You overcomplicate marketing
Sure, there are 1,000 possible tasks.
But they all fall into 1 of 3 categories:
- User Acquisition
- Conversion Rate Optimization
- Positioning
The fun thing — you (likely) only focus on User Acquisition.
Get more website visitors. More eyeballs!
You leave money on the table. Here’s how to fix it.
1) Start with the bottom
It’s intuitive to start with getting website visitors.
At the end of the day, you can’t get customers without new users, right?
Yes and no.
There is no point in getting website visitors if you can’t convert them.
You don’t pour water into a leaking bucket. First, fix the bucket. Then add some water.
The same thing with your marketing.
Start with your offer. Make it a no-brainer.
Then understand how you will convert strangers into loyal customers. Step-by-step.
And only then find these strangers. When you are ready.
Chase conversions. Not clicks.
2) Do your research
It might be a shock to you.
But you are not alone. Your product doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
There are users. There are competitors. There are trends.
And you can learn from them. From their wins and losses.
I can’t stress it enough.
Dedicating 5 days to user and competitor research will impact your business more than any marketing task later.
Because you will get clarity on
• What product features do people need the most?
• What words do you need to use on your landing page?
• What pricing is competitive?
• How do your competitors market their products?
Of course, you can ship fast and learn from your mistakes. If you are ready to lose money, do it.
But you can always learn from other mistakes. And make your positioning sharper.
3) Simplify your funnel
Conversion Rate Optimization isn’t a magic spell to make people love you.
It’s about designing a marketing funnel that takes in new users, communicates your product’s value, and helps them to pay you money.
Let’s say you are selling productivity Notion templates.
Of course, you can post on Pinterest, then book meetings with customers to sell them a $19 product. But your Conversion Rate will be shit.
Or you can leverage the time and true funnel.
Threads about productivity -> Freebie to get an email -> Newsletter to nurture leads -> $$ Templates to convert -> $$$$ Coaching to upsell
This funnel converts. Now you need to find the ideal formula for your product.
It will be different. But it should always be simple.
• One main acquisition channel
• One key activation moment
• One key offer to sell
• One high-ticket product to upsell
No rocket science. The simpler, the better.
4) Nudge, nudge, nudge
One thing you will learn pretty soon.
Most users are not ready to buy on the spot. They need to be persuaded.
They don’t get excited by looking at your product.
“I mean, yeah, looks pretty cool, but not a priority right now”
Don’t get frustrated. You can fix it by nudging them.
Nudging users != aggressively spamming them and stalking them IRL
Nudging users = making your offer look more desirable
Handling objections. Building trust. Creating an impulse.
Here are 10 nudge ideas for your business:
• Create a lifetime deal for early customers
• Add a 30-day money-back guarantee
• Describe a success case with your most satisfied customer
• Add a product video in a Loom style with your talking head
• Show statistics of your users (satisfaction rate, number of customers, impact on the metrics)
• Add believable scarcity that makes sense (btw, 2 seats for habit tracker don’t make sense)
• Send a juicy discount for an annual price that expires in 48 hours
• Use non-transactional language on your buttons (Buy it -> Get instant access)
• Let users preview and customize the product for free, but start using it after paying
• Onboard users manually to build affinity
Don’t expect people to just buy your product. Sell it to them first.
5) Prioritize direct user acquisition
I will get canceled for it.
Don’t do SEO before you get your first paying customer.
I know. I know. Free traffic from Google. Awesome, right?
It’s bullshit.
It will take you months to see any sustainable traffic. You could get these 50 damn clicks from sending 100 cold DMs.
Don’t put much effort into the channel when you are not 100% sure the product idea won’t be pivoted.
Because otherwise, your time and money will be lost. You will need to start again from scratch.
That’s why, in the beginning, focus on marketing channels with quick effort-to-impact flow.
• Launch on Product Hunt
• Send cold DMs / emails
• Buy Facebook / Google Ads
• Send emails to your subscribers
• Tweet about your product
Finish the quick wins before going to more challenging tasks.
No SEO before the first paying customer. That’s our new motto.
6) One per week; All per month
You don’t need to complete a task from each category every week. It’s pointless.
Be focused. Pick a category and nail it.
Better positioning. Higher conversion. More users.
You chose.
But always cover all categories in one month.
Your positioning is not a one-time task. Your conversion isn’t stable forever.
Don’t just get more users. Improve your marketing holistically.
—
Voila, your marketing clarity is served.
Want more? Download these free marketing resources.
You are welcome.
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Dan, this is spot on and a really nice digestible overview- thanks for sharing!
glad to help!
