A handpicked and time proven marketing and growth articles and tools to grow your product🚀
Often creat ideas needs some extra nudge to lift off. After building a productivity tool for mobile app developers and early stage companies, we understood that our struggles with marketing and growth were not unique. We listed down some resources that helped us to find product marketing fit, grow the first user base, understand our target group and scale without a massive budget or human resources.
Over the past 4 years our marketing team at Codemagic CI/CD by Nevercode:
- launched Codemagic in cooperation with Google on Flutter Live event and Testmagic on Mobile World Congress Barcelona Google stage.
- Rebranded successfully Nevercode and Codemagic brand into tool that develpers love according to Google survey.
- Developed and executed a comprehensive content strategy based on extensive SEO analytics. Growing a highly technical blog to 64K blog visitors/ month in 1.5 years.
We listed down articles, videos, spreadsheets, podcasts that have helped us closer where we are today! Furthermore, we are sharing marketing stack we use to keep track on our activities and success! Note that the list of the marketing activities goes in order that it made sense for us to start as an early stage company. Please feel free to use this collection to boost your ideas and add your best picks, hacks with other husslers out there✨ Simply submit a Pull Request with respect to our Contribution Guidelines.!
"It's easier to invent the future than to predict it" - Alan Kay
Only one factor predict’s a product’s success and it's having product/market fit! Do you have clear understanding who is your ideal paying customer (buyer persona) and what's your copetitive advantage compared to your competitors? What are your user pressing needs, motivations and decision-making process? Only really talking to customers and understanding what they are trying to achive helps you to nail the marketing messages and choose channels that will reach the right target group. Last but not least scale your product by spending time on building product roadamap that users need and love!
To reach your product marketing fit there's no magic but really talking to your users and understanding what problems are they are trying to solve. Your responsibility is to dig into it by asking the right questions and embrace the feedback.
- Part 4: The only thing that matters by Marc Andreesen, who originally coined ‘Product/Market Fit’
- When has a consumer startup hit product/market fit? by Andrew Chen. Don’t just find a market — find a great market!
- Step 1: It Begins with Product Market Fit by Ryan Holiday. How did Airbnb, Instagram, Amazon , AppSumo and many other find their market fit? Inspiring read from todays gigants.
- How Identify Your Competitors and Surpass Their Marketing Strategies by photoslurp team. A simple 2-step process to developing a winning marketing strategy by running a competitor analysis.
Buyer personas is a detailed representation of your ideal client based on market research and real data. All the aspects you are able to add to understand the democraphics, behaviour patterns, pain points, motivations and goals. As a result, you will be able to attract the most valuable visitors, leads, and customers to your business.
- What Does a Great Buyer Persona Look Like? Dissecting 3 Real-Life Examples by Lisa Toner.
- The Ultimate Guide to Developing Buyer Personas (with Templates!) by Elise Dopson.
- The Mom test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you by Rob Fitzpatric. How to ask the "right" questions to ascertain whether there is real customer pain or not.
- Using PMFSurvey.com (formerly Survey.io) Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a simple survey, asking customers to rate from 1–10, “How likely are you to recommend xxx to a friend or colleague?” A nice way to understand weather your your product is good enough to drive sustainable, scalable customer growth or not!
The Saddest thing that can happen to a startup is for nobody to care when it disappears - Rob Fitzpatrick
How to create compelling value proposition that resonates with your buyer personas?
- How to Run A/B Tests that Actually Increase Conversions by Eric Siu. Data speaks for itself. How to A/B test anything, including copy, images, messaging, videos, etc and increase conversions.
- How to Craft (Or Pivot) Your Agency Value Proposition. Tom Whatley will show you the journey they took to finding our place in the market by testing, pivoting, and re-pivoting our serving offerings and value propositions so you can grow your agency faster, without fewer wrong turns.
- The Ultimate Guide to No-Pain Copywriting (or, Every Copywriting Formula Ever by Joanna Wiebe
Online surveys for feedback:
- Google Forms for making online surveys
- Typeform beatiful way to draft compelling online surveys
PS! We experienced 40% better responce rate after adding "receive gift card in-exchange for the feedback"
User statistics
- Google Analytics web analytics service to track and report website traffic.
