
Ask HN: What is the best way to promote your startup? - ahmedaly
I think that customers/users are the key for making a successful startup. But firstly, you have to provide a way to let them reach you and figure about it.<p>What are the solutions, tricks, and methods you are using to generate a high traffic to your startup?
======
raheemm
1\. Hire a writer from elance to write a human-interest story about your
startup. You can get this done for $100-$300.

2\. Armed with #1, hit up your local news media. This kind of coverage is
easiest to get and builds the social proof that you can use to build on your
media coverage with the bigger outlets like nytimes, TC, etc.

3\. Reach out to the main bloggers in your space and start building
relationships. You are much better off spending 3-6 months building a
relationship and then hitting up for coverage.

4\. As you are doing the above, build and optimize your site's funnel to
convert the visitors into users.

5\. Obviously have presence on twitter, facebook, linkedin, wikipedia, etc.
Why? Because every journalist will google you and the various social media
profiles are the first things to pop up on google.

6\. Google analytics is your best friend. Measure everything. The stats will
also give you motivation to keep on keeping on.

7\. During this entire cycle, keep brainstorming ways to develop new human
interest stories that you can use to generate new publicity.

~~~
cafecoders
Do you have an example site to show? It would be great, if it is a real
website.

~~~
casemorton
A few founder friends of mine have done this for techli.com in the past and
they take guest posts from CEOs/founders. Might be worth a look.

------
Concours
Let me share my experience,

I've read this blog post:
[http://blogs.balsamiq.com/product/2008/08/05/startup-
marketi...](http://blogs.balsamiq.com/product/2008/08/05/startup-marketing-
advice-from-balsamiq-studios/) and will strongly recommend it. After reading
it, I went to the google, spotted a couple of competitors, entered their urls
respectively in Bing Link explorer for webmasters to discover who wrote about
them, I then went to create a list and retrieve some bloggers names and emails
in a spreadsheet , wrote a short pitch template inspired from the balsamiq
pitch, and got the got the software <http://www.bulkmailapp.com> and a Lite
sendgrid account (a Free account is enought if you send ~200 emails per day or
less) , I then proceed to send a personalized batch email to all the prospects
on my list. The response rate is over 25% so far, when they don't cover me,
they at least reply and ask a couple of questions.

The second approach: set a blog and go to <http://www.fiverr.com> , have some
descents writers (look for journalists) write blog entries about keywords you
actively researched and somehow relevant to your startup, set your blog at
www.yourdomain/yourblog/ and publish the stories on a regular basis, start
blogging on a regular basis.

For your main webpage: Do your SEO Abc... create a twitter account and search
queries relevant to your startup and start tracking/monitoring them and engage
in the conversation when it's possible.

That's what I've been doing so far, I will write a blog entry about it. I hope
this could help for a start.

P.S.Sorry for my english, not a native speaker.

~~~
ovi256
Is the www.yourdomain/yourblog/ still important ? I've seen it mentioned a lot
in the past, with a minority opinion saying it doesn't matter.

Also, let's say I have a webapp on www.yourdomain.com but I want to host my
blog elsewhere, let's say tumblr. I can't find a way to host it on
www.yourdomain/yourblog/ with this setup, unfortunately.

~~~
Concours
Yes, www.yourdomain/yourblog/ is still very important, it's better for your
SEO than www.yourblog.yourwebsite.com , but www.yourblog.yourwebsite.com is
better than having no blog at all. Well, as for Tumblr, posterous...and
similars, you can try a reverse proxy hack but I'd suggest to just set a
folder on your server and drop wordpress on it.

------
sudonim
Experiment and see what works for you. We have an email SaaS business that
sends super-targeted emails. Here are all the things I've done that have
generated a positive response:

1\. Sign up for lots of products and reply when I get an email that looks
targeted and based on my behavior. (I want to learn how they do it and what
pain they have)

2\. Write personal blog posts that are totally unrelated, and have an "About
me" section to send curious people to your company. Two that were on the front
page of hacker news were "Burnout is caused by resentment" and "A standing
desk for $22".

