3
5 Comments

How to penetrate and reach users of a niche, tight community?

I made a Photo Editing Tool for a Niche Community of Poshmark

For those who don't know, Poshmark is a peer-peer fashion marketplace based in USA

Here's what I tried so far,

#Reddit
I initially put up a Reddit post explaining about the tool, and I got 10 signups in a few hours, and soon after my post was deleted and banned in that subreddit because self promotion is against their rules.

Now I can't post there too with a new account, because they also have account age + minimum karma restriction.


#Facebook
Next, there's the Facebook group where I can reach the customers, but any post I post goes into their "Pending for Approval" section.


#Email
I tried emailing the 10 people who signed up, but I'm not even sure which inbox category it ended up in, and I can't see in my analytics that they actually came and signed up to the service.


#Discord
Not at all much activity


#Cold Messaging
I tried cold messaging everyone, but no one replies 😔


How do I find more customers, now that the options are limited?

  1. 4

    I get the feeling that you are approaching these communities with the wrong words/actions.

    • nobody will trust a stranger (e.g. for cold messaging)
    • nobody wants to be sold to (jumping right in to promoting your thing)
    • people want to see that people care (you need some kind of trust)

    People often view communities as a quick place to dive into to 'get results', but really to get positive results (you usually) need to take the time to understand what people talk and care about, then adapt your participation accordingly.

    1. 2

      This is fantastic, Rosie.

      The way I've heard it put before is that joining a community and immediately promoting your own project is like crashing a wedding and then making an unsolicited speech about yourself during the toasts.

      Point being, spend some time learning about the community, observing, and being helpful first. Once you've built trust, people will ask for your help, and THEN is the time to mention your product.

      1. 1

        Yeah, the wedding analogy is a good one. Especially as people put so much effort into creating weddings/communities, to come by and just use it for your own good spoils it for the majority.

  2. 1

    Find an influencer that teaches the tool for example, someone who produces content like a blog or a YouTube channel and try to contact them... Same could be direct at other groups leaders/top contributes...

    But you have to get your mindset and messaging right as well...

  3. 1

    You can use Facebook ads to target that group

Trending on Indie Hackers
How I grew a side project to 100k Unique Visitors in 7 days with 0 audience 49 comments Competing with Product Hunt: a month later 33 comments Why do you hate marketing? 29 comments My Top 20 Free Tools That I Use Everyday as an Indie Hacker 16 comments $15k revenues in <4 months as a solopreneur 14 comments Use Your Product 13 comments