How I'd grow Quotion

Quotion is a tool that lets you turn your Apple Notes into a blog.

You just sign up and it takes care of everything, from hosting to security, etc. All your content lives in Notes but it gets published on the web ready for everyone to read.

It's clearly not a blogging platform for companies or products but rather for people and personal blogs.

It can't compete with WordPress and the likes because it doesn't have all their features and options.

The good news is that it doesn't have to. It needs to play on what it does best: its simplicity and ease of use.

Ideal customers might be people who have always played with the idea of starting a blog but never did it because of the friction of spending time to set it up since it's a hobby.

That doesn't make search a really viable channel for high-intent keywords because there aren't really many people explicitly looking for a tool to convert Apple Notes into a blog.

The only commercial keywords they can target would be all the ones around starting a blog, but they'd be competing with Squarespace, Wix, and all other established platforms with almost no chance of getting traffic.

What they could do is create content to go after informative, less competitive long-tail keywords to intercept people with at least some intent.

But that means changing their current content strategy because as it is, I don't think it's going to work.

Almost all their current blog is talking about the engineering behind the product, but this isn't going to attract ideal customers.

People searching for keywords like "how to fix HTTP 405 error" have no interest in blogging.

Another trap they need to avoid is creating content about Apple Notes. It might get visitors but with zero intent.

Apple Notes is a consumer product. It would attract the average person who has an iPhone and probably couldn't care less about starting a blog.

What they should start doing is create content around personal blogging.

Take a keyword like "personal blog name ideas" for example:

- It has volume and it's strictly correlated to what the product does
- Someone searching for this still hasn't created a personal blog so could discover Quotion
- It's not as insanely competitive as other keywords
- There are a few small sites in the SERP that appear on the first page that could be overcome

A quick search using the free Google Keyword Planner will give them a lot of similar keywords.

The core message I'd go with for Quotion is something like: "You can finally start that personal blog you always wanted to do in a few seconds without the hassle."

I like how their landing page is centered around this, especially their hero section. "Set up automatically, no skills required"... it's on the right track.

The whole landing page is pretty clear about how once you set up the basic settings, you don't have anything more to do than write your notes like you're used to, and it will all be done for you.

If you try to imagine the average customer journey, I think their goal should be to try to reduce the time gap between when someone sees the product for the first time and when they actually buy.

I use Apple Notes. I've always had the idea of starting a blog. But I've never done it. The moment I see Quotion, I realize that it's possible and super easy to do. I'll probably keep it in the corner of my mind, and when I need it, I might come back to it. Or like 99% of people, I'll forget about it.

So Quotion needs to come up with something to make people take action immediately and reduce the risk of leaving the page and never coming back.

An idea might be to rethink the signup flow. Instead of "Try Free," the call to action might be: "See what your notes would look like as a blog."

Then don't hit the user immediately with a request for their details but let them choose a design, personalize a few settings, get them to do something.

Once they have spent some time going through the process, they will be invested in it and will be much more likely to create an account as the last step.

I believe the most effective acquisition tactic for Quotion would be to have a lot of blogs out there with a decent reader base displaying a "Made with Quotion" widget.

As a first step, I'd gift a special lifetime pro plan (but without the ability to remove the branding) to small creators.

It's something that costs $0 but if done on a large scale could give results for a long time.

Every time one of these creators publishes something and posts a link, their followers will have the opportunity to discover Quotion.

A new product just starting out like Quotion has to do things that do not scale to get the ball rolling.

The simplest thing they could do is be proactive on social media:

- Have an active product profile on major platforms
- Every day search for people talking about starting a blog or related topics
- Join the conversation without being too salesy

Founders are often too scared about promoting their product.

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