Marketing was never my thing.
I had to learn marketing the hard way trying to get inov-ai in front of as many people as possible. Over the past few weeks, I’ve come to understand the power of storytelling, the variety of distribution channels available even to developer–founders, and just how impactful platforms like Reddit can be.
Reddit is a game changer
I knew nothing about Reddit before this. I didn’t even know how it worked.
But after watching a few YouTube videos of SaaS founders sharing how they promoted their products, I discovered this strange platform. At first, it felt a bit weird. But eventually, I figured it out and in short, it’s a gold mine.
Reddit has communities for almost everything. And if you pick the right ones, your users are already there. For inov-ai, which targets small to medium SaaS businesses trying to scale through better understanding of user feedback, there are relevant spaces like r/SaaS, r/SideProject, and many more filled with founders, PMs, and builders.
So I just started talking about the product.
Reddit increased our reach
Another surprising thing about Reddit: if your content is useful or resonates, it can surface fast. A single post can be seen by over 1,000 people.
That’s exactly what happened. In just a few weeks, our website got over 2,000 visits, much of it driven by Reddit.
I also recently discovered that Google is recommending Reddit posts as part of its search results which explains the referral numbers coming from Google. Of course, we did a lot of SEO optimization with inov-ai, but we believe Reddit played a major role in influencing that traffic.
I built new networks on Reddit
Through different posts, I connected with people interested in what we’re building including a potential partners who could help fill our marketing gaps, and others looking to explore integrations.
After that, we saw the need to integrate Calendly directly into our platform. A few days later, we received our very first demo request through the link — which led to a promising conversation and a follow-up meeting, increasing our chances of connecting with even more potential users and partners.
New Landing Page Inspired by Reddit
At one point, I was frustrated that people weren’t spending much time on our site and even worse, they weren’t signing up or subscribing to our services, despite the decent traffic we were receiving.
So, I took that frustration to Reddit and shared a post. The replies were overwhelming, filled with thoughtful and actionable feedback.
Since then, inov-ai has received a complete facelift a revamped landing page with clearer CTAs, social proof from startups we’re working with, and a stronger value narrative.
Here is an example of a thread of good thoughts that we actually applied from linked in. Shout out to who ever the person was!
Final thoughts
If you’re trying to drive traffic to your product, especially in the early stages, try Reddit.
It has specific, engaged communities where people will gladly test, share feedback, and even recommend your product, if it delivers real value.
Best,
Bright