since 2002. She’s a runner, mama to Floki (8 y.o) and Thais (3 y.o), and head geek at MadridGeeks.es. Follow her on mastodon.