- Visual Website Optimizer for A/B testing.
- Google Optimize free website optimization for testing website content.ampl
- Amplitude for product stats to understand your users.
- Metabasefor marketing stats.
- Grafana for custom dashboards
- Smartlook for user journey recordings.
- Hotjar for heatmaps and behavior analytics.
Competitive data tools:
Why is it important? SEO and content marketing always go together. There’s no SEO without content.
Organic search is a critical part of the customer’s research process, especially for products with a long sales cycle. The higher you rank in the Google search results pages, the more traffic your site will get
SEO is cost-effective and it also improves user experience, making it more likely for customers to become repeat buyers.
51 percent of all website traffic comes from organic search!
- 60+ Mind-Blowing Search Engine Optimization Stats by Danny Goodwin - this article gives you some solid statistics that prove the true importance of SEO and why you can’t ignore it.
- The Compounding Effect of SEO by Eli Shwartz - why SEO is a good long-term investment for any business
- Why Is SEO a Long Term Process?by WEBENITO Digital Media - SEO is a long-term strategy and even with excellent tactics, it can still take months to see results.
- White Hat vs. Black Hat vs. Gray Hat SEO: What’s the Difference? by Helen Pollitt - Don’t try to trick Google with some “quick hacks”, history shows that you’ll get penalized by Google sooner or later. Learn the difference between these approaches. * Top 7 Ranking Signals: What REALLY Matters in 2020by Anna Crowe - SEO is nothing without valuable content to page speed and backlinks.
In order to start driving leads from search engines, you’ll need to come up with a strategic plan for your SEO.
- Ultimate Guide to the Ultimate Guides to B2B SEO [2021] by Annika Helendi - this article summarizes the best practices of all the top SEO strategy guides for 2020 and 2021.
- How to Build a Growth-Focused Search Strategy for Every Stage of the Funnelby Tyler Hakes - great tactical approach to SEO and content marketing strategy.
- What makes you rank in Google
Keyword research is the cornerstone of your SEO efforts.
- How to Do Keyword Research for SEO by Tim Soulo (Ahrefs) - very specific step-by-step tutorial on how to do proper keyword research.
- Keyword Research: The Definitive Guide (2020) by Backlinko - another comprehensive keyword research guide with advanced tips and strategies
- 10 Free Keyword Research Tools (That Aren’t Google Keyword Planner) by Josh Hardwick (Ahrefs) - use these free tools for keyword research if you don’t have the budget for the premium tools.
Optimize your website and existing content for the search engines based on your target keywords list:
- What are On-Page Ranking Factors for SEO? By Moz - learn what elements of the page you need to optimize to get the best results.
- On-Page SEO: The Definitive Guide by Backlinko - complete guide to optimizing your site for the search engines
- Technical SEO Checklist by SEMrush - make sure that on the technical side your site is set up in a Google-friendly way.
Create new content that could start ranking in Google and bring in new organic search traffic.
- Growing B2B SaaS with SEO and Content Marketing [2021] by Annika Helendi - learn the best practices of SEO-focused content marketing for B2B SaaS startups
- The 10 Types of Content That Work Best for SEO by Rand Fishkin - it’s not only about blog posts, there are also other types of content that work well for SEO
- 17 Blogging Tips For Beginners (That Actually Work) by Si Quan Ong (Ahrefs) - if you’re out of ideas or need some extra motivation, these tactical tips will get you going.
- Developer Marketing Guide Part 4 by Catchy - specific content marketing tactics that seem to work well if you are targeting developers.
- 10x content strategy is simple but powerful
- How to Refresh Old Blog Posts for SEO [Guide + Checklist]](https://jessicagreene.marketing/blog/how-to-refresh-old-blog-posts/) by Jessica Green.
Getting quality backlinks is very important for SEO
- The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly of Link Building by Moz - understand the risks and rewards of black-hat and white-hat link building strategies
- 9 EASY Link Building Strategies (That ANYONE Can Use) by Josh Hardwick - get started with some easier link building tactics.
