Go All-In On Promoting Your Idea... or Go Home

In this series, professionals share how they embrace the entrepreneurial mindset. See the stories here, then write your own (use #BetheBoss in the post).

When Jared and I started HotelTonight, we were convinced we had an amazing idea: great hotels at great last-minute prices, all wrapped up in a sleek and easy-to-use product. Naturally, everyone would love it! But realistically, we knew how hard it is to get people to pay attention to a new product, let alone use it (even if said product is stellar).

So we wanted to do everything possible — and then some — to get the word out. We decided to go all-in on marketing, both in time and budget (though we didn’t actually have a ton of budget; HotelTonight spent only $300k during its first seven months). I started by making a list of everything we could possibly to do get our name out there. What I’d realized: you need total willingness to do what it takes to stand out. It will probably feel uncomfortable. But you have to work incredibly hard to get someone’s attention. I equate it to being willing to yell right into someone’s ear on a megaphone. If you believe in what you’re doing, you need to give it that level of intensity. If you don’t have the gumption or energy to really put yourself out there, then it’s probably not the right time to start a company. And even if you’ve got a great concept for a product, if you’re drawing a blank on ways to market it (or the ideas you come up with are exorbitantly expensive), it’s time to find a different product.

When you’re figuring out how to market your business, think about where your customers are spending time and how they find out about new services. Then do everything possible to be there and get in front of them. For us, as a mobile-only company, this meant App Store promotion and optimization, lots of PR pitches and actively fueling word-of-mouth virality (among a long list of many other ideas). To our surprise, more of our ideas worked than not. And many of them worked even better than we hoped.

One goal was to get to the #1 spot in the App Store travel category. We were a three-person company with limited funds, competing with billions of dollars from travel companies who occupied this list of top apps. It was a ridiculous goal, but we took it on. We fostered a relationship with Apple, who saw we were building a high-quality product exclusively for the mobile platform. I came up with an idea to live-test the app with TechCrunch reporters, and our PR agency successfully pitched it. I was nervous about this — would the app work perfectly? would they like it? — but was willing to put myself on camera and put our app to the test. I devoted up to 20% of my time to PR in the early days, and still spend up to 10% of my time on it, because it works so well for us.

On the word of mouth side, we started by making sure that everyone who used the app had a great experience. This meant investing in top-notch, ‘round-the-clock customer support, building an incomparable in-app experience, working with great hotels (and kicking those who didn’t deliver great customer experiences off the app), offering amazing deals that people couldn’t find anywhere else, and building a referral program to turn our bookers into evangelists.

For you, this could mean any of the above techniques, or making use of the many new marketing channels that have since emerged, like crowdfunding sites and Product Hunt. Again, think about how your customers find out about new products. Then be there.

People are bombarded with new services 24/7. The market (every market!) is crowded. If you’ve got something good, you’ve gotta believe in it — and be willing to do anything and everything to make sure everyone knows about it.