(Newswire.net — August 31, 2014) — With the vast explosion of the World Wide Web and Internet access over the last couple of decades, both small businesses and big corporations have invested billions of dollars into marketing and advertising online, and statistics show this trend is only getting stronger. According to research published by IAB, for the first time ever, more dollars were spent on online advertising ($42.8 B) than television ads ($40.1B). With mobile advertising being the fastest growing segment of online marketing, the obvious insight is that this trend will only grow.
The reality is that all forms of marketing and advertising are leading everyone to the same desitination- a website.
Today most companies are investing a good portion of their marketing dollars towards search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), and social media. Search marketing is still the largest segment of online marketing channels, where Google is still the dominate player. However, with all the recent changes in Google’s search engine algorithm, many businesses are frustrated with SEO and are seeking alternative ways to improve their marketing ROI.
Every entrepreneur wants to improve their website’s performance, but for most startups and small-sized companies, they lack the financial capital or know-how to analyze their website’s performance, let alone improve it. Yes, Google Analytics is free, but usually only tells you WHAT happened, not the HOW or the WHY various actions occured on a website.
For larger companies, this isn’t a problem. They have the capital to invest in the software that gives them invaluable data about how people interact and use their websites.
However, this is not the case for the typical entrepreneur, or for start up companies. Most of them simply lack the revenue to allocate funds for website performance analysis or web usability. With all the various operational costs that a business must address, most companies can’t always invest their money for tools that can help their website to generate more leads and sales.
What is HotJar?
However, a new lean startup is prepared solve that problem. Their goal is to disrupt the web usability market, and help level the playing field, so smaller companies can compete against the corporate giants. The company is called HotJar, and intends to empower the small entrepreneur to improve their website’s performance. HotJar’s value proposition is that they are able to collect important data, make it easy to evaluate, and give the entrepreneur necessary insights on how to improve their website’s ability to sell.
In an interview with co-founder Dr. David Darmanin, we asked how HotJar got started. “HotJar’s privately funded, so the advantage we have is that we don’t have any big shareholders that are expecting to extract a lot of revenue. We believe in HotJar, so we’re putting our own money into ourselves. We’re lucky enough to be able to do that. Our vision is to be disruptive. We’re saying HotJar’s going to have a very low cost, with no complicated plans. We’re offering just one flat price.”
Dr. David Darmain, a lawyer who has a Doctorate degree in law, also expressed the company’s desire to disrupt the industry by providing UNLIMITED insights to its customers, without the typical usage restrictions or extra costs that other software companies impose.
“Some of these tools available in the market, for example, capture all visitor playback sessions, so basically you’re collecting a huge amount of data, which is extremely difficult to process and become actionable,” he says. “The way we’ve built it, is that you selectively go out and get the [data] that you really need in small batches, so that’s what makes it even more actionable and less costly. From our point of view, it’s a very clever way to deliver our product for less. We have some really, really clever developers on the team and they’re doing some really interesting optimization stuff when it comes to the way we process the data, collect it, and store it. So this is the key to what makes it possible.”
When asked about what makes HotJar unique, David replied, “What’s extremely different in the way we do it, is that we know we live in a responsive world with multiple devices, so what we’ve done is set the heat map report to basically split the pageviews you have on your website into different devices. So in essence, from a heatmap point of view, you are really seeing what your users see.”
In addition to offering heatmaps that segment visitors into device-types, HotJar gives its users the ability to:
- record videos of user’s actions
- get insights about forms and funnel analysis
- offer customer surveys
- recruit visitors to help with user testing
- do exit surveys
- perform live chats
So why would anyone want to use HotJar over other analytic and feedback services, like CrazyEgg, ClickTale, Qualaroo, SurveyMonkey, Ethnio, and others? “We’ve connected so many features into one dashboard that our uses are really excited about having that central, bird’s eye view, rather than the fact that it’s [HotJar] unlimited,” says David. “When I say HotJar is unlimited, and we have one simple plan, you have unlimited users and unlimited sites. It’s really truly unlimited, so you can invite as many colleagues and friends or whoever you want to share your data with, and and you can add HotJar to as many sites as you have.”
Unique Lean Startup Marketing Strategy?
What makes the launch of HotJar so interesting, is their unique “lean startup” marketing strategy they’ve initiated to create a viral buzz. Their 5-member team created a referral system which has produced a crowd of nearly 20,000 people standing in a “virtual line”. David said that many of them are anxiously awaiting for access to the product and are actively asking for early access “inside”.
So what makes their new marketing system unique and extremely effective? The easiest way to understand it is to simply experience the process by visiting their website.
In the meantime, here’s how it works….
Each visitor has an opportunity to get free access to their application by simply entering their email address. Once the user confirms their email address, the user is taken to a page that offers a reward system for referrals via “word-of-mouse”. Each user gets a unique referral link and options to share that unique link via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or email.
But there is a TWIST! As soon as you are in the system, you’re shown a number that reveals where you are standing in the “virtual line”. This number tells you how far back in the “queue” you are to get “inside” and get access to the application.
Imagine a nightclub that’s opening for the first time and did a great job promoting their grand opening event. The result would be a line of people around the block, waiting to get inside, right?
But who likes waiting? At most nightclubs, if you know the owner, you can “cut in line” or get inside while everyone else is still waiting. Or you can bribe the bouncer to see if they will let you inside without having to wait.
Just like a popular nightclub, HotJar’s system has a virtual bouncer: A user can take cuts in line! So if you decide to help spread the word and influence others to register their email into HotJar’s website using your unique referral link, the HotJar system will record each successful referral. Upon each referral, you can visit the site again and check on your place in line. The number will now be lower and represents your spot in line as being closer. Each subsequent referral should improve your place in line. In essence, you keep “bribing” HotJar’s virtual bouncer, so you can keep taking cuts in line, progressively closer to the “front door”.
So why would anyone take the time to try to cut in line? Because HotJar is offering a reward system to everyone. The top 20 referrers, or the first 20 people standing in “virtual line”, each receives a free lifetime account to the HotJar application. In addition, the top 200 people standing in the virtual line will receive a free HotJar T-shirt.
However, the good news is everyone can earn a reward by participating in this process. First, everyone gets access to the beta program and can use the HotJar application for free. But by simply referring just 5 people to the system, each person is rewarded with 6 months of free access to the HotJar application with no obligation.
Every participant in the public beta phase will get free use of the HotJar application during the entire beta process. But the opportunity enter the contest phase of HotJar is almost gone. The “nightclub” is closing its doors to the contest phase on Monday, Sept 1st, 2014 at 12pm CEST, which is 6am EDT in the US. However, if people miss the contest deadline, they can still apply for free beta access and still earn 6 months of free use if they refer 5 people to use HotJar.
Dr David said in our interview that they expect to increase their final price when they officially launch, but is offering a lifetime discount to everyone who is part of the public beta group. The complete interview can be seen online for anyone wishing to see the HotJar demo and its administration panel.
Towards the end of the interview, Dr David Darmanin imparted these final thoughts, “The key with any innovation, with any disruption, is to think what’s not possible and to make it possible, so that’s what HotJar is about.”
With millions of small businesses struggling to survive in a competitive online world, a low-cost, integrated solution to improve their website’s ability to sell more effectively might just be a HOT ticket indeed.