I am very unsure/scared about marketing. I want to learn. Please guide.
I have been building software for 15 years now. So that part I can do in my sleep.
The part that I am scared about is marketing. Even within marketing, I have learned how to use Google AdWords SEM. I know how to drive results with that.
But, recently something happened that scared me. A company I work with had thier Google AdWords banned for no reason. Anyways, that made me feel like this could happen to anybody at any time.
To me search is such an obvious channel to market something. People are looking for your solution... and you show up in front of them.
Anyways, I want to build some digital marketing skills other than SEM. What can I do? Some things I want to explore are:
- Email Marketing
- SEO
- Marketing via engaging with communities
This brings me to my question: What mediums do you all suggest I try to learn? What gurus should I listen to? Are there some courses I should take?
In the end, I want to market Micro SAAS.
I am also very open to learning marketing by trying to market another IndiHackers micro SAAS product.
Please guide. Thanks for reading.
What helped me tremendously was Rob Walling's book https://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching/dp/0615373968.
Startups for the rest of us podcast. Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/GrowthHacking/ is a good place for growth hacking advice/tips.
I had not heard of this book, and didn’t know this subreddit was any good. Thank you very much for both recs.
Thanks. I have bumped into Rob's book a long time ago. Will add it to my study list.
I will also check out this Sub-reddits top all time posts as a starting point. 😀
Rob's book is misunderstood. He pitches bootstrapping and not raising VC money. A bootstrapping business can grow big too!
You know, I have already done the VC thing. I just want to have a Micro SAAS now. Have flexibility and control over work hours and location. Build good products and deliver value.
In terms of big, where I am, 1000 USD per month would take care of all my expenses. Its lower than what I make now. But, thats where I want to reach to begin with. Wish me luck.
I will share what I learn with the community here.
As a part of my weekly newsletter about Micro SaaS Ideas , I cover Marketing Chops about marketing and building profitable Micro SaaS products.
Checked it out. Very interesting.
Can I ask: If this is going out to a lot of people and you are actively building a list (best of luck for that), does it not mean that if I take up one of these then there will be a lot of competition?
Also, whats your plan in the long run with this list? Is it to sell them some software for Micro SAAS founders? I see a lot of people on here doing something similar. Create a great lead magnet and try to get leads to sign up with a nice landing page. Especially liked this post: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/11-marketing-channels-that-consistently-work-for-founders-8992a89a03
They got my email instantly. Maybe because marketing is top of my mind right now.
Hi Khoj,
I've been a subscriber to Upen's newsletter for quite a few months now, and no, you won't face competition. Most people, myself included, will read it and either:
Make a note of any ideas we like, to work on after our current project. If you're like me, you've got 1001 ideas to work on "next", so the odds of picking the one from Upen is small, even though it's good.
Take an idea he's mentioned, and mix with an idea I've already got.
Do nothing, as it's not a good fit for my personal experience/skills/background/interests.
Most subscribers will, I suspect, fit in category 3 for 80% of the ideas he's writing about (just a different 80% each, if you know what I mean).
So go for it!
Andy
Read it https://medium.com/@yegg/78-takeaways-from-traction-book-1b44d2a03dda
Thanks. Will check it out. 😀
Hey Khoj! Here are some things I learned about Email marketing over time:
In my experience wording is key!
👉Try to use as little promotional vocabulary as possible (especially in the subject line). 👉Use as much direct address/"you" as possible.
👉Make sure that the sender address that appears is a person's name and not the name of your company. People are much more likely to open an email from a person than a company.
Hope this helps! :)
Hi Caroline,
Thanks for sharing. I noticed that in this comment also you picked up my name from my username and made it personal. It did have a warmer feel. Thanks. I did the same (learning from you :)
I have a few questions about email marketing. Would love to hear your thoughts:
When sending an email, I feel like, my offering might not be "top of mind" right now. Because of that, the whole effort will just come across as spam and be wasted. So, in other words: Is there a way to hit them at the right time? Or is it more like, send it and hope the timing is right?
When I think about selling Micro SAAS, usually, I would be selling to small businesses. Now, to find email addresses, I would look for some sort of online business listing. Google My Business, Facebook, Company website etc. I always fear that I wont reach the right person in that company. How do you tackle this?