3\. Write company blog posts about how we built our product. Most recently:
"How we built our HTML email editor using liquid, wysihtml5 and premailer"

4\. Work in a highly visible coworking space (we're in General Assembly in
NYC).

5\. Build relationships with people who sign up on your launch list by sharing
interesting things you've learned (did this last week and got a phenomenal
response).

6\. Ask VCs to introduce you to their portfolio companies. Ask the portfolio
companies to understand their problems, not pitch your wares.

7\. Tap your network for advice and help.

That's what we've tried so far that has been beneficial. Good luck!

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benjaminwootton
This really is the $100 million question.

I personally find it frustrating to have the skills to build a high quality,
robust, elegant application, that meets a real need, but to not have the
ability to market that to a critical mass.

Rather than spending my time reading about the latest tech news & coding
techniques, I feel as though I should spend my time studying up and learning
about marketing from first principles. It's by far the biggest obstacle to the
success and lifestyle that most people frequenting this site have.

~~~
conductr
I second that. I've built a dozen awesome apps and never even took them live
due to the burden of having to market them

~~~
thomasilk
Same offer to you.

"I've been doing marketing for national and international brands if you send
me a mail me[at]ilkthomas.com with a short description of your project, I'll
send you some free tips. "

Since you mentioned apps, my company QuantApps even offers doing all the
marketing for a percentage of the revenues if that sounds better to you. Of
course if you prefer just some tips that offer stands too.

------
goochtek
Short answer: Blogs.

Long answer: Blogging. Seriously. Write about interesting topics related to
your startup. Start to pique people's interest in your product. That's where
the best (and free) traffic comes from.

~~~
mping
I tried to reach several bloggers, most of them don't respond. I'm having a
hard time finding the good blogg(ers) that would write about my app. Maybe I
suck at marketing...

~~~
patio11
This post will raise your hit rate substantially:
[http://blogs.balsamiq.com/product/2008/08/05/startup-
marketi...](http://blogs.balsamiq.com/product/2008/08/05/startup-marketing-
advice-from-balsamiq-studios/)

~~~
mping
Heh, I emailed you directly some time ago :) We both agreed that blogs are my
best bet. But maybe I have to face that my MVP idea sucks :\

------
j45
The only thing that makes a startup into a business is customers.

Finding out who those customers are, what they are looking for, and then
building it is the correct step.

If you haven't already had this conversation with at least 5-10 customers who
are dying for exactly what you're doing, I suggest you stop what you're doing
and learn some about the lean methedology.

Basically, hiding behind a keyboard thinking you're creating value isn't
creating a valuable startup or product.

When you have confirmed what people want, and you build it, you have your
first customers. You know how to reach these people because you know who they
are, what they do, how they surf, where they hang out, and lots more.

This is really going to boil down to whether you can put down the code and
learn something you aren't familiar with instead of doing busy work coding.

A book like Ash Maurya's Running Lean might be an interesting read for you.

0.02

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ef4
Get out and talk to the people that you think would make good customers!

A small-business product like yours is the ideal candidate for that model.
Small business owners are relatively approachable. You can often get a chance
to talk directly with the decision-maker and try to show them the value. More
importantly, you can listen to what they think their problem is. You will
learn a ton about how to frame the value-proposition in terms that resonate
with customers.

It's almost comical seeing the lengths that many introverted technical
founders will go through to avoid talking to people, when that is by far the
most effective path forward.

Worry about scaling up your sales process after you've hand-cultivated a
(probably small) pool of happy customers. This helps you polish both the
product and the pitch.

------
PierreMage
This video might interest you: Rand Fishkin - Inbound Marketing for Startups:
How to Earn Customers Without Paying <http://vimeo.com/39473593>

In short: generate great content.

~~~
swGooF
Thanks for sharing.

------
far33d
It depends!

Options:

* Paid: Ads, other pay marketing.

* Inbound: Blog. SEO. Etc.

* Viral: generate incentives and reasons for users to invite and refer people they know via social networks, email, etc.

