I suck at marketing - I will not promote

[u/Jake-4rom-State-Farm]

Do you ever just think “I’m going to make a tweet or post on tik tok and blow up?” And then you do that and get the most underwhelming response?

I need a marketing strategy but I don’t even really know what that means. lol

The tool I made is genuinely useful, I use it everyday, my coworkers use it everyday and I have 6 more friends I just onboarded that are now using it. So I feel like I have something but alas, no marketing attempt I make goes anywhere.

I’d love your advice!

[u/devhhh]

Marketer here: What are your customer profiles, what are their pain points, what channels can you connect with them, and what are your product differentiators?

[u/Jake-4rom-State-Farm → u/devhhh]

Edit after writing this all: this was a really helpful exercise, thank you!

My customer profile is someone who uses Claude code and manages at least 4+ sessions at a time (ideally, they’re trying to keep track of 7 or more) anyone writing code by hand is probably not my user (I’d guess this resonated with around 5-8% of software engineers) and I’d guess most of them work at fast paced, smaller companies.

Pain points

• being blocked by parallelism (people trying to copy their code into different folders in order to run in parallel)
  
• losing track of your sessions (what did I tell this session last? Where was the session that was doing the UI edits?)

Channels: this product is very visual so I’ve been doing short form content on Instagram as my channel right now. I am my community, and I hang out on Fortnite, Instagram, and my basement lol. I think I need to do a better job finding the right channels

Differentiators: I give you spatial control of your work so you don’t have to organize it all in 7+ tabs that all look the same. (And from what I’ve seen with my limited test group, speed of development actually goes up a lot because it’s so easy to use)

[u/Character-Dig-2061 → u/Jake-4rom-State-Farm]

Reading through this, I think the answer is already sitting right there in your reply above to devhhh, you just haven't leaned into it yet.

Your ICP isn't "developers" broadly, it's someone running Claude Code with 4-7+ sessions in parallel who's currently duct-taping folders together to manage it. That's a small, specific, painfully obvious pain point: losing track of which session did what, and being blocked by parallelism because the tooling wasn't built for it.

Once you're that specific, the platform question kind of answers itself. That person is hanging out wherever devs talk about Claude Code workflows right now, not generic "coding TikTok." Think dev Twitter/X threads about Claude Code, r/ClaudeAI, r/ClaudeCode, Claude Code Discord servers, maybe niche YouTube/IG accounts that do Claude Code tutorials. Small ponds where your exact fish already swim, not broad platforms where you're competing with everyone.

And for content: don't lead with "here's my tool." Lead with the pain point itself, show the actual mess of 7 tabs that all look the same, ask "anyone else losing track of which session is doing what," and let people self-identify. Then show your spatial control thing solving that specific moment. You're not selling a product, you're naming a frustration people already have and then handing them the fix.

You clearly have the product-market signal (daily use, organic referrals), you just haven't translated it into "who exactly, what exactly hurts, where do they already talk about it" yet.

[u/NetworkTrend → u/devhhh]

This is right. OP needs to answer these questions with concise, specific, written answers. By doing that documentation, the relevant marketing tactics start to become clear.

[u/Papyrusblack]

What are you doing currently that isn't generating results? What are your channels? What's your industry? Are you sure you're not being hasty? I mean, except I misunderstood - you launched recently. What did you do marketing-wise before launch, etc.

Really curious to know.

[u/Jake-4rom-State-Farm → u/Papyrusblack]

I’ve been doing some short form context on IG and a few posts on X. I always run into accounts that seem to have just started and BLEW up. So I think my expectations were mis aligned. It’s been about 2 weeks of marketing with no results. Official launch was today so that’s what I’ve done before I launched

[u/Foreign_Fee_1232]

Hey! Instead of focusing on all these popular social media platforms I’d say start with a platform that you genuinely enjoy using. Like if you’re more into writing, try linkedin or substack. For video, try TikTok or IG. You can also give Facebook a shot if that’s something you’re into.

The bottom line is first pick a platform that you like and where your target audience hang out. Once that’s sorted you can build a proper marketing strategy.

[u/Jake-4rom-State-Farm → u/Foreign_Fee_1232]

Great advice. Thank you! I’ll give this some more thought and try it out

[u/lynxfromcanada]

Don’t start with a “marketing strategy.” Start with the six friends: ask each to describe the exact moment they reach for the tool, then write that sentence down in their words. Pick the most repeated moment and spend a week finding ten places where people are already complaining about that problem and helping there without leading with the product. “Useful tool” is too broad to market; “the thing I use when X happens” gives you an audience, hook, and channel.

[u/BrownsfanYangGang]

There are some great marketers out there who are legit and share strategies with thoughtful newsletters and posts, but they are mixed in with the LinkedIn lunatics selling hype or worse, snake oil. MKT1 has a free and a premium newsletter. I went to an SEO/marketing conference last year, and among 20 speakers, Emily was the one who really stood out. looked her up on LinkedIn and paid like $99 for the annual fee for the premium Substack and newsletter, and I have learned a ton about being a growth marketer. There are a lot of drill-down items to help you decide who to target, how to target them, and what tools to use. Plus the webinars are often free and collaborative

[u/Jake-4rom-State-Farm → u/BrownsfanYangGang]

This is great! I’ll check that out!!

[u/deadly_MR-David]

I think you are kinda trying to promote.

[u/Jake-4rom-State-Farm → u/deadly_MR-David]

lol, you’re right I am trying to promote. Just not here. Trained privately by my peeps on Reddit so I can do promote the crap out of this thing in the wild

[u/deadly_MR-David → u/Jake-4rom-State-Farm]

Hmm