Hi, I'm Caroline from Colibri IO

Introductions
#1

Hi there!

It’s so nice to be here! Can’t believe that it took me so long to discover this community!

I’m Caroline, I work at Colibri IO, a growth hacking tool for customer acqusition.

Firstly I was a part of a marketing team, but after our pivot in September '13 I was so fascinated with growth hacking science that Ikind of abandoned traditional marketing methods and started to experiment.

I’m always eager to talk about growth hacking and content marketing as those are my areas of interest. You can email me at caroline@colibri.io or visit my blog to see what really excites me: Growth Hacker AM

All best,
Caroline

2 Likes
Episode 36: White hat growth hacker
#2

Hi, Caroline!

Colibri looks very interesting. I’m not sure I could use it just yet because I’m still in the stage of trying to figure out what application to make and what the market needs. Or do you think Colibri could help someone in that stage?

#3

Welcome! It does look interesting. Got to step 2 of sign up but says it can’t find phrases on helpspot.com, that seems odd. Might be something to look into.

#4

Layla,

We use Colibri ourselves on daily basis. Before launching we used Colibri to get early users, beta testers, and so on. So I will say: yes, you can use Colibri in that stage. It will help you gain initial traffic and discover best sources of traffic for you.

Thank you for trying out Colibri, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate!

1 Like
#5

Ian,

Thank you for trying out Colibri! We crawl your website to get your keywords. So if helpspot.com doesn’t have keywords in meta keywords section - we show you only a message.

Thank you for pointing that out, I will let development team know to double check that.

#6

Ah didn’t realize it was just checking the meta keywords tag, thought it did a quick initial crawl of the homepage.

#7

That’s a nice idea, thanks! I have to check with our developers if it’s possible :smile:

#8

Another idea. If someone asks to delete their account you should remove it and not send them to a screen that says someone will contact them during (your) office hours.

I’m cool with asking why and all that, but between you defaulting the radio buttons to be contacted (not clear why this question is separate from the why are you canceling question other than to trick you into being contacted) and even when selecting the buttons properly getting contacted it leaves a bad impression.

This is also a good example of why I often rail against “Growth Hackers”. See you’ve taken it too far. Leave it at finding out more specifically why, there’s no need to trick people into requiring a contact to cancel.

2 Likes
#9

Ah great, not one but TWO emails in 5 minutes from you asking what’s going on. Not sure if it’s automated or not. Either way it’s surely annoying.

(edit: not specifically from Caroline, from support or an automation system)

1 Like
#10

Hi Ian,

Thank you for your insights, we’re still trying to figure many things out, so please accept my apologies for this situation.
I just removed your account myself and I will also unsubscribe you from our newsletter.
Thank you once again!

Caroline

#11

Thanks. I guess I’d also note that I never opted into your newsletter :smile:

#GrowthHack

#12

It looks like they’re trying to use their own tactics here. Check out this quote from the features page:
“See how your SEO improves - By injecting in the right discussion with a link to your website you improve your SEO at the same time.”

I don’t believe a single quote on the site. “A miracle tool for improving traffic and conversions!” ~ Yahoo. NOPE! More like GetApp.com who syndicated a review from their site in an article in a content feed on Yahoo.com.

If these are the type of disingenuous “growth hacks” you’re targeting, you’ll get some cash from people who aren’t smart enough to read between the lines, but you’ll build a reputation as a bottom-feeder. Unfortunately for you, the market your in is already stuck with that label. Good luck!

1 Like
#13

Hi Caroline! I too am turned off by the term “growth hacking” but I doubt you came here to be pounced on regarding something you clearly love! Welcome.

Obviously from Ian’s experience, you have a few bumps to fix but just by getting it out there you’ve done SO MUCH MORE than most people.

A quick note regarding something on your homepage… In my first two seconds there I read, “Plans start at $15 a month, Free Trial on all accounts.”

For me, that text completely reversed the warm fuzzies I got from the very helpful sounding, “LET US FIND THEM FOR YOU!” button. It’s like hearing, “Here, let me help you… and oh by the way… that’ll be 15 bucks.”

Maybe consider removing that text altogether and letting the button do its job.

Good luck!

#14

It’s hard to read that for me but I understand that everyone has right for expressing an opinion, especially that I’ve put myself out there.

Yes, we use our own tool to grow our company. Simply because it’s the best validation for us and for our clients. We used to be Drupal agency and had problems with reaching new clients. At the same time, we’ve always believed in content marketing. But it took a lot of time and effort to find places where we could share our experience, content. We’ve added those 2 things together and developed Colibri. All we do is suggesting people where they should share their content, solution, experience.

When it comes to Yahoo and GetApp.com - what can I say? A year ago they reached us saying that we can quote them on our site, if we want. And we did.

Our clients are mostly SEO agencies, which see that classic SEO methods are not enough nowadays, traditional marketing is changing, and early stage companies and startups which are looking for initial visibility. I had a pleasure to talk with most of our customers and I wouldn’t ever called them “not smart enough”.

Thank you for your insights.

1 Like
#15

Thank you for checking our site and for your opinion.
It’s very stimulating for me, and fresh. When I am a part of the process and I have an influence on our product, site, communication, etc., it’s hard to stay objective sometimes. That’s why I decided to ask you. We have a lot to think about, and all opinions which I’ve gathered here, will be useful for us.

Yes, I’m aware of controversy around growth hacking, but still I find it very fascinating and natural, at the same time. Market requires inventing new things and theories, and I believe that different definitions behind growth hacking is one of answers for demanding market.

Thank you for tip about this sentence about Free trial & price. That’s a perfect case to test.

#16

Hi Caroline. Welcome! Appreciate you joining and sharing your company. What have you seen that works the best to attract agencies to you?

#17

Hi Caroline. I agree with a lot of what Ian said above, definitely make it clear and super easy for people to unsubscribe. If your tool is an essential solution for people, they will stay connected naturally.

Also, you mentioned that your tool crawls the Meta Keywords tag. For the most part nobody is using this anymore, so I would recommend perhaps another strategy of looking for an RSS feed in the header and analyzing that (much like wordle.net does) to find repeated keywords in their posts. I know not all URLs have an associated RSS feed, but I’m guessing a lot of your target audience does.

#18

Hi Carolina! I’ve just checked Colibri out and on fist sight it looks really great and useful!

I’ve got a question though. How does it choose blogs, tweets etc which I see on my account to post there? Is there any rule? I noticed some of them are old or very unpopular.

#19

Hi, is there any one from this community using Colibri and was successful? This concept is great and I could use it but want to get other people input from the community.

Thanks

#20

Gavin,

From my experience with an agencies, live demo and custom package works the best. Agencies like to test new tools so it’s not that hard to reach out to them with free trial offer. Also communities like inbound.org are a valuable source of topics for content marketing.