Official-DATS•This week
Good at coding, bad at marketing. Summary
Hello.
I posted a question on what to do if you are good at coding but bad at marketing four days ago, and I received so many responses and tips. The original post is here. I was really glad and excited to read comments.
To return the favor to the community and add some more value, I’ve summarized all the comments I got on the original post.
Here are they, with my personal comments on some of the advice I got.
You’ll never believe it, but the most common advice was to learn. Really, the first and only thing you should start with if you’re bad at marketing is learning. Yet learning could be different. I highlighted 5 main areas.
Educate yourself on general questions.
Learn more about some basics. For example, start by finding out what the 4P’s of marketing are, and afterward, you’ll inevitably run into YouTube videos, seminars, Udemy courses, or any other resource that resonates with you on some ideas/avenues you could pursue.
Read books and watch videos. There are tons of books on marketing and sales. People shared in the comments books by Dan Kennedy and “Cashvertising”, written by Drew Eric Whitman. (I’ve never heard of them, but already ordered on Amazon).
For sales, the most common idea was to start with YouTube videos. For example, Alex Hormozi videos and Startup school delivered by Ycombinator videos.
Check out Indie Hackers and scrutinize it for a piece of good advice from developers in the same situation.
Also, there was advice to follow up and read some guy on Twitter. (Don't want to get unfairly banned from here, so won't post it)
Educate yourself and hire a professional or find a co-founder to help you:
Hire a seasoned marketer in this field to help you out. He will help you achieve cost-efficient scales. But it could be a real problem to find the right person. Marketing agencies are expensive. Try to look on LinkedIn or among your acquaintances. Look for professionals with credentials or extensive experience.
Seek marketing referrals from startups of a similar size/industry. If you don't have those, try to bring a trusted/experienced marketer friend into the intro meetings to help assess whether the service provider knows what they are doing.
Talented freelancers can often get the job done for less than hiring an entire agency.
Look for a co-founder who is savvy in marketing, passionate, and ready to work hard towards mutual success.
Educate and DIY
Being the face of your business is way better than having faceless communication.
The startup checklist is made based on the comments is next:
At least have your product defined. Define your target audience. Set up the goals you want to achieve. Make domain expertise and understand the market and the direction of its development.
The next stage is answering tricky questions: Have you created a business model? How do you plan to compete? What’s your unique selling point? How much do you plan to budget for marketing? Are you planning to work alone, or will you need other devs?
Then you start thinking about clients… You need the exposure to truly understand the customer's pain points and build a product that they love. You need to think about how your clients would think, and you should tailor each step you take for them. Get feedback from your early users if you already have a product. Interview your potential customers to learn how they buy. This will help you narrow your choice of marketing channels.
Get your product or service used by several startups and help them achieve their goals. Endorsements are very valuable marketing assets.
You need a landing to validate your value proposition and start sending traffic, or you can run meta instant form campaigns... It would depend on the category of your startup.
You need a benchmark of the competition's ads both in Meta and Google, blog posts, domain authority, their landing page, and average search volumes.
Do affiliate marketing for your product since it's an effective strategy.
Educate and use AI tools for dealing with marketing.
Build an LLM-based product to automate marketing. (Sounds like an idea for a startup, right?)
Learn following ChatGPT advice. In 1–3 months, you will be another updated person.
Look at marketowl, an AI marketing department for startups and microbusinesses that have no budget or time to do marketing. It will automate the basic tasks your business needs, but it doesn't require your marketing expertise.
Check out AI tools that are delivering very good marketing content (gocharlie, jasper, copyai).
Educate yourself and run socials
Start a blog or YouTube channel where you can share your expertise in coding or anything else you are good at and how your product simplifies life. Engage with your audience on social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn, where you can showcase your industry knowledge.
Start a page on Twitter and an account on Reddit. Follow and read subreddits and pages where your potential customers are. Learn the pain from the inside.
Do not simply promote, people will lose interest immediately. Start by taking focused time to create informational content, so people will eventually be naturally intrigued by what you do and want to support you when they start to “know” you.
Educate your potential users about the value of your product.
Create content based on what ideal customers are asking at the various stages of marketing. e.g., if they are at the beginning of the process, they may use basic language; if they are further down the process, maybe they’ll be specific.
Try to get on podcasts and build as many social links as you can. In other words, don’t live in a shell!
Post regularly, and eventually you’ll find sites or people that are willing to promote for you.
I omitted here all personal help offers and newsletters, however you could find them in the original post.
Hope that will be helpful!
