How we increased Lordicon MRR by 20% with interactive animation

Source: Photo by Jeremy Bishop

How we increased Lordicon MRR by 20% with interactive animation

This article discusses how adding a simple call-to-action animation increased MRR (monthly recurring revenue) by 20%.

Is your product struggling to gain the attention and sales it deserves?

We've been there at Q2 2022. We have been running general, well-constructed ads with $2 CPC results. For a product that costs $16 /month, the conversion rates for Lordicon were a meager 0.5%. Things were looking pretty grim.

There was no overnight success

Lordicon launched in 2018, since then we have managed to produce 15000+ animated icons. For those unfamiliar with this niche, the average time to produce one animated icon takes one hour of work, so it's safe to say we've logged some serious hours on this. But it was a labor of love.

From the beginning, the main product assumption was to build an animated icon library that focused on a great user experience. For us, this meant an excellent product, being freemium, and of course - no ads.

The marketing plan was straightforward. Each and every icon was to have its own landing page with a short, unique description that contained some of the major keywords (AKA: Long tail SEO). Additionally, we were featured on ProductHunt, Appsumo page, and a couple of TikTok (not-paid) viral videos, which significantly boosted Lordicon's growth.

Discovering the power of interactive animation

At the beginning of 2023, we found ourselves in the bad situation. We were doing all we could with paid advertisements but without any major wins. We determined that paid ads are probably reserved for these well invested projects that do not count every penny as we do.

We needed to find a solution for bootstrapped projects like ours - a growth-hacking one. All of a sudden we realized one super simple thing: Our main library didn't have any major call to action compelling users to subscribe.

At the time of our lowest MMR growth, users were not being prompted to upgrade their accounts. If someone clicked on a premium icon, there was a small text "PRO," which on hover showed a tooltip saying, "This icon is accessible with Lordicon PRO."

The chance of someone seeing this and then voluntarily going over to the pricing page and getting a PRO plan was quite low.

All we needed was a simple way to communicate to the user: "Hey, this is a PRO icon. You can buy it now". This is why instead of grayscale, inactive download buttons and a tiny "PRO" label, we added one big, green "Subscribe to PRO" button with sneaky animated interaction. So simple, yet so effective.

The result has been a 20% MRR increase with 10% (previously 4%) month-to-month growth.

The success recipe?

  • Place the "Unlock This Icon" button in a commonly clicked place.

  • Make the call to action visible enough by using a big green button.

  • Implement an engaging animated interaction that delights the user.

  • After clicking, immediately launch the checkout.

And voila! You have got some more pennies to spend on ineffective ads. 🤤

Get down to basics

Whenever you get stuck in a place that seems unsolvable, get back down to basics, stay humble, and know that there's a good chance you're just too close to your project to realize you're missing a basic but powerful detail. After all, if we could overlook sticking that big "BUY" button on my product's most commonly visited page, anyone can. Keep it simple, everyone!