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Comment by chrisdotcode | Hacker News Reader

On a tangential note, I had no idea what AeroFS is, so I clicked on their landing page.

> Like Dropbox, but behind your firewall. File Sync and Share for the enterprise. Free up to 30 users.

Boom. I immediately am fully educated about what this does. I wasn't forced to watch a 2 minute video with no sound at work, or to google the product - questioning about why it's popular[0].

This is how you write effective copy.

[0] Notable offenders are yeoman and dropbox itself - both of which, while widely-used products - are completely opaque in what they do from their initial text. "You already know what I do" isn't good enough for people who don't.

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I mostly agree with you, but their first sentence ("Like Dropbox...") relies on you knowing what Dropbox is. Which, as you pointed out, isn't good enough for people who don't ;).

You're totally right. Nobody has infinite context.

Even still, "Like X for Y" is far better than "The product you'll love from the people you love".

I think it can be broken up into three parts. First:

Like Dropbox, but behind your firewall.

For many people, that's a sufficient description to get the idea. If not, you have the second part:

File Sync and Share for the enterprise.

Not as descriptive as the first part if you know what Dropbox is, but if you don't it will at least let you know how to categorize the product and whether it's something you might remotely be interested in. Finally:

Free up to 30 users.

Now they've made sure the next most salient point is given, the next thing you would most likely want to know. Everything else is something you can dig a little deeper for, but for the most part you know whether this is something you want to pursue or not. I think it's brilliant.

If you don't know what it is after "Like Dropbox, but behind your firewall. File Sync and Share for the enterprise", you aren't their target market anyway.

If someone hasn't heard of Dropbox by now they likely aren't your target market.

This is what I thought as well.

Good copy takes into account who it addresses. Obviously someone who nows how to estimate what "firewall" means in an IT context will have a rough idea as to what a Dropbox is.

Exactly my reaction. I love this tagline because it just echoes how you would describe the product to a friend: "Oh it's like X but with Y".

It's at the complete opposite of the general trend of obscure generic headlines, like "Make your life better" or "Be more productive" or "Gain time and money", or the worst "Sign up for free" (yes, I've seen that as the main headline).

It just makes sense to not waste your visitors' time because they won't stay long enough to decipher your marketing gibberish.

I disagree. Describing it as "It is like X but with Y" devalues the true value of the product

Or narratively describes the product to customers already accustomed to the value add of product x, but need ancillary features and benefits not present in x. I'm of the opinion that comparing one product to another only devalues the one if the other is objectively a bad product.

I enjoyed Paul Haddad's take on this approach: https://twitter.com/tapbot_paul/status/568133811591974912

Now comparing destroys value? TIL.

Why "effective"? Did you become a customer? Perhaps people buy more when they are forced to read an enourmous text or watch a shiny enourmous video.

'forced to read'?

If I'm evaluating several products, the one who makes it harder to get information is the first on the scrapheap, unless it clearly has a killer feature.

Might be just me not being an IT guy, but from that copy I'm not sure how it differs from a traditional file server with cifs/whatever shares like most businesses already have.

I think it's the opposite: to me you sound like an IT guy since you know about cifs and file servers and you have hard time understanding the value because you are looking from a technical instead of user perspective.

AeroFS syncs files to the local hard drive, meaning you can access them when not connected to the office network. It also automatically syncs any changes once you reconnect.

Thanks, makes sense. Cool for having access to your work stuff on your laptop with having to vpn in all the time.

Like Dropbox...

I'm kind of curious what the legality is of using a competitor's trademarked name/brand in your marketing or presentation?

I think that was pretty much covered by the Pepsi Challenge.

I'm not sure what you mean by Dropbox. Their front page is quite clear as to what the product is and does.

> are completely opaque in what they do from their initial text.

dropbox.com:

> Your stuff, anywhere

If that was all you knew and saw about the company, would you have any idea what they do?

And then the immediate next line:

"Put your stuff in Dropbox and get to it from your computers, phones, or tablets. Edit docs, automatically add photos, and show off videos from anywhere."

What about this is unclear? It's on the front page..

Huh, and I reloaded and got different text:

"Dropbox is a safe, simple way to access your files on any device." - this time right above the download button.

Wonder if they're doing some testing...

> What about this is unclear? It's on the front page..

It is, but companies are not entitled to me reading their entire landing page. There's a large amount of truth in the "you only have 5 seconds to hook a user".

You should always put your best copy as the first thing a user sees.

Curiosity can be a driver of user action (clickbait, anyone?) in the same way that a direct "i want this" can be.

"Your stuff, anywhere" is both accurate and vague enough to be interesting.

> Wonder if they're doing some testing...

Effective A/B testing should be per-user and not per-page-load.

You mention your most famous competitor? :-P Sounds a silly strategy, (if it's like Dropbox why not use dropbox?) but it actually works :-)

I don't know the current state of affairs, but a couple of years ago Dropbox wasn't so good for businesses, as they were lacking a lot of compliance tickboxes.

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