Feel Like You Know Nothing about Marketing?

Marketing is heavily intertwined with psychology. If you have a brain, you are both susceptible to marketing, and fully capable of understanding how it works.

To understand more about how marketing works, examine your own path to purchase.

Here’s an example:

Recently I launched a newsletter and needed a newsletter platform.

Before I was even considering a platform, I was researching HOW to start a newsletter by following other newsletters and their creators on LinkedIn.?

Some of the prolific newsletter experts I follow on LinkedIn recommended Beehiiv.

(I’d actually used a lot of other providers (MailChimp, MailerLite, Klayvio, Campaign Monitor) in the past, so Beehiiv was a new player).

I noticed a number of the ‘Creator Led’ newsletters I followed were also using Beehiiv. When I clicked on the link on their emails, I got offered a discount code.

By this point, I had some good evidence that Beehiiv was a good platform, but I didn't know if I was just falling prey to good marketing. So I researched a few other options online and read a bunch of independent comparison articles. I was becoming increasingly convinved that Beehiiv was the most suited to my goals — however Beehiiv is a lot more expensive than the other option I was seriously considering, Flodesk.

I decided to trial out Beehiiv first because their free version was more generous than Floddesk. Once I started using Beehiiv, I was so impressed with its usability and domain authority, even though I was sending from a brand new design.

Throughout my few weeks using Beehiiv, I've been receiving a very convincing email flow showcasing other successful Beehiiv newsletter creators. This has convinced me that while paid version would be more expensive than other providers, the unique features on the paid plan would be worthwhile for my goals down the line.

What does this teach me about marketing?

When selecting a software provider, the following marketing tactics enticed me to become a user:

1. Social proof > organic post from a respected creator. This content wasn’t actually sponsored by Beehiiv
2. More social proof > visible Beehiiv branding on other newsletters I follow operating in a similar niche, who had well formatted emails.
3. Easy to understand website, pricing model and sales page.
4. Clever email flows from Beehiiv showing how easy their tool was to use and showcasing the success of other newsletters on their platform.
5. Comparison articles on the software vs other providers.
6. A compelling free version and a discount code which I could use when I choose to upgrade to the paid version thanks to other creators.
7. Genuinely useful features for the future evolution of the newsletter.

I haven’t converted to a paying customer, but I likely will when it makes fiscal sense because Beehiiv has provided me with:

1. A great experience with domain authority (no going to spam for me)
2. Nice templates?
3. Cool upsells and analytics (annoying analytics don’t come at all on the free version but a clever move from them)

Just by analysing my own purchasing behaviour, I have a rudimentary roadmap of marketing tactics that I would use if I were marketing a software/SaaS business. It's not perfect and would need testing, validation, strategy etc., but having an understanding of how different types of marketing have different impacts depending on where they are in the journey.