How do you promote your product without sounding too salesy?
I've always struggled with promoting my own work. 😓 It always felt a little awkward because I grew up in an environment where drawing attention to yourself wasn't really encouraged.
That's not exactly ideal when you're trying to build a business, and even less so when marketing is literally how you make a living. :D
I never had a problem promoting other people's products. Just my own.
Now I'm in the same situation again.
I'm building a LinkedIn plugin, and one of the main ways to get it in front of people is by talking about it on LinkedIn.
The problem is, I don't want people to see me as someone who's constantly selling.
What would you recommend doing to promote a product without coming across as too pushy or too salesy?
Here's what I've tried so far:
On X, I'm taking a build-in-public approach and sharing my coding journey and I leave the link in the comments.
I've added the waitlist link to my social media profiles.
When one of my LinkedIn posts performs well, I edit it afterwards and add a short call to action at the end, inviting people to join the waitlist.
If a LinkedIn post isn't related to the tool, I'll sometimes leave a funny comment underneath it and add a P.S. mentioning my tool.
I want to dedicate at least one LinkedIn post per week specifically to the product I'm building.
I'd love to hear what has worked for you.
Replies
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@brooke_houck LinkedIn is my target audience, but as soon as people are blocked, they are trying to find a solution elsewhere because they do not have access to LI. So also Facebook groups, Reddit and X too – LinkedIn support is more responsive there. But I will try articles too :)
Oh, self promotion is a really complicated topic! I grew up in the same environment. I love the options you tried actually. And idea of editing post after it performs well is smart!
Making expert content is good idea, but sometimes it can be a trap of giving valuable information for free.
I think it is everything about recalculating the balance all the time and keeping it in the way that is ok for you.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@julia_shtogren The thing is – how much free content is enough? :)
My trick is to enter some vc pitch competition and treat it as an opportunity to sell/practice selling (like the one i just finished is 1752 Lighting Round 8), because if you can get into the finals, you win a fund, and vc may hook you up with investors and customers. If not, you still get a chance to earn feedback and improve sales technique before approaching real clients.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@new_user___1702026e6f946759d1d798a Is there anything for boothstrapped? :D
This is genuinely the most difficult part of a bootstrap for me and honestly it has puzzled me the most ! Coming from product background it has really open my eyes to how important is marketing and sales :)
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@pranay19 How long have you been trying to distribute your solution? :) I am trying to do it before a proper launch.
I relate to this a lot. What's worked for me: lead with the problem, not the product. Instead of "check out my tool," I'll share the specific annoying thing that made me build a feature — e.g. "realized people were downloading a PDF just to re-upload it into their own email, so I added a send-button" reads very differently than "new feature alert!"
A few other things that helped me feel less salesy about it:
Only posting when there's an actual reason (a real bug fixed, a real feature shipped) — not on a fixed schedule just to "stay visible"
Being upfront about being small/early rather than overselling traction you don't have yet — people respond well to honesty about where you actually are
Engaging genuinely on other people's threads (like this one) without a pitch attached — the profile link does the work, you don't have to
Your build-in-public approach on X is already the right instinct. I'd just make sure the LinkedIn CTA doesn't feel bolted onto a good post — if the update itself is worth sharing (a real problem solved), the ask feels earned rather than tacked on.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@deepanshu_garg9 What do you mean by the second point? "Being upfront about being small/early rather than overselling traction you don't have yet — people respond well to honesty about where you actually are"
The salesy feeling is almost always a ratio problem, not a promotion problem. It shows up when you ask before you have given, so the fix is to keep a running credit of useful things you put out with no link and no ask at all. Those zero CTA posts are what you spend later.
One caution on your list: editing a CTA onto a post after it performs well can quietly train your audience to expect a pitch every time something of yours lands, which is the exact reflex you are trying to avoid. I would rather let the product surface through the work itself. Show the plugin doing the annoying thing on a real LinkedIn workflow, in public, and let people ask for the link rather than being sent to it. Opt in beats redirect.
I run a few products alongside a full time job and the pattern holds across all of them. The posts that converted best were rarely the ones with a CTA, because the earlier free work had already done the persuading. Simple test before you publish: if the post would still be worth reading with the last line deleted, it is not too salesy.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@oshylabs Where did you promote the most?
I like your approach. As a founder, I've found that talking about the problem you're solving feels much more natural than talking about the product itself. When people connect with the journey, they're usually more interested in the product too.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@visvanathan_d Will try to incorporate this! :)
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@picspace More people told I should talk about the problem, they are on the point. I need to frame it enough!
I feel this hard , I think about it as: " I'm telling the story of a problem I had and what I did about it.
We give useful stuff in public way more than you ask for anything. If 90% of what people see from you is helpful and 10% is "hey, I made this," the 10% lands as welcome instead of spammy
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@juanpablocastro Where do you hang the link? Within the post or in the comments section?
@busmark_w_nika In the comments most of the times works better
This thread is a good one. In my opinion leading with the product sometimes fails because people don't care about it yet, most potential customers don't really care about your story or company's story either, asking for recommendations has to be earned. So the best for me in promoting without coming across as too pushy or too salesy is simple: lead with the problem They see, position yourself as someone who understands it well, ask their expertise about solving the problem and then offer your product as a better solution or cost effective alternative. This is my formula for promoting my product. You're Free to copy it for your. Cheers!