We sent ONE HUNDRED thank yous in a week

We thanked customers, partners and affiliates

We even shipped our own system to compose thank you emails, attach videos and discount codes, and track open rates and replies

Senja's new marketing strategy is built on the belief that marketing needs to be MORE human

And this is just one thing we've started doing to deliver on it

We need more people talking about profit

These hyper growth startups are spending $20 to get $10 back

Bootstrappers can't do that

Is anything working any more?

None of the old marketing tactics are driving results

From the conversations I am having, founders and marketers are producing more

But struggling to drive an increase in visits, sign ups, or upgrades

The old playbooks that don't seem to be working or are harder to scale:

(ignoring outliers)

Programmatic and AI created content and tools
Product-led build in public
Email / newsletters
Cold email
Product Hunt launches
Community posting Facebook groups and IHers
Platform integrations
AI SDRs and marketing slop
Reddit for AEO

The new ones that are working:

AEO through LLM directory listings
Fancy launch videos + sponsored social
Social selling out
Social trend-jacking and "marketing playbook" posts
"I made this for you" cold email
Events and IRL
YouTube and podcasts
Partnerships
Customer proof and outcomes
Thought leader ads

Yesterday we launched testimonial verification

Today, @Elliottzeli sent me this 😂😂

This is humiliating

A customer churns but their testimonial is still on your website

Or you're proudly using it in your sales deck, marketing emails or paid ads

Leads reach out to the churned customer, or ask you about them, and the trust you're building is destroyed

Here's ustomers at @SenjaHQ

When a customer who left you a testimonial churns, we send you an email alert

You can then remove the testimonial from your proof widgets and Walls of Love

And remove reputational risk

Here's what it looks like:

We're in a trust recession

Everything is fake now

And your potential buyers are flooded with offers

Which means building trust and standing out is harder than it has ever been

Don't overcomplicate things

Here's a simple playbook to start building trust with 3 testimonials:

Another nail in the coffin for #buildinpublic

Not only do we have to worry about copycats

But bad actors looking to exploit security vulnerabilities

AI has made the experience of building a business publicly a lot less fun

Another nail in the coffin for #buildinpublic

Not only do we have to worry about copycats

But bad actors looking to exploit security vulnerabilities

AI has made the experience of building a business publicly a lot less fun

We built @SenjaHQ to $850,000 ARR without ever meeting

From sliding into his DMs, to almost 4 years working together

But last week we FINALLY met in Bangkok

@euboid it was fantastic to meet you and hang out IRL

Let's do it again soon 💜

We built @SenjaHQ to $850,000 ARR without ever meeting

From sliding into his DMs, to almost 4 years working together

But last week we FINALLY met in Bangkok

@euboid it was fantastic to meet you and hang out IRL

Let's do it again soon 💜

Thanks @DynamiteCircle for helping it happen

Everyone is faking it

Fake UGC video
Fake products
Fake testimonials
Fake reviews
Fake team pages
Fake about us pages
Fake lead magnets
Fake marketing promises

The bar for trust is higher than ever before

Buyers are unable to tell what's real and what isn't

Which means act

You can't just make a claim any more, you need to prove it, and it in a way that can be audited

At Senja, we're now pairing testimonials with the relevant Stripe payment, so we can add "verified" labels

This allows our customers to click verified and see the paper trail that proves the testimonial is from a real customer

It also allows us to quickly remove testimonials and case studies from churned customers from our marketing, so we don't get caught out

This is just one way we're trying to build more trust with leads to drive more sales

Everyone is faking it

Fake UGC video
Fake products
Fake testimonials
Fake reviews
Fake team pages
Fake about us pages
Fake lead magnets
Fake marketing promises

The bar for trust is higher than ever before

Buyers are unable to tell what's real and what isn't

Which means act

You can't just make a claim any more, you need to prove it, and it in a way that can be audited

At Senja, we're now pairing testimonials with the relevant Stripe payment, so we can add "verified" labels

This allows our customers to click verified and see the paper trail that proves the testimonial is from a real customer

It also allows us to quickly remove testimonials and case studies from churned customers from our marketing, so we don't get caught out

This is just one way we're trying to build more trust with leads to drive more sales

Very impressed with @nico_jeannen's Adkit.so. 👏

I'm pretty fluent in ads (strategy) but the horrific experience within the Ads Manager UI has always shaken my confidence a bit.

Adkit completely abstracts away the Ads UI + made very sound recommendations, too.

Guess who just got ROASTED

Awesome experience with @asmartbear and @esbenfj

We talked about the challenges of growing Senja from $1,000,000 ARR

Lots to reflect on, and execute

But for now I am just feeling grateful for their time

And the opportunity to keep learning, and

Guess who just got ROASTED

Awesome experience with @asmartbear and @esbenfj

We talked about the challenges of growing Senja from $1,000,000 ARR

Lots to reflect on, and execute

But for now I am just feeling grateful for their time

And the opportunity to keep learning, and

Your landing page sucks

It tries to please everyone, which means it never does

And as a result you spend 100s of hours working on marketing that should drive sign ups but doesn't

Worse, your paid ads will be costly, ineffective and impossible to scale

​Most landing pages show the same content to every visitor

The same headline, the same pitch, and the same call-to-action as someone who's been reading your emails for a year

To fix it, you need to personalize your landing page

Change the headline, pitch, proof and CTA per visitor

If you want to learn more about this, join @brennandunn and @startupwithana in about 30 mins

....

Here's the link to hang out with them

luma.com/senja-hsjb

If a restaurant called itself THE BEST VEGAN SPOT IN TOWN, would a meat lover book a table? Probably not, even if the menu has a great steak.

Are you sure you are not driving sales away by making the same mistake with your customers by talking only to one audience?

Join Wednesday 14th of October to learn how to personalize your website to every visitor

Empathy

Understanding how your customers think, and what they want and need

To me this is one of the most powerful remaining moats in SaaS

If anyone can ship fast, shipping the right things and educating customers on them, becomes much more important

It’s not always as fun be coding marathon. Which is exactly why you need to do it.

That’s why I’m re-reading Deploy Empathy by my awesome friend @mjwhansen.

It has practical advice and specific playbooks for running effective customer interviews.

This isn’t the same as chatting to customers.

Instead it's growing a deep understanding of their problems, the words they use to describe them, and what they're really trying to get done.

If you're building something, read it.