What do you think is a crucial next step after a product launch?
experiment with everything.
try different pricing, new marketing funnel, launch unconventional acquisition campaigns
overall advice — don't do the same thing over and over again.
This is a great post. Marketing doesn't have to be nearly as complex as some founders seem to make it.
But at the same time, acquisition will only get you so far; you need to think about how to actually convert, onboard, and retain the people you do attract long term. And that's where things like creating a customer experience using email communication become essential.
Hey Dan, well put, thanks!
Question: does it make sense to launch a presale of a product on ProductHunt?
Do you know anyone who's done it?
Very nice post Dan, very informative. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Dan,
I'm curious to know, for "2) Do your research", is there a framework that you use, or recommend, to understand customers as well as possible? Like how to determine which customers to sample, what to ask, etc, to get to the bottom of all the info you mention in your post on research. Thanks!
My takeaways are the 10 nudge ideas for my business, they'll work even better if a product is really good at its purpose.
Marketing is much easier when you have a product people want. If marketing isn't working, maybe the problem is more fundamental.
Wow! It's a refreshing blog, I like it!
Wow! Thanks man! I feel like I found a treasure 🔥
There's gold in here 💰 thank you! I like the 'don't focus on SEO until you get your first paying customer' as this is obviously not the usual advice. Focus elsewhere for now 💪
This was great, almost amazing 😄 just kidding , you did a wonderful job thanks so much for the advice!
Wow, just wow. Love it. Saving it. Thank you so much for sharing this Dan.
Over the past 6 years as a marketing professional, I have come to realize that marketing is an ongoing and continuous process that begins right from the core of the product itself. Unfortunately, many individuals tend to become perplexed and fail to synchronize their communication strategy with the target audience and the product itself. Consequently, achieving a unique positioning often eludes them as they overlook the vital connection between the product and the message being conveyed.
Clarity is the key to marketing. If you make it complicated you yourself will lost in your own thought and when you present to the potential user it will be all over the place.
I have read this one book and one quote that is true , human are designed for energy saving mode and survival. Complicated stuff make people to just skip or dismiss it as waste of energy.
What you do and how it will help the user should be inside the mind of the customer before they even go to you product, else it will make customer confused and skip over it.
There is this article talk about why complicated marketing not just waste your team times it will also won't work. https://medium.com/@muhdazharali98/complicated-marketing-killing-your-business-why-clarity-in-marketing-is-important-7b3945f7460
Great, such a good read! I always overcomplicate things. Like creating 20 potential ways to market my product lol.
Thanks for the tips!
Thanks for these excellent tips! They align with the mission of Logomaker.ai (https://logomakerr.ai/). We're all about using AI to create logos in minutes, empowering startups and small businesses with killer designs and branding packages. We want to stand out in the crowd and leave a lasting impression!
User acquisition, conversion rate optimization, and positioning - we're on it! We focus on chasing conversions, not just clicks, and doing solid research to understand our users and competitors. We're all about simplifying our marketing funnel and giving users that extra nudge to become loyal customers. No SEO until we get our first paying customer, and we'll focus on quick wins through channels like Product Hunt and social media ads. We'll improve our game weekly and cover all the bases each month. Better positioning, higher conversion rates, and more users - that's the goal!
5th point really got me... Now I started working on my new project and also collecting my audience's emails with quality content. And I have a positive feeling about this.
There is a quote I repeat myself that is, "The best time to plant a tree is 5 years ago or right now".
Great job, Your concise and easily understandable overview is much appreciated. Thanks for sharing!
Totally agree.
Bookmarked this one.
Google Ads are for a much later stage, wasted my time and money on these.
Social is key to get the first leads and then customers.
I used linkedin sales navigator free month for researching and getting feedback from my persona theories.
Tip-> after the first month I hit the cancel account button and then they asked why? said->too pricy. Automatically you are offered 50% off for 2 months.
After switching personas several times, now I finally get response that leads might pay if everything worked as it should :). Pivoting the product to these personas. I play to use social posts with free stuff to get emails -> newsletter with sequences -> more free stuff -> stattistics on the success of the product ...
Free tier with minimal capabilities to preview, basic tier to jump start, pro and team tiers for max capabilities.
Nice information. You're right Dan. Focusing on all channels is shit. We did it for our first product. We tried every channel at the same time. As a result, none of them worked.
After my first mistake, for a short time cash flow I only run Cold Emails & paid ads campaigns. Over time, cold emailing turns into our core acquisition channel. You cannot believe, we even build our own cold email automation software (https://sendflock.com). ha ha ha
Genuine question, why are there so many email automation SaaS companies? Surely it’s a very straightforward problem that once solved is done and dusted?