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7 Game-Changing Solopreneur Marketing Tips

Solopreneurs are different. And it's no surprise they need unique marketing tips. We collected 7 that you should really listen to.

7 Game-Changing Solopreneur Marketing Tips
7 Solopreneur Marketing Tips

One day you came up with a mind-blowing product idea. You were 100% sure that everyone needed this solution. It will save time, increase productivity level, and double sales. You started building...

... Release! Zero sales and one active user on the website (you). Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, opening Google, searching for marketing tips.

You're reading incredible success stories about Apple, Tesla, Instagram, Coca-Cola, and Crocs. Motivation skyrockets. Forbes 30 under 30 is around the corner...

...Release 2.0. Paid ads, 1 SEO article in your blog (about the release), 1o self-promotion tweets in your Twitter account. And yeah, still zero sales.

Why do marketing tips not work? 🤔

The answer is pretty simple. It depends on the business size, your niche, and your target audience. You need to come up with YOUR unique approach for YOUR audience and YOUR product. Copy-pasting successful methods from others won't help.

Especially it works when we're talking about solopreneur business:

  • you don't have enough time to test all the marketing ideas
  • you don't have a massive marketing budget
  • you don't have a cash pillow from VC, so you need fast results

That's why you won't find advice that 100% fits your product. You need to experiment and come up with your marketing strategy through trial and error.

In this article, I'll give you 10 tips to figure out YOUR marketing strategy.

1. Invest time in understanding your target audience 👥

If you skip this step, the other 6 won't help you. Sorry, but to succeed, you have to talk with your potential customers.

You need to understand their context, motivation, pains, and barriers to buy. Always remember that you can't know better what they need. Also, even they won't tell you what they need (because they don't know). Tricky situation, isn't it?

But don't worry. The thing is that you don't need to ask questions about your product or imaginary possible solutions.

Instead, find answers to the following 6 questions.

  1. What pain point are you solving?
  2. What negative consequences do your users face if the problem is not solved?
  3. What positive gains does your target audience seek?
  4. What target audience segments are the easiest to win?
  5. What trends influence consumer behavior in your target audience?
  6. What proof do you have to validate previous answers?
👀
Understanding your target audience is one of the ten must-have solopreneur skills in 2023.

2. Double down on distribution 🔔

Don't try to write the best article on the Internet. Instead, write a good enough article that will be seen by thousands of people and will result in multiple purchases of your product. This is a big difference.

💡
The same rule applies to launching your product.

Build a good enough first version and launch it everywhere.

✍️ Writing the best article on the Internet = focusing on the content.

📢 Writing a good enough article that will be seen by thousands of people = focusing on distribution.

To succeed, you need to know the platforms where your audience is active. As soon as you find them:

  • create helpful content around your product
  • repackage your articles in discussions or stories
  • connect with people

Here's an example of content distribution:

Thread about content distribution

3. Always experiment 🪄

This tip is not practical. It's more about mindset.

The digital world is a very fast-changing environment. New marketing opportunities and trends appear daily.

If you stick to 1 channel that works for you, then you can lose everything in one day. Twitter algorithms can change, TikTok can be banned in country X, and Instagram can create new promo rules. That's life.

On the other hand, a new social network can gain popularity extremely fast. If you miss it, it'll be harder to build a brand there.

Another example is pricing. If you don't raise prices, you'll never know whether the conversion to purchase changes or not. Think about it 🤔

4. Grow your personal brand 🧲

This tip is extremely important for solopreneurs. A personal brand helps to raise awareness and does marketing for you.

❌ Without personal brand: cold DMs to Podcast hosters, outreaching media to write a guest article, searching manually for beta-testers.

✅ With personal brand: getting invitations on Podcasts, choosing between different media to publish a guest article, ask followers to beta-test your product.

But be prepared: it takes time and requires consistent efforts. You can learn more about growing your personal brand on Twitter from articles in MakerBox Blog.

5. Focus on quick wins 🚀

One goal can be achieved in different ways.

🐌 You can get 100 visitors by spending 12 months on SEO.

🚀 You can get 100 visitors by writing one good tweet.

In this example, the right choice is obvious. But in real life, entrepreneurs tend to choose tips from the first SEO article: start a blog, automate everything, invest in logo and domain name. Don't do it.

Instead, find low-effort / high-reward marketing ideas for your product and nail them first. Being efficient is a tremendous leverage.

6. Avoid dark mode. #buildinpublic 📺

Choose a platform (Twitter, Indie Hackers, Product Hunt discussions). Share your wins and loses, product updates and learnings. When you #buildinpublic, you:

  • find community support from like-minded solopreneurs
  • get feedback
  • get first customers
  • find interviewees from your target audience (hello, tip #1)

Moreover, it's a good start to grow your personal brand. If you build in public, you don't struggle with finding content ideas.

Tweet about building in public

7. Make a marketing planning 📈

Yeah, you probably have just left 9-5 job in a corporation. Deleted Zoom, Skype, Teams, Outlook, and Yammer.

You don't want to do planning. But I highly recommend you to. Yes, I'm talking about planning marketing activities.

Effective planning boosts your Go-To-Market Strategy through the roof.

Here're 5 quick tips to make it effective:

  • Monthly -> Weekly -> Daily goals. Nothing works better than a cascade model. At the beginning of the month, plan monthly goals. Week - weekly. Day - daily.
  • Don't forget about life tasks. They influence your productivity a lot. You can make a huge list of work tasks, but 1 life task (ex. visit a bank branch) can ruin it. So, include them in your daily tasks.
  • Don't set a goal if you don't know how to reach it. There's a high chance that you won't start this task at all. Have a to-do list for all goals that you set. If you can't do it, plan a brainstorm or postpone.
  • Abstract goal = no goal. Add numbers and deadlines.
  • Make it a habit. Don't skip planning. Get used to it.

Conclusion

Don't try to find any shortcuts and hacks. Don't try to copy marketing strategies from competitors. Be prepared that good and healthy marketing takes time. The good news is that it pays off 💸

We know that it’s hard to find a marketing strategy that fits Indie Products. Especially in the user acquisition area. That's we've created a solution for it.