- 45 Amazing Places to Share Your Blog Post And Get Huge Traffic (2020) by Andy Mathews
- 10 Smart Ways to Earn or Build Backlinks to Your Website by Felix Tarcomnicu.
- [How to Get High Quality Backlinks in 2020 (7 New Strategies)]https://backlinko.com/high-quality-backlinks](https://backlinko.com/high-quality-backlinks)by Brian Dean. Author shares his 7 strategies that have helped his site rack up 203k total backlinks!
Free tools
- Google Search Console - the best place to see what exact keywords and content pieces are getting impressions and clicks on Google search results.
- Ubersuggest - free keyword research tool that helps you see related keywords, their search volumes and competition.
- Answerthepublic - discover what people are Googling and get ideas for your content calendar.
- HARO - sign up for the daily email newsletter and start pitching yourself as a source to different publications in order to build high-quality backlinks.
Premium tools
- Ahrefs - very reliable and comprehensive SEO tool with lots of features. Best option if your focus is more on the link building aspect of SEO.
- SEMrush - top SEO tool with lots of features. Best option if your focus is more on the content creation aspect of SEO.
- 30 Steps to Mobile App Launch by Alex Walz
- How to Launch on Product Hunt by Product Hunt team
- Master Checklist for Launching on Product Hunt (spreadsheet) by SpreadShare team
What is email marketing and why you need it?
- A crash course on B2B email marketing by Outfunnel team. Over 10 emails you will learn how to create irrestistible emails!
- Email Marketing - definite guide https://backlinko.com/email-marketing-guide
- The Big Email Marketing Teardown: Learning From The Very Best by Andrus Purde
- Could these 3 little-known conversion triggers jack up sales in your email campaign?by Ry Schwartz and Joanna Wiebe
- 14 Ways to Improve Deliverability
- 10 cold email tips I used to get 60,000 signups by Dunja Lazić
- The 10 Best Email Marketing Campaigns by omnisend copy
- [NEWSLETTER]Turn digital traffic into tangible revenue by Steven MacDonald
What is social media marketing and why you need it?
- How to Find and Target Your Social Media Audience (Free Template) by Hootsuite. Identify and understand your niche to dominate the indusrty.
- How to Conduct a Social Media Competitive Analysis (Free Template) by Hootsuite. How to stay ahead of the competition and win?
- How I Manage a Social Media Platform of Over 11 Million Followers Every Day
- http://www.jeffbullas.com/2016/08/11/5-powerful-social-media-hacks-ramp-digital-strategy/
- 11 Free Services for Scheduling Social Media Updates by Mashable
- 9 Social Media Templates to Save You Hours of Work by Hootsuite. Useful templates from planning and creating content, to publishing posts and measuring results. Ritetag Find relevant hastags
- Followerwonk - Find data for your Twitter users
- [Buzzsumo]
- Unsplash
- Pablo allows you to customize pictures with simple edits and quotes
- [Grammarly] checks your grammar as well as your spelling
- [bitly] link! Bitly links saves you time and most importantly character space!
- Facebook Ad Campaign Structure - Best Practices in 2020 by Karola Karlson
- [eBook] 50 Facebook Ad Examples We Actually Clicked by HubSpot
- Forget the Images: Long Facebook Ad Copy Works by Sarah Sal & Joanna Wiebe. Image vs copy - who is the mightiest of them all?
- How to Gain 100k Monthly Twitter Impressions by Jeff Bullas
How data helps your better marketing decisions. How to make sense of data?
- (https://optinmonster.com/how-to-measure-content-marketing-roi-metrics/)[How to Measure Your Content Marketing ROI + 7 Metrics That Matter] by Jacinda Santora
What are product listings and why it's useful to use them?
- Stackshare
- GetApp
- Capterra
- Product Hunt
- Slant
- G2 Crowd provide lasting results with minimal effort
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How to start an Open Source projectby Dmitriy Strukov
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https://medium.freecodecamp.org/how-to-start-an-open-source-project-in-new-years-945bad8800d7
Massive appreciation for who suggested pieces of content (or wrote something new) for this collection for startup hasslers: These collections can always get better, and I hope that they do. If you can think of anything that was missed, I welcome you to share it. To share your thoughts, improvements or additions: Email or Twitter.