How to do marketing, for solopreneurs who hate marketing
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I used to work in marketing and this is very similar to what I was taught at a billion-dollar company. It's about consistency (habit) if you really want to do it right. Great share!
This blog post is also part of the marketing itself.
Exactly. I wrote it to...
It's quite meta. 😄
Great post, Lisa! As a solopreneur, it can be tough to find the time and energy to focus on marketing, especially if it's not something that comes naturally to us. The SPME strategy you shared is a fantastic way to approach marketing in a way that is manageable and effective, especially for those who have limited time and resources. I especially appreciate the emphasis on making it easy for ourselves and finding what works best for our businesses. Marketing is a critical component of any business, and finding ways to make it work for us can be a game-changer. Thanks for sharing your insights and experiences
Thanks again to Lisa for sharing this!
Louis, thanks for your kind words: I'm glad I could help you with the SPME approach to get structure into your marketing and make it manageable in small steps.
If you like to take action, get my workbook that you can download as a free PDF, at the end of the SPME article. The workbook is called "The Reluctant Marketer's Setup Workbook". It helps you answer the most important questions to get started building your own marketing habit.
A habit for people for whom marketing does not come naturally.
Cheers,
Matthias
If you hate marketing maybe you have not understood what it is and it's purpose. I used to hate 'marketing' when I confused it with pushy salesman that try to sell you something you don't need at all cost.
Hey Roland, this resonates with me. I had the same misunderstanding of marketing.
When I learned that marketing is about earning people's trust in me and my product, everything changed for me. Nothing holds me back from doing marketing anymore.
Cheers,
Matthias
Love this. I fall too often into building with no user feedback. Need to learn how to get users
Still a tough job for solopreneurs
Please share some examples of why this is tough. I will try to help.
I can see myself actually being able to follow through on this method :) thank you for sharing
Hey, Up2theright, (nice username by the way!) 😄
this is such a good news for me. As the author of this article, I'm so glad to hear that I could break marketing down into steps that are doable for a solopreneur.
Thanks to Lisa again, for sharing this here! I would otherwise have procrastinated on doing so. :-)
Nice article.
Thank you, kasandzz. I felt this needed to be written.
The article is very nicely written.
But you lost me in the product. As a person who hates marketing you are providing very long tedious steps. I doubt it as a potential user.
Which steps feel long and tedious to you, anurag619?
Very cool article, thanks for sharing!
And to everyone who hates marketing: you better find a way to love it if you want your product to succeed.
"You better find a way to love it" – a really good way to put it, Niklas!
This is exactly what happened to me when I started to build the SPME habit I described in that article. Suddenly, marketing begins to make sense, and for me it has even become an enjoyable activity that I do every 2nd week.
Understand why you hate marketing. Is it because of the selling part ? The branding part ? The market research, validation, PM fit part ?
Either surround yourself with marketing-oriented fellows, or give a try to the marketing stuff yourself (look for dopamine or rewards). Automate anything boring/redundant using tools like zapier, buffer etc..
I'm btw working on providing tools for solopreneurs, get in touch !
Hey Saïd, by the way, on which tools for solopreneurs are you working? Always interested what other indie hackers are creating. Tell us more!
Well, that's actually a WIP platform providing actionable work automations for creative builders. Imagine a mix of: Zapier, Slack and Twitter. If you're interested guys, send me DMs for more infos. Looking currently for active validation & launching it soon on indiehackers.
Hey Saïd,
I can't say I "hated" marketing but I disliked it and procrastinated on it.
The main reason was a misunderstanding: I thought "I'm a modest person and marketing is about being boastful."
I thought that as a marketer, you have to "pound the drum" or "toot your own horn" to be successful. This felt odd for an introvert like me.
But then I found a quote that changed everything for me: "Marketing is earning trust at scale". When I look at it that way, it makes marketing a totally desirable activity, even for an introvert like me.
