My side project launched 60 days ago and just passed $750 MRR. Here's the 5 passive marketing strategies I'm using.

Proof .

I think a lot of Indie Hackers focus on marketing that has a high time investment rather than low time.

What they should be looking for is things they can do once but add value forever.

I have a full time job at a venture backed startup, but still want to see my bootstrapped product grow so I focus on what I call passive digital marketing strategies. These are set it and forget it marketing strategies that together get products to grow.

Below is a list of passive marketing strategies I use:

• Content with heavy SEO focus (free)
• Quora answers that have CTA to homepage (free)
• Pinterest ads to content pages ($42.5/mo)
• Facebook Remarketing Ads to product homepage ($42.5/mo)
• Email nurture campaigns ($15/mo)

Notice that I'm only spending $100 a month with the above digital marketing strategy.

Content that is SEO focused

When you write content, you need to know where the traffic is going to come from before you begin. If your going to write for organic traffic, you need to focus on strong SEO driven content.

Content exists on a spectrum where brand is on one side and SEO is on the other. See example below:

Brand<----------|---------->SEO

When you write SEO focused content you want to be in this part of the spectrum:

Brand<----------|------X---->SEO

If you're writing content to fill your top of funnel, don't lean to hard towards brand.

Quora answers that have CTA to homepage

Again, this is a strategy to drive traffic and fill top of funnel. Find Quora questions that rank on page 1 for keyword related to your target segment, answer those questions thoroughly, then have a CTA to learn more about you product.

Pinterest ads to content pages

Look for a cheap paid traffic source. Pinterest is mine — it's where my target audience educates themselves and ads are a way to not have to do work every day in getting traffic to my website.

You can easily get $0.10 clicks on Pinterest if you do search only ads. Find your cheap channel that you can do paid ads.

I send Pinterest traffic to my content pages because that is the least salesy. Pinterest users are looking for education materials, so I give it to them.

Facebook Remarketing Ads to product homepage

Poeple don't buy things the first time they see them. It takes multiple impressions to have them create a buying decision.

Facebook Remarketing Ads serve ads to all the users who touch your website. Every time their back on FB, IG, Whatsapp or Messenger your ads are going to come up.

Keep your creative fresh, refresh your ad creative every month.

Email nurture campaigns ($15/mo)

Whether you have a free trial or not you want an email nurture. I get people who sign up all the time but don't subscribe. Remind them that they want to subscribe.

Pro tips:

• Have ONE call to action. Only one
• Make emails stupid simple, like you would email a friend
• Include Title, image, paragraph and CTA that's it

A simple email sequence template that works is below:

Day 0 - Sign Up Happens

Day 1 - Why I Built Product X

• Talk about the problem you identified, you're solving, and why it's important to you. Make it human. Have CTA to continue sign up

Day 3 - How Product X Works

• Give a description of what your product does technically and have a call to action to watch a pre recording explaination on YouTube. Have CTA to continue sign up.

Day 7 - How to Use the Product

• Explain the steps to use the product and demonstrate how easy it is and share the value prop. Have CTA to continue sign up

All of the happens automatically when someone signs up for my app. They go into a list.

Conclusion

I hope you find this helpful. If your'e a solo founder do marketing that is low time, not high time, and use the filter of can I built this once and never touch it again, but it will still provide value.

Have questions? Reach out on Twitter - Cody Schneider Twitter

If you're a corporate lurcher, here's my LinkedIn - Cody Schneider LinkedIn

*I do typos, if you see them please let me know in comments