Roger Lightfoot

Wow! Last night I happened to look a Google's real time data for http://www.hobbsparker.co.uk.

It was evening in the UK. 22 people were viewing the website - only TWO were on desktops.

Irrespective of Google search algorithms this little snippet even if it is statistically weak shows how important it is to design for the mobile user.

That's partly why we are building a brand new site right now.

We use Drip too. Great product. And the integration with Zapier enables us to sync data with our in house MySQL databases.

Adopting Drip was one of our 2014 digital marketing success stories!

Roger Lightfoot

Co-founder, Fabmin

I have spent years building and promoting websites for my own business.

One Saturday I built a website for a friend - it took less than a day. It's here www.garageroofs.co.uk

Within months his business had changed out of all recognition. He has taken on more staff, given up his contract work, is rushed of his feet even having put his prices up.

It is far the most successful website I have ever been involved with - but why?

Can't believe the large number of such detailed responses.

Thank you everybody.

Now to work through them.

By the way I was aware that the design was a bit weak. It's the response to the copy  / story that I was particularly interested in which is loosely based on www.getdrip.com by Rob Walling.

Joel

It's there!

Roger

Joel suggested I post a link to our new landing page in The Pit.

So here it is - http://get.fabmin.com/online-staff-holiday-planner/ 

Our target market is office based businesses with 10 to 100 staff.

Would love to know what you think - be brutal!

Thanks - Roger

Joel

Sure - I've just requested membership of The Pit - with a little trepidation :)

Roger

Joel

So grateful for your detailed reply.

We are just about to put live a new landing page that does much of what you recommend (I think). It's here http://get.fabmin.com/online-staff-holiday-planner/ - I'd love to know what you think.

The prominent influencer idea is a brilliant one and I'm following that up this afternoon :)

Adding humor is an interesting idea that I had not considered and we are working on referral and networking - I think this has real potential too.

Best wishes

Roger

Joel

I love all of this. I'll provide a more detailed reply later.

I've got to do an online demo now ;)

Thanks

Roger

Thanks for your suggestion.

I'm working on a 'different' bussines blog. It's at http://get.fabmin.com/category/better-business/  but it is very early days.

Regards

Roger

Like this idea and infact one of our customers has already offered us this opportunity - and we plan to follow this up. You have provided me with the motivation to get on to this!

They sell robotic lawn mowers by the way!

Best wishes

Roger

Kevin

Thanks for this. Yes, we just introduced a referral program a couple of weeks ago and there are very early signs that it is beginning to help.

We have been pretty generous with the incentive :)

Regards

Roger

Yep - agreed.

One of the biggest challenges for us seems to be how to get people to drop their existing manual methods for long enough to invest time in setting up a SaaS service. And it only takes an hour or two for a small SME.

Even if they see the value and many do they are still often reluctant to leave old systems even when they know that they should make the effort.

Thanks for the link. I'll take a look although I rather suspect I've read it already :)

And thanks for doing this. Hope the new role at Gainsight is going well for you.

Regards

Roger

Further details:

I'm talking about a simple SaaS product that helps manage staff leave and sickness, shared resource bookings and shared contact directory.

We liken it to the office washing machine - you are unlikely to tell your friends about it or get excited about buying it but once you have it you can't do without it.

Our customers love it (only one paying customer lost in the last year) but we are finding it very difficult to generate any social buzz or find an online niche.

Anybody got any great ideas or experience in this area?

Best wishes

Roger Lightfoot
Co-founder, Fabmin

Whatsapp is free for a year. That gets you hooked and then paying becomes a 'no-brainer'.

Can this work for a SaaS product for business users?

I'm tempted to give it a try. Our product if very sticky (we have only lost one paying customer in a year) yet getting new customers onboard is really hard.

Roger Lightfoot
Co-founder - Fabmin 

Fabmin makes managing staff leave and sickness really easy