Why? Because that's what I need as a solopreneur: Thousands of people who trust me and my product.
So yeah, the rest was a matter of two things:
Very interesting quote and approach to the necessity of marketing.
"Marketing is earning trust at scale", i'll remember that !
Totally agree with your ritual-based approach, compounding the efforts shall bring compound outcomes.
Part of the journey's excitement is related to building an innovative product, i believe another part is about going live and to a real market with real customers; aka marketing ;)
I don't think there's any solopreneur out there that can say they love marketing. It was the one thing that put me off starting my own business tbh. I hate feeling like I'm selling at people. In the end, you have to find your own (comfortable) way of doing things, but it always helps to change things up and I really like the SPME approach you suggest. Bookmarked!
Hey Alessandro,
glad you like the article. I hope it will help you make your marketing easier.
I'm a software engineer by trade, and marketing was always of second priority to me. However, as a solopreneur, this doesn't work anymore. No marketing = no business.
I also felt that marketing is "selling at people" like you said. But recently, I learned that marketing is more about earning the trust of a lot of people, not selling but earning trust.
And afterwards, of course, you have to deliver on the promises you made in your marketing. But: That's not "selling at people" anymore. Showing people how to transform themselves buy buying and using your product – that's the next step after marketing. You may call it "sales" if you want. I'd rather not.
Cheers,
Matthias
Yesterday I created a YouTube video 📽 about the SPME marketing habit. Watch it and tell me if it helps you in your marketing efforts. Enjoy!
The unlock for me was to reframe as helping your customer, not selling to them. Providing you have a product that genuinely makes their life easier...
Really nice, love the way you explained it.
Hi! Thanks for these. It’s like a cheatsheet for me who has zero understanding how to do marketing.
Great article and the article itself is a perfect example of storytelling and a channel for people to subscribe, so good it felt like I was been cajoled 😁
I was one the who hate marketing, because i was thinking like marketing ise force someone to buy something even they do not need.
But later i figure out that marketing is the way the understand costumer, what they need, whats their pain points, showing how it can be solve, etc. It is the whole pathway to bringing value to table.
If you do marketing for just salesy focus just recieve short term success.
But if you consider that marketing as a branding, wooowww, you will be a rockstar.
Reading the title Anki Card could be a great rhythm setter for triggering certain actions at differing intervals.
Awesome writing. Breaks everything down. Thanks for sharing.
Marketing is such an undervalued discipline, especially coming from a software engineering background. For me, this finally connected when doing open source work. It might sound intuitive, but it really doesn't matter how good your code is if it doesn't connect with the right audience. Whether that's an open source library or a venture backed startup, it's incredibly difficult to get there without an emphasis on the importance of marketing.
Love the name. On point.
I like the concept in this link. It's actionable. One thing remains though: Experiments can be expensive (time & money). You will save time by hiring an expert, but you won't become skilled yourself.
But, if you want the skill, expertise, and first-hand experience? Then, this post is really helpful in breaking things down.
Thank you so much for sharing, i was just searching for my blog https://angelsnumbers.net/2323-angel-number/
Hey Lisa,
wow, I was getting some traffic on the 2Quiet2Market blog today, because you shared the article. This is great! 😄 So excited that the community here is getting value from it. 🚀
I created 2Quiet2Market because I failed with 5 startups before. I finally accepted that marketing is necessary to be successful with a product. And I thought: Why not make a special software for it to help me and other indie hackers? 🤔
It now allows solopreneurs (who are deep into making something) to setup a clear structure for their marketing efforts. Every other week, when a solopreneur switches from building to marketing, they know exactly what's the next marketing experiment they could run, because everything is already broken down into simple parts. 👍
Here's to your marketing success, and: please tell me what you experience when you put this to practice!
Cheers,
Matthias Bohlen, founder of 2Quiet2Market
P.S.: I just created the product here on Indie Hackers, too. Now I have to fill the product page with content. Stay tuned.