Ask HN: Launching side project in 2wks with $4k mktg budget. How do I spend it?

I’m working on a similar project at the moment - marketing a relatively niche book to a quite specific market (though very different to this one - an examination of how money moves through the digital music streaming ecosystem, targeting people working deep in the music business).

It’s hard to say “spend $x here and $y on this”. But here are 20 things that you can try.

Some things we are doing or will try, and in no particular order:

1. You’ve not got any pixels on this site. You probably want to use them ASAP as many people who are hitting this page won’t necessarily buy immediately, and so you will probably want to remarket them.

2. Worth doing a couple of what MarketingBro types call tripwires - a reduced version of your content (but that still gives some value) for which you charge a relatively nominal amount like $5. This gives you a qualified lead but also lets you take that $5 and roll it into further marketing.

3. In a similar vein - worth providing a couple of free “checklist” or cheat sheet type resources - and then a little drip email campaign showing the value in your book. Get an email address. Look at engagement across the emails (use email octopus or something similar to monitor clicks and opens) and make a personal offer to people as they give signals that look like they are engaged.

4. Maybe think about also upselling book sales into an e-learning product.

5. Embed the newsletter sign up button in that page, don’t make me click. This is your primary way to get potential leads.

6. Sharing content when you have a pixel in place is a good way to start building audiences to market to.

7. Think about the different channels you can use to market - site like hn, Reddit, Twitter. Offer genuine value so that you’re not just spamming tide the thing you are shilling.

8. Find relevant Facebook groups and other communities where you audience hangs out.

9. Set up a Facebook page for your book (either with the name of the book or your name, and focus on you as the brand).

10. Join groups as your page.

11. Share a video explainer to those groups about why you made the book and the value it offers. Plug the first chapter (or one of the pieces of content above) in exchange for an email address. By sharing the video as your page you can pixel the people who watch and retarget.

12. Spend on good video content.

13. Work out who your audience actually is - what age they are, where they live. Who has $50 to drop on your book and why?

14. Use something like dux-soup to do some automated LinkedIn lead gen, but again, light tough is important here, and ensure you are giving real value. Maybe focus first of all on finding 20 people who you can give the book to for free who will give you strong testimonials - ideally video. Work out what that testimonial should say. Target based on criteria that make sense for your audience - first or second job in dev roles.

15. You can probably target Facebook ads against people who have completed various coding boot camps or other criteria.

16. Use your personal experience as a hook. For this sort of thing my gut feeling is that a personal approach will appeal much more than a fake “corporate” identity. I have really struggled with this with one of my clients over the years and he’s finally admitted that trying to present his business as a sizeable concern when actually it’s just him and a couple of other guys punching way above their weight was a mistake. When we finally shifted the way we presented things from “we are a business with 7 divisions” to “this is me and I’m the expert” he got much better results.

17. Check out convertkit (no affiliation).

18. Try some guest blogging focusing on your story and why you wrote the book (and why you are in a position to offer the advice to people). Work out who might carry this content and reach out with a suggested article.

19. Are there any podcasts you can guest on or sponsor?

20. Strategic partnerships - who has a list that this is relevant to? Offer them a commission (“affiliate marketing”) for people who buy through their list - discount coupon is an easy way to track.

Happy to chat more about this - we are both tackling the same thing.