How to run your own free marketing campaign
How to make people know your brand exists
If you’re struggling with finding the best way to market your product, let me show you an easy way to run your own free marketing campaign that hits your target audience directly.
Now, it goes without saying, but, I’m assuming you’ve done your research and built a product that people actually want to buy.
So, assuming your product has a proven market, here’s the steps you need to take.
Before you do anything, figure out who your customers are.
What desire does your product fulfill? (the desire to…)
Who has this desire? (age, gender, country) This is your demographic.
Fill this in:
My customers are [demographic] who have the desire to [desire]
The Hands-On Method
This method requires some legwork from you. It’s tiring, but also super targeted, which increases the likelihood of conversions. This is ideal for high-ticket products that are more about solving problems that being low-cost commodities like fashion items.
How it generates leads:
Through this method, you’ll be suggesting your product as the solution to people’s desires. This is done either by you finding people and offering your product to them, or by people reaching out to you or your product’s page.
Why it works:
Because you’re connecting with people on an individual basis, the odds of them converting are very high. You effectively become their consultant in the matter, and they’ll feel more confident in your product because at this point, they’ve personally told you their unique issues.
Go on a hunting spree figuring out where they hang out. Some popular platforms:
Reddit
Facebook Groups
Twitter Communities
Discord Servers
Quora
You can use an AI like perplexity.ai and ask it this prompt:
suggest online forums and communities where [demographic] who want to [desire] hang out
Show people that you can help them
Provide advice and commentary on posts and questions that are directly related to your product. Make people realise: “hey, this product can save me so much time”. Contribute to the community instead of trying to take money from its users. This builds trust and respect in your brand and expertise.
You can write problem-solving posts, respond to comments, offer advice, etc. The bottom line is: help people for free to an extent and offer your product as an extension to it.
The Hands-Off Method
This method requires some extra effort at the beginning, but doesn’t require to be constantly talking to people. This is ideal for low-ticket products that need a lot of people to meet your revenue goals, making the above method impractical.
How it generates leads:
Through this method, clients will see your content, and if it relates to a problem they’ve had or if it’s something they want, they will click through and buy.
Why it works:
The average conversion rate of a YouTube video and TikTok is 1%-3%. IG Reels is 4%-5%. Even if you do only 1k views on each platform, that’s already 60-110 buyers. This may seem like a better option, but when you factor in how fast trends change on social media, the probability of a video succeeding becomes heavily-reliant on how vigilant you are of these changes.
Talk about your app on social media
Commit to one type of high-audience medium like shortform videos.
Like before, focus on telling people why your product fulfills whatever desire they have. You can use free tools like Canva and free video editing software to produce your content.
Committing to one type of content allows you to spend more time on a single video and reshare on TikTok, Reels and Shorts. If you don't have time, I hear IG carousels are booming these days.
Types of content:
Shortform videos, longform videos, carousels, image posts
You can also share this content in forums mentioned in the Hands-On Method, but posts get outdated very very easily there and aren’t as easily accessible as public-facing platforms like YouTube or Instagram.
NOTE: once again, ideally provide value to the viewer before asking them to buy. Or, show them how buying will give them the value they need.
In your posts, have a link to your website or wherever it is you sell your app.
This could be a call-to-action in your content itself, or a link somewhere in the pinned comments or the description. If the people who watched your video were convinced that your product is for them, you’ll be converting in no time.
And finally . . .
The final stage of this entire marketing process is building an email list. While not necessary, it is incredibly beneficial.
If you’ve ever given your email to a business, even if it was for a free product, this is why. All companies understand how powerful email is.
Email is used by nearly 4.6 billion people in the world, making it one of the most successful ways to contact anyone at all.
Asking for people’s emails once people click through to your landing page allows you to curate a list of people who willingly opt-in to learning about your business.
Emails are personal and have a 36x higher conversion rate than regular ads or social media posts.
This makes them perfect for:
promoting new products
re-vitalising old products
building brand-attachment by offering free stuff to your subscribers
and so much more!
Probably the easiest platform to build an email list on is ConvertKit (aka Kit). However, email marketing in itself can be daunting and exhausting amidst all of the other work you’d have to deal with when it comes to your business.
Which is why I specialise in helping digital brands and businesses grow their revenue with automated email campaigns on Kit. If you’d like to go all the way with your marketing efforts and start growing with email, reach out to me on Instagram and let’s talk!