Thread by @hrishiptweets

My startup has grown from 0 to $3 million+ revenue without spending $$ on paid ads.

I have done $0 or low budget marketing, using online channels effectively to market my products.

Here's a list of 10 such channels. A mega thread on my learnings over 4 years 🧵

10 channels over next 23 tweets:
1. Newsletter
2. SEO Blog
3. Guest Blog
4. Twitter
5. LinkedIn
6. Product Hunt
7. Hacker News
8. Reddit
9. Communities
10. Social Groups

Bookmark, grab a coffee & get reading!

Meanwhile, if you'd like to check my startup
flexiple.com

1/ Newsletter

Email newsletters are evergreen. You interact with your audience on a channel they can never do away with.

‣ Define a clear goal for your newsletter - what value will your subscribers get?

‣ Be yourself & write like a person would.

(1/3)

‣ Maintain a consistent routine - time & day of week your subscribers should expect your newsletter.

‣ SEO optimise your newsletter & publish it on your website.

‣ Distribute your newsletter across other channels.

(2/3)

‣ Share your newsletter on social media. Not as links, but handcrafted posts.

‣ Submit your newsletter to newsletter directories.

‣ Launch your newsletter as a product.

‣ Clean up your inactive subscribers periodically (once in every 2-3 months).

(3/3)

2/ SEO Blog

SEO gives you the most consistent & reliable traffic.

‣ Keyword research is key to ranking on Google.

‣ Keywords don't rank themselves. You have to write quality content that your website visitors would like to read.

(1/2)

‣ Optimise your content for the reader, not just for keywords.

‣ Your goal should always be to kick out at least one of the existing top 10 results.

‣ SEO takes time to show results. Wait at least 3-6 months before you decide to change your existing strategy.

(2/2)

3/ Guest Blog

When you contribute content as a guest author:
‣ You can link back to your website from high authority domains
‣ Drive relevant traffic to your website

Set up a process to:
‣ Research opportunities
‣ Automate outreach
‣ Create outlines
‣ Write content

4/ Twitter

Great for building an audience or community.

‣ Be yourself & bring out your own personality.

‣ Share personal experiences, stories, opinions.

‣ People should support you, not your company or product.

(1/4)

‣ People love specifics. Share your secrets - what frameworks you use, what channels worked for you, how you make money & how much.

‣ Engage with popular accounts. Reply to their tweets sharing your opinions.

(2/4)

‣ Write consistently. Both your audience & the Twitter algorithm will appreciate this.

‣ Bookmark tweets you like. Use the underlying idea and share your unique opinion/experience around it.

(3/4)

‣ Analyse tweets that work, both your own & those of others. Don't try to find a template but see what idea or emotion worked.

(4/4)

5/ LinkedIn

Great for building an audience or community.

‣ Be yourself & bring out your own personality.

‣ People connect with people. Company, brand or product accounts don't work.

‣ Focus on sharing personal experiences & stories vs. company updates.

(1/2)

‣ Share your achievements. People love to celebrate with you.

‣ Share your failures & learnings.

‣ Make connections. Interact on other people's posts. Chat over DMs.

‣ Write consistently. Both your connections & the LinkedIn algorithm will appreciate this.

(2/2)

6/ Product Hunt

Launch platform.

‣ Submit your product directly.

‣ Use it for:
— Spike in traffic or # of users
— Feedback & validation
— Do-follow links

‣ Launch multiple times, when you have major updates. Ideal frequency is once per year.

(1/2)

‣ Launch a part of your product as an independent offering. Ex. Newsletter.

‣ Launch mini side-projects while marketing your original product. Ex. Free ebook.

‣ Optimise your PH listing for SEO. Get your product added to alternatives for your competitor PH listings.

(2/2)

7/ Hacker News

High traffic, passionate tech community.

Posts:
‣ Link to your product
‣ How you built it
‣ Analysis or opinion piece

Comments:
‣ A top comment on a popular post can drive huge traffic

(1/3)

Use it for:
‣ Spike in traffic
‣ Honest, unfiltered feedback
‣ Sustained traffic if you keep sharing blogs
‣ Do-follow link if you make it to the frontpage

Contribute first, market later:
‣ Comment on posts, build karma
‣ Share news or interesting wikipedia articles

(2/3)

‣ Use "Show HN" when launching a product and the usual posts when submitting blogs.

‣ Stick to the rules at all costs. No spammy votes, no marketing taglines.

‣ You can submit the same post or link multiple times. Don't do it too often though.

(3/3)

8/ Reddit

Each subreddit is a targeted community in itself.

‣ What you share depends heavily on the specific subreddit.

‣ Possible things you can do
— Submit link to your product
— Share how you built the product
— Share analysis of existing solutions/competitors

(1/2)

‣ Finding the right subreddits is critical.

‣ Contribute first, market later. Moderators can easily mark you spam. Ideal ratio is 90:10 - 90% comments on posts, 10% sharing links.

‣ Prepare for blunt, -ve feedback about your product, content or practically anything.

(2/2)

9/ Community Websites

Examples: Dev(dot)to, Remote Clan, HashNode, IndieHackers

‣ Contribute first, market later. Moderators can easily mark you spam.

‣ Follow the community guidelines. Ex. Sharing your own blog posts rarely (1 out of 5 times).

(1/2)

‣ Tailor your existing content to the theme of the community. Ex. On some communities, users love analysis & breakdowns while on others, personal stories work best.

‣ Help others & ask for help. Community websites thrive on members who are keen to help each other out.

(2/2)

10/ Slack Channels, LinkedIn & Facebook groups

‣ Key is to find the right set of groups or channels.

‣ Contribute to the group. Help others and even reach out to the admins.

(1/2)

‣ Follow the guidelines. Usually there are specific days or threads where you can market your own content.

‣ Make connections with people and take the conversations outside of the groups. Connect over email, chat or social media.

(2/2)

That's it for the thread!

I regularly share such threads around marketing & startups, so consider retweeting the first tweet & following me :)

https://twitter.com/hrishiptweets/status/1440536197500080135?s=20