I think there's good advice here for almost anyone, you just have to adapt it to your situation. Not all of these work for everyone, but many will work for most. Let's take your site CompVersions.com (which looks very nice, BTW) for example:
Controversy - Okay, tough one there. Get back to me on that.
Viral tricks - Allow new users to extend their free trials by another 14 days if they send an email about the service to 5 people. Or, give new paying users some amount of credit for doing something similar. Give away a free {thing designers want} - To enter the contest you must tweet about the service. Tons of options here.
Affiliate Program - People pay for the service, so this is doable. The affiliates you want are people/companies who operate popular design sites/blogs/forums/newsletters/services. If they have ads then they could be an affiliate (actually, even if they don't). Cut special deals for really good partners. Consider offering small payouts for trial sign ups and bigger payouts for paid customers.
SEO - Goes without saying. You need to be thinking about this.
Press - You probably aren't going for CNN here, but there are lots of design oriented publications both online and off. Think of some story ideas and start pitching. Are more people going freelance because of the economy? You could play off that angle. Clients who can't make up their minds about anything is a classic designer story. If you can put together a success story of someone who used your product to get an indecisive client to make a choice- that's a story people want to hear.
Celebrity Endorsement - Offer your product to a highly visible designer for free. If they like it, ask for an endorsement. Maybe a tweet or two? Maybe a mention on their blog?
Biz Dev - There are lots of design agencies out there. Maybe this is something that some of them would be interested in using. Maybe you could do a co-branded promotion with a company that offers another kind of design tool, like wire framing or something. Perhaps you could work with Appsumo to put together a "Designers" package, of which CompVersions would be a part.
Offline Events - Probably not super useful for this. But live design demos in front of an audience could be fun.
So yeah, I think there's some good material to go on here.
Err....wow! Dude...thanks for this advice. Many of the things you highlighted here make total sense, and I have thought about many of them - I guess I always dismissed it as 'not for me'.
The normal stuff, Biz Dev, SEO, Affiliate Program, for sure.
Here is a simple suggestion, perhaps you should write a version of this post that is geared to webapps like mine that have a monthly fee.
I bet that would be something the community is interested in. As would I...of course :)
Controversy - Okay, tough one there. Get back to me on that.
Viral tricks - Allow new users to extend their free trials by another 14 days if they send an email about the service to 5 people. Or, give new paying users some amount of credit for doing something similar. Give away a free {thing designers want} - To enter the contest you must tweet about the service. Tons of options here.
Affiliate Program - People pay for the service, so this is doable. The affiliates you want are people/companies who operate popular design sites/blogs/forums/newsletters/services. If they have ads then they could be an affiliate (actually, even if they don't). Cut special deals for really good partners. Consider offering small payouts for trial sign ups and bigger payouts for paid customers.
SEO - Goes without saying. You need to be thinking about this.
Press - You probably aren't going for CNN here, but there are lots of design oriented publications both online and off. Think of some story ideas and start pitching. Are more people going freelance because of the economy? You could play off that angle. Clients who can't make up their minds about anything is a classic designer story. If you can put together a success story of someone who used your product to get an indecisive client to make a choice- that's a story people want to hear.
Celebrity Endorsement - Offer your product to a highly visible designer for free. If they like it, ask for an endorsement. Maybe a tweet or two? Maybe a mention on their blog?
Biz Dev - There are lots of design agencies out there. Maybe this is something that some of them would be interested in using. Maybe you could do a co-branded promotion with a company that offers another kind of design tool, like wire framing or something. Perhaps you could work with Appsumo to put together a "Designers" package, of which CompVersions would be a part.
Offline Events - Probably not super useful for this. But live design demos in front of an audience could be fun.
So yeah, I think there's some good material to go on here.