* Other "organic" channels: hack your way to the top of the app leaderboard, for instance.

~~~
antidaily
And most are terrible at items 1-3. It's a problem.

------
promptcloud
A very valid question for Enterprise start-ups. There might be multiple ways
but what's the best way depends on what you did best and are good at.

Email-marketing might sound great for enterprise startups to reach out to
businesses directly, but ofcourse there's a limit to it. In my opinion, its
the brand and visibility you create for yourself (via blogs, media coverage,
backlinks,sensible website) which carries long-term paybacks. If people know
about you, they'll come to you when that specific need arises.

------
bradmilne
Something I see neglected in the comments is emails. I assume you had a life
before you started this venture and have met people in business and personal
situations and emailed back and forth with them.

Your personal email list is one of the best ways to drive initial traffic and
build awareness since:

1\. These people know you and (hopefully) trust you 2\. They're likely more
willing to provide additional connections and introductions

When you have a rough estimate of when you want to launch your startup you
should be emailing the relevant contacts on your list regularly to keep them
up to date on what you're doing and when it will likely be ready. That way
when you launch and are trying to drive traffic you already have an initial
audience who can forward it on to their contacts.

Past that... yes you should definitely emailing relevant writers with your
story, blogging, and generally creating as much great content as possible and
seeding it online in the places that matter to your startup.

~~~
americandesi333
What you have mentioned above "Your personal email list is one of the best
ways to drive initial traffic and build awareness" only holds true if they are
your 'right audience'.

When we first launched a closed beta for my startup LearningJar, we ran an
experiment of sending it to my contacts and then to people that had genuinely
showed interested. What I quickly found out is that your friends/contacts will
not be as engaged because they dont have a need and further more, they will
not be honest with you because they want to encourage what you are doing.

On the other hand, 'real' users will give you real feedback that will make a
more effective awareness campaign.

Therefore, it means a lot more if a complete stranger finds my product
valuable and then promotes it to others than my friends doing it just because
they like me.

------
alexobenauer
People always say "blogging" and I always hated that response. I didn't see
the direct benefit; it seemed like a waste of time doing the wrong thing.

