How I'd grow Dapple

Dapple is an all-in-one platform to manage submissions and applications.

It can be used to cover the whole process as it offers forms to collect them, tools to organize them, review panels to score them and other useful features.

I like how they say they put a particular focus on making the experience for all applicants as easy as possible with things like built-in messaging, real-time submission status updates, etc.

But whenever I see a hero section with a rotating headline I already know that there will be both challenges and opportunities.

What I like to do in this case is split the site into multiple landing pages and use the homepage as a general hub that links out to every specific use case.

So I’d try to nail down the most common goals the user is trying to achieve and create dedicated pages optimized for their main terms.

Examples might be academic paper submissions, event speaker application tracking, etc.

There are a ton of them and not creating these types of pages means being invisible to companies that are actively searching for a solution to solve their problem.

Intercepting people who are already looking for something is more efficient from a conversion perspective than letting people who match your ideal customer profile know about your product.

That’s why when there’s not a lot of demand a shortcut to expanding search volume can be to target adjacent alternatives.

In Dapple’s case for example there are a lot of people who probably have no idea a product like this exists and are looking to use basic Google Forms to manage submissions and applications.

So what they could do is meet them where they are by creating content that answers their queries and then take the opportunity to introduce a better solution.

I feel like Dapple should rework their current messaging.

The biggest weakness is probably the fact that they don’t insist enough on why people should use it.

What I’d do is find an enemy (the default choice) and use the copy to differentiate Dapple from it.

What do people use now to get the job done? Probably email and/or spreadsheets. They need to fight that enemy.

Build a narrative around how it’s time to stop wasting hours on administrative work when that time could be used for more productive things.

Present the product as a way to save time and money.

Most of the time I tell new founders to niche down but this is actually one of the few cases where I don’t think it makes sense.

It’s already an all-in-one product with different features. It already has multiple ideal customers. Why limit it specifically to the creative industry?

There could be a lot of companies in other sectors that could use it too.

Dapple’s biggest growth problem is that most companies who could be ideal customers have no idea a solution like this exists so they’re not going to search for it.

Luckily their specific target audience can be tied to precise job titles and that’s where using LinkedIn shines.

They should do a triple play: organic content, outreach, and ads. Creating content for them, reaching out to them and targeting them with campaigns.

I’d start by creating content using both the founders’ personal profiles and the product page.

What type of content? After doing a quick search for a job title like “managing editor” Dapple should browse those profiles to see what they post about and take ideas from there.

Then I’d split the outreach into two steps.

Step one (warm) would be to monitor companies that are asking people to apply for something then reach out with a specific offer.

Step two (cold) would be to reach out to people who match the ideal customer profile with a more general pitch.

Finally after they’ve been posting organically for a while I’d take the top 3 best performing posts and put some budget behind them.

This will allow to reach new potential customers with something that’s been proven to resonate.

Instead of changing colors and buttons here and there like most people do one of the best ways to really improve conversion rate is to look for hidden objections.

The biggest obstacle I see for Dapple when it comes to converting visitors into customers is that most companies don’t run awards, contests, etc. every single month.

This might make them hesitant to subscribe to a product with a monthly payment even if they believe it would be useful.
A way to address this could be introducing a “pause subscription” button and making it very clear on the pricing page that they’d pay only for the months they actually use the product.

Since it’s plausible that many people working at creative companies know others in similar roles at other companies it might make sense to test a referral program.

Something as simple as: refer a customer and you both get a lower price.

The way I’d do it is by asking a simple question at signup about which industry they’re in.

Then Dapple could show a prompt that makes sense and maximizes the likelihood of action: “Do you know someone in the [industry] who will run a [event] soon? Send them this code and you’ll both get [%] off your monthly plan forever!”

Then I’d try to combine the best of both worlds (referrals and LinkedIn) for maximum impact: encouraging existing customers to post about Dapple to their network and organically bring in new users.

Let’s reverse-engineer how that could happen.

When do people like to post? When they have a win.

When do they post on LinkedIn? When it’s about work.

What would a work-related win look like for Dapple customers? Maybe when one of their campaigns reaches certain milestones (e.g., a high number of submissions that signals the success of their initiative).

How could Dapple nudge them to post about this? For example by creating a nice, highly shareable visual (with the Dapple logo) that appears in the dashboard when a milestone is reached.

People might screenshot it and post it to show their connections the success of the campaign. Since it’s likely that at least some of their network works in the same industry this would generate free targeted brand awareness for Dapple.

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