Product Marketing: Evernote’s Million User Message

The benefit of ridiculously simple solution statements

Just read that Evernote.com has hit 5 million users, the last million were added in a mere 83 days. That is over 12,000 users daily. A staggering number to be sure, and one that has earned them an additional $20 million dollars in funding, according to Mashable. For those of you that don’t follow the social media space all that closely the user number is the equity by which these sorts of companies are valued. The equation is fairly simple. Lots of users = lots of value. There are certainly exceptions, but this seems to be the game as thousands of startups rush to develop some niche application online that is intended to capture users quickly. Evernote is something to keep an eye on, mostly to see who ends up acquiring them.

But the rapid rise of users begs the question, what did Evernote do right that those thousands of others are doing wrong?

One look at their home page, I think, tells the story in three simply statements.

Capture Everything

Access Anywhere

Find things Fast

Evernote has boiled down their value in those three statements which, along with the images on the page, makes it ridiculously easy to understand what the service is all about. Why wouldn’t you give it a try, there is virtually no downside except maybe for the time it takes to sign up and potential endless Evernote newsletters of some sort in your email inbox.

It is a great example of how a well crafted message that quickly and easily communicates value to the intended audience is . . . well. . .invaluable.