But in my experience over the past year, it's surprisingly beneficial. Blog
about related topics, helpful resources, etc. That's where a majority of our
links pour in from on a typical day.

~~~
kolinko
+1. Blogging is an excellent SEO technique.

------
jfoster
I think the answer depends on your startup. Social startups have a nice
advantage in usually having a viral mechanism. Anything that's sufficiently
better than what's already out there will often be something that people want
to tell their friends/colleagues about. That's reliable, but from what I've
seen word-of-mouth does take a bit longer than most people would expect.
There's countless ways, but none can guarantee large volumes of traffic unless
you have a similarly large budget. This is part of what makes starting a
startup so difficult.

------
orangethirty
_Grab a cup of coffee, this is going to be long._

Let me get a couple of things out of the way first. Your startup is not your
website. The website is the store front. What you are asking about is not
promoting the startup but about how to design a good marketing plan. A
marketing plan is a combination of marketing tools/resources combined and used
to achieve one goal: profitable sales.

Ok, now let's talk about the two different ways you can approach this problem.
In marketing there are two main audiences: general and direct. The genereal
audience is anyone and everyone that may read/listen/watch your marketing
tool. The direct audience is composed of people who are the most likely to buy
your product because they have bought a similar product or fit your ideal
customer description (The ideal customer descirption is basically you saying
that people who bought X, have Y, carry a given credit card, live in Z are
most likely to buy my product).

Ok, which do you use? In my experience, marketing to a general audience is a
waste of resources, because it just eas away too much time and money. It is
also harder to measure and keep track of. The direct approach has always
proven itself to be, well, direct. It is completely measurable, and depending
on the marketing tool being used, can be modified on the fly to see if
something works better. Direct marketing is about talking directly to the
customer. The best definition I can come up with is that it is as if you were
sending a professional sales person through your marketing tool. If your tool
is a targeted email, then imagine as if you were sending a sales person
through the email message and the sales person pitching the sales message to
your prospect directly. This is why direct marketing is has a better
profit/cost ratio. It allows you to test, test, test marketing tools directly
with the customer without having to buy expensive advertising campaigns/spots.

What are some good direct marketing tools? Almost all marketing tools
available out there can be used as direct marketing. TV? The late night
commercials selling pots and pans are evidence that it works. Radio? Same.
Print? You betcha. The question should be: what combination of marketing tools
do I have to use to make up a good marketing plan? Let's answer that below.

What you want is to: first, define your ideal customer description. If you
don't have a clue, then look at your competitors. Who is buying their
products? Second, find how can you reach those prospects. Is it through email?
Regular mail? A video brochure sent to their office on a thumb drive? A skype
call? A telephone call? Third, find out how they buy. Some people (include
companies) buy when presented with a lot of print materials. Others require a
sales person to visit them. Other might enjoy a night out drinking. Find that
out.

The point to the marketing plan is to define a general multi-step pattern that
will allow you to duplicate any succesful marketing efforts without much
problem. For your business it might be a direct sales letter inviting the
customer to visit your website to watch a two minute video presentation. Then
a scripted telephone call with the customer that will focus on answering any
questions. Then if you cant close on the sale, an email highliting your
offerings, and giving the person a chance to get some special order. And so
on.

When you think of marketing, don't think of funnels. Think of ladders. What
steps do people have to take in order to get them to where you want to.

Ok, break time. Think of puppies for ten seconds. Now back to this.

What are some good marketing tools that you can start with? Depends on your
business. It really does. I can't give you any insight into this because I
dont know if you sell cars, chairs, or helicopters. The product has a lot to
do with how you market it. You don't market a Rolls-Royce in a shitty youtube
video, just like you don't market cheap web hosting on the Wall Street
Journal. The internet does make this a bit simple. You can create a simple
marketing plan to get things rolling. In general terms, an email campaign is a
good start. But how do you get those email addresses?

Welcome to the second part of this post.

Have people find you. This is going to sound wrong, and against everything
I've said about direct marketing. But, direct marketing is not a one way deal.
Direct is about talking directly to your customer. Doesnt matter who starts
the conversation, as long as it takes place. You can make people find you by
creating content that they find valuable. Things like blog posts, newsletters,
podcasts are great tools that allow you to start a conversation with the
people that want/need your product. Just dont fall into the trap of limiting
your marketing to these tools only. It is a huge mistake to do so, because it
limits how much you can sell.

Create a good landing page (a squeeze page), a blog, the miriad of social
accounts and what-nots, and start crunching out valuable content. Do you sell
diapers? Talk about diaper rash, diaper fitting, how to dispose of diapers
properly, but dont talk directly about the diapers you sell. You want to give
people a taste of your knowledge, and then have them give you their email
address so they can learn more. Information is priceless. People will feel
indebted when you give it away for free. Remember that.

What about those bloggers, journalists, and news people? Forget about them
