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Eric Ries has some really interesting thoughts on this topic. Check out this blog post: http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2008/11/what-is-custome...
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 principl…
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.
It's also worth mentioning that blogging gives you a great way to go after the long tail.
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…
Once you have an arsenal of content, find sites like forbes, techmeme, and the like that publish non-staff writers (they usually have a "write for us" link somewhere) and reach out to some of the independent writers. Do a little googling and see where else they publish.
Once you get an article up, push it as hard as you can. Blast your friends and family to like, share, upvote, and whatnot. If you don't have friends or family, buy some. You want that article to look valuable (and it should be if you spent enough money on it) because this will be the foundation of your relationships with other bloggers.
Shameless plug: these first couple steps are what my company does - email's in my profile.
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 principl…
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 principl…
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 principl…
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
"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.
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!
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.
Can you tell us a little bit more about your planned product and brand?
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…
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.