A heads up for all of you building apps on Bubble:
So, the hardest part is the marketing? Any tips?
Not really qualified to offer tips on this just yet. But I can tell you it’s a hellscape.
I can offer one…build out your content managment system first and the landing page, then go live with it, let the SEO strategy start before commencing full development work and saving some potential user emails via landing page form, that way your domain is starting to gain traction through the content and hopefully gaining some SEO driven organic search traffic and you are collecting emails of potential early adopters.
There are tons of simple strategies to implement for marketing…best place to start is reading some book summaries on the topic, they all boast the same 4 basic principles, the most important is to provide value before you ever attempt to extract value.
Providing value can come in the form of information or a simple tool, whether it be a checklist or a calculator, but tools get great SEO benefits and drive organic search. The extraction of value is that idea of the ‘sell’…don’t try to sell until you’ve provided some value.
Interesting post.
I would say though that the product is the most important thing.
The problem though…
is most people look for a product first.
The first thing anyone should look for is a problem. The bigger the pain point the problem causes, the bigger the income.
Then, after the problem is found, the next question is if your solution is a prevention or a cure.
Preventions do poorly in the world of making money.
Cures are where the money is.
You can solve the problem of skinny people becoming obese…but few will want your solution.
Or, you can solve the problem of people who are already obese…and make more money.
You see very few diet products aimed at skinny or people who are already in shape from being overweight.
On the other hand the diet industry…
this principle is for any product.
Also, as was said, your marketing should have already began before you start building out your app.
Testers are important. They’re cheaper than advertising. Plus, with the right testers they’re your spokespeople that spread the word.
Thanks for the post. I thought it was interesting to see someone else’s point of view.
Added: If you don’t see your product as being a cure, there are a ton of ways you can make it one. Smart marketing with the right set of skills can do wonders.
Problems with SEO:
Still important long-term, not discounting it, but I haven’t really messed around with SEO since I’d probably want to use Ghost for that instead of Bubble.
My product is both a prevention and a cure. The problem is, it happens to be a car, and people still only trust their horses.
Great marketing and a product that offers a cure.
Good marketing is only good if you understand human psychology.
Walmart etc. spends billions a year understanding human psychology.
Car ads understand how to make a car a cure, and do it very well.
Pieter levels found great success with his vibe-coded flight sim on X, but he also already has a big following that he leveraged extremely well.
I guess it depends on what kind of product you are building
Nice.
I have 2 Land Rovers…so I’m probably part of the ‘cure’ thing.
Human psychology says everyone has the desire to be liked, thought highly of, respected for what they’ve achieved…etc.
Notice the car ads? They play to their target audience in solving a problem.
Rolex? It’s a status symbol.
Problems are solved with helping people achieve their pyschological desires.
If your product doesn’t help people achieve their goals of fitting in, fulfilling desires, etc., you need to rethink your approach.
It’s the barnum effect for human psychology:
He could sell anything and find great success with his follower count. That exact same product would be a mere curiosity if made by anyone else. X in general is like that, it doesn’t matter what you tweet, it matters who is tweeting it. You can copy and paste a very popular tweet to test this out yourself.
So, one last thing about this…
let’s say you’re selling a can opener.
Cure would be you’ve tried others and they were cheap and didn’t work, or didn’t last long and this one is the answer.
Testimonials would show you’re about to make a good decision.
Problem solved if you buy this can opener.
Always, always, always, position your product as a cure…you’ll make more money and be happier with your advertising results.
Human psychology hasn’t changed throughout history. Pull the right levers and you’ll win every single time.
That only works once you have a following.
You talked about the Duolingo Owl.
That wasn’t what got the users…
it is merely a viral thing the current users like.
That’s not why I mentioned it.
Ok I understand.
Great posts!
A few things to add
Thinking about it…from a business perspective much more value could be added when there was a NoCode solution for marketing/sales/distribution!