(for now). Not worth your time. Focus on getting the customers directly. Fact:
if you sell enough of your product, the bloggers/journalists will come
knocking on _your_ door.

Now, some random thoughts, because it is 10:10 PM and I have to go to sleep.

\-- Talk to everyone you know about your product. Just do it casually.

\-- Do not be afraid of selling. If you can't pick up the phone and call a
customer, then work on that first. In fact, email me and I'll call you! Email
in my profile.

\-- Realize that marketing is a full-time job. In fact, it is the most
important job in your startup/business. Become fairly good at marketing and
your business will grow.

\-- Your startup is a business. The word startup is wrong. Think of it as a
small business. Just because you dont have a bick and mortar store front
doesnt change the fact that it is a business. A business lives or dies on
marketing.

\-- Your startup is not about the software. Whatever you sell is your product.
Dont obsses about: programming language (pick whatever makes it easier to
prototype), framework (ditto), design too much (make it pretty but dont go
broke on designers), the website, the name, the address, the office chair or
desk (the $22 desk was interesting, but unless you sell desks it wont help you
much). Focus on selling the product. Not on the produc itself.

\-- Email people in the industry (the industry you are selling to). Do you
know how much valuable contacts I've made by just sending an email with the
words: Hi, I really like what you are doing with X. Wish you great luck with
it. Tace care, orangethirty. Do you what happens next? They either ignore me
(which saves me the hassle of dealing with assholes) or (most likely) they
will answer with a thank you. Most will ask what is it that you do, and the
rest is just easy. Dont be afraid to email people. You are not spamming them.
You want to meet and ge to know them. Most people are worth meeting, even if
through an email.

\-- Print some nice business cards, but dont pay more than $50 for them. Also
dont hand them out to everyone.

\-- Advertise your email address, and please dont put a contact or sales
@yourstartup.com. Use your name or a fictional name. Makes people less
resistant to contacting you.

\-- Read some marketing books.

\-- Hire a good copywriter. If you need help with this, email me. I can help
you with making the choice. The words used to sell your product must be
carefully engineered. Just like you dont write variable names like this
amount_ofProduct_leftOn_inventoryPer_disctrict, you jus dont write sales copy
without a basic guideline.

\-- Realize that marketing != lots of money. It does require a lot of thought
and detail.

\-- Realize that everything Ive said may not work for you. Huh? Maybe you can
sell your product with a SEO campaign and a landing page. But that would still
constitute a marketing plan. So think about that for a second.

\- Be open to new ideas. You know who is rich? The guys that decided to sell
advertisements through internet searching (yeah, google). Test all ideas, and
be open to re-testing them in the future. Dont label anything permanently.

\-- Reach out and help people. Good sales can come from helping local
organizations with their needs.

\-- Above all, dont ever, ever think that marketing doesnt work. It does work.
You just have to become good at it.

\-- All free advice is cheap advice. And cheap advice dont work. Hit some
books, contact some professionals, and get working.

Ok, so now I have to go. Sorry for the huge post, and I deeply apologize for
the mess of a post Ive made. Im tired and need to sleep.

If you need any help, just shoot me an email.

PS. I dont want to sell you anything. Hell, I dont have anything to sell. This
post is not some thin-velied attempt at getting some gigs.

------
ravejk
A lot of people are saying "it depends" - I totally agree. Some products are
built to spread virally, others need to acquire users/customers via
advertisement.

Eric Ries has some really interesting thoughts on this topic. Check out this
blog post: [http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2008/11/what-is-
custome...](http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2008/11/what-is-customer-
development.html)

------
majani
Degrade yourself. Do stupid, Richard Branson-style stunts(seriously). When it
works, it works REALLY well. Examples:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX5aaXQ1maU>

and

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giYK-IT0-xE>

------
SuperChihuahua
Look through these: [http://www.ideaoverload.com/Find-ideas/Finished-
ideas/Media-...](http://www.ideaoverload.com/Find-ideas/Finished-ideas/Media-
about-sales-marketing/)

...including "Kevin Rose - Taking your Site from One to One Million Users"
among others

------
vitomd
Making a startup is not about coding or ideas. You have to learn a lot (some
boring stuff) that will help to reach your goal. Learn marketing, negotiation,
social media, blogging, bussiness management, how to treat your customer.
After this you will have the answer

------
reilly3000
Watch This, Twice: [http://hackersandfounders.tv/RDmt/rand-fishkin-inbound-
marke...](http://hackersandfounders.tv/RDmt/rand-fishkin-inbound-marketing-
for-startups/)

------
ahmedaly
I am going to target home and small businesses in particular for my startup:
<http://www.ecompucloud.com>

I am still confused about how to promote and how much should I spend.. but
thinking that maybe facebook ads are much cheaper than google and can be
longer in term if promoting the facebook page.

~~~
handzhiev
I'm sorry but I really hate "for the rest of us" slogan. Who are the rest? Who
are the others that are not the rest of us? Why is it for the rest of us? It's
a cliche that makes no sense. Change it.

~~~
ahmedaly
I mean its for the average joe.. non technical people.

I am changing it now anyway.

------
youngdev
For my startup <http://www.jackpotbuddy.com> we are doing the following:

1\. Creating Facebook/Twitter presence (1900 followers on both) 2\. Creating
blog with good content 3\. Contacting other bloggers who are in same domain
4\. Using Google analytic to analyze our traffic and trends 5\. Sharing on HN,
Digg and Reddit 6\. Google Adwords

