Marketing Tips Every Indie Hacker Must Know

This mini-guide will help you communicate your message clearly, so more people would understand and buy from you.

Indie Hackers are great developers but struggle with marketing.

You love building stuff, not promoting them. 'Chasing' potential customers doesn't feel right.

When you started your journey, maybe you thought if you build a great product, people will see it and buy it.

But you soon realized that's not the case. As it turns out, the building is just the first part of a profitable business.

This is the main why so many startups fail. Just go to Indie Hackers Products and see how many live products have $0 revenue.

Well, I'm not a developer. I'm a marketer with 5 years of experience.

And let me tell you. Marketing is much more fun and simple than it looks.

What am I doing here? I'm creating a platform (hired a developer) and right now I'm in the process of writing a landing/sales page for it. Hence the inspiration for this post.

Here are some tips to spark ideas for your marketing approach:

1. Start with the Minimal Viable Audience.

Find just 10 people whom your product can help. If they tell others, you're on your way to success. If not, try to figure out what you could change or add that would make them want to tell others. Either way, gather feedback and learn from it.

2. How will your product make customers' lives better?

You probably heard the phrase: “People don’t want a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!”

While it makes a good point, it's not deep enough.

Nobody needs a quarter-inch hole. They need it to put a screw in a wall.

But nobody needs a screw in a wall. They need a place to hang a picture of their family. And you can go even deeper than that...

After each statement, ask 'WHY?'. Until you discover a real reason why they would want your product. It's always related to some emotion.

3. Make sure your message is clear

Explain everything as you would explain it to a fourth-grader. Don't assume your audience understands inside language.

You won't turn away a more knowledgeable audience. In fact, when you're able to explain something simply, you're showing a great understanding of that topic.

4. Show your audience you understand them

When you know why would someone buy your product and when you're able to communicate it clearly, you will show that you really understand your audience.

This is the differentiating factor everyone talks about.

Why would I buy from you and not your competitors? Because I see you understand me and my needs. You care about my success.

This is just scratching the surface of an awesome world of marketing.

If you want, I can go deeper into any of these topics or answer any other questions you might have.

Just let me know in the comments what you want to know.