Do you believe in following up? Or just send the first email and let go if they don't respond? At which point is it spam?
Do you send emails from your main company email address? Do you fear it might end up on some spam blacklist and get blocked?
I know I am asking for a lot. Please do share whatever you can. I understand if you cannot.
Best of luck in all your ventures anyways :-)
For SEO, learningseo.io :)
Thanks will check it out. :-)
Welcome
I would recommend checking out Indiehackers podcasts. There are many stories of founders who started small and how they found their market. You would definitely learn a lot about marketing from there.
For SaaS products, trust is very important, so any marketing method that helps build trust will probably work well. For example, a free weekly newsletter email to potential customers with helpful tips or blogging about the issues in the industry or even helping people out here in IH in the areas that your SaaS solves.
In the end, I would not suggest you take any courses, as marketing is more of a "learn-by-doing" kind of a thing. Just hang around in places that your audience is, and try to help them whenever you can.
Thanks. So, some thoughts I have right now are:
Try to learn from the affiliate marketing community. I saw a course on Udemy which talks about SEO for Amazon affiliates. If they can use SEO to drive awareness for an affiliate program... the same should help to drive awareness for my own Micro SAAS.
I listened to some podcast episodes. This one seemed to really make sense to me: https://youtu.be/otkCFXxD7hY The founder talks about how he got leads by answering questions of StackOverflow and Quora. So, that got me thinking, I need to try this out.
All of this brings me the "learn-by-doing" part. If I try and apply these things to drive traffic to my own Micro SAAS product I will get derailed and attached to the Micro SAAS idea.
I think, its better if I learn to market. Then try a few things and see whats working. Then say, "hey, if I built a product that did _______ I am sure I could drive traffic to it." And when I have that under control then I start to build the product.
Basically, the broad steps are:
Does this make sense?
Now, I am at the first stage: "Learn Marketing". Since I don't have a product, the question is: "Market What?". One idea is: "Drive traffic to a blog." If I can get a regular stream of people coming to a blog, I can probably monetize that audience later on. And even if I cannot, I would have learned a lot about marketing and driving traffic along the way.
What do you guys think. Just putting my thoughts out there to see if they sound reasonable.
To be honest, I do not quite agree with you. According to me, you should first identify a problem that you wish to solve. You can do this by hanging around in StackOverflow / Quora or other such platforms. Once you think you've got understood a problem, you can validate it by talking to people in that platform itself whether it is a genuine problem. Then you can build the landing page and see if people engage. Then, if people engage, you can build a product for them. In all these steps, you never actually need marketing. Spending time learning marketing without even knowing what you want to market is something I would not quite support.
Okay. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.
Marketing is a necessary evil for developers. Haha...
Check out marketingexamples.com by @harrydry to discover that marketing can be fun too.
thank you!
Hi Khoj, currently all my marketing is via Facebook organic. I am happy to share the information for my mentor if you are interested. Let me know.
What is your biz? Do you mind sharing your FB page?
Hi net2tim, my FB page is https://www.facebook.com/workwithjudykhoo.
I am in the affiliate marketing space and I sell courses that helps to build a 6 figure online business using FB organic marketing.
Great post by Harry Dry with some great actionable advice - https://marketingexamples.com/content/sharing
Cheers Weston!
Try to learn and implement affiliate marketing strategies for your business. You can take different courses also as well as Amazon SEO services… If people can drive traffic to their products then why do you not? Here you can learn about Amazon SEO: https://rockmroll.com/amazon-seo-services/
Also, there are many youtube videos available on youtube from where you can learn and implement your business. Just go to youtube and search “Amazon SEO”
For the project I'm currently working on I tend to rely on SEO & engaging with communities.
I also think that no matter what course you decide to take, or a book you decide to read, or a guru you decide to follow, it will definitely be better to have some sort of a project you'll be able to practice on.
The easiest thing you can do is build an audience and send a weekly newsletter. Hone your skills here and many good things will happen.
Yup I saw that you were trying to do that. Replied to your other comment in this thread. How is that working out for you? What would you say you have learned? How do you monetize that?