What marketing activities can you do before the Product Hunt launch?
@byalexai asked in his recent forum post when to submit your product on PH.
Earlier, I said there are two groups of people.
Those who:
Prepare in advance
Launch immediately
Honestly, I prefer a more strategic approach with proper preparation, creating some buzz and momentum.
If I were about to launch, I would incorporate several steps and activities.
Namely:
sneak peek/behind the scenes on social media
build-in-public on socials
asking for early reviews/testimonials
trying to announce the launch publicly
preparing "Notify me" page
trying to be a part of some videocast/podcast where you mention it
Press releases
engagement in nichéd communities (PH, Reddit forums, Discord, etc.)
email campaign sequences for warm-up
reminding people in DMs and maybe to key PH faces
talking about the launch outside (in offline), so you are more aligned
maybe a collab with a hunter (not necessary)
Is there anything more you would incorporate into pre-launch preparation? 😼
Feel free to share your additional steps.
Replies
Great thread Nika!
You could also create a war room for the team, or even better – a launch party. I would rent a room in a coworking space and invite all the coworking teams for catering. In return, they could support us during the launch.
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@byalexai I think that party would be great tho with limited alcohol – we need users to remember what to do (upvote on PH) :D
@busmark_w_nika sounds like a cool launch - 24/7 alcohol party. Every upvote = drink a shot! xDDD
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@byalexai No alcohol! :D
This is a great list! Any recommendations for press releases and how to draw attention to them?
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@tmtabor Hello Thorin, thank you. We always used NewsWire (EIN press). Usually, announcing some major feature or launch and PH was mentioned between the lines.
@busmark_w_nika That is helpful. Thanks!
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@tmtabor You are welcome :)
I have never launched a product here, so thanks for the tips. I have done minimal build in public, but mostly to document my journey and do this in SubStack.
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@chris_walker17 I am on Substack too. What are you writing about?
@busmark_w_nika I just started writing, but I have made several apps, some better than others. My latest is https://pricejolt.io that uses AI to parse and combine search with human language along with SERP API to find the best deal. I may add eBay, or move on to my a different project. This is my Substack: https://theskillslab.substack.com/.
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@chris_walker17 I can see you have 2 or 3 articles. Do you have any frequency in mind?
@busmark_w_nika I have no clue, I was thinking once I get my workflows more organized I would post once a week.
Thanks for sharing this list, Nika 🙌 Super practical.
One challenge I keep running into is the social media side: we’re just a micro team, and most of our personal accounts are full of local region followers (which the early adopters are not much).
It makes it tough to grab attention overseas or reach the right audience before launch. Curious how you’d approach this kind of situation, especially for teams like us that are eager early adopters ourselves, but want to reach those countries, while starting our social media from zero?
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@azvyae Hey Azvya, if I understood correctly, you have local followers, right? I would say that you can convert them into PH users and upvoters, but when you want to have a broader impact, it is better to build socials on the international level (in EN). I also had a Slovak account, but switched and built an audience for international, and the impact is that I have clients willing to pay more. It has more benefits.
@busmark_w_nika Thanks, Nika 🙌 Makes sense. The thing is, it feels pretty different culture-wise, my local followers mostly don't know about PH.
So reaching international early adopters feels like starting from negative one. If you go all-in, where do you even start? Twitter communities, or just making a new account altogether?
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@azvyae For me, it was also new, totally different shifts, mindsets, but it was worth it. If you wanna monetise and scale up, go for international.
At a high level, it all makes sense, but when you start executing, it’s not so easy. Having a framework for the grunt work of marketing would really help people like me who don’t have six-figure budgets — things like when to do a press release, on what scale, and whether the highest packages on websites actually make any difference (it feels like maybe not). I think the community-building part is especially hard for me. I feel like I’ve followed every step on this list, yet there isn’t much of a community to speak of, which is a little stressful the day before launch.
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@patryk_borowa1 I think that the most beneficial is to build your own community, but most time-consuming. Without big budgets, it is hard. (that's the fact)
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I don't usually like to give me secret sauce, but for me it is:
Cross post on socials, especially YouTube.
LinkedIn/Blog Posts
Reddit and Hackernews (Sometimes this works)
Reach out to Mailing List
Alternative Social Media Channels
Threads and Forums
Classified Ads
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@gamer456148 Which one from these 7 is the best performing? :)
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@busmark_w_nika I would say #1 and #2.
This is super helpful, I’m in the middle of prepping for my first launch myself and seeing it broken down like this makes it feel way more structured. I’ve been leaning into Reddit + YouTube mostly, but I’m curious:
in your experience, which of these steps actually moved the needle the most versus just being avenues that are “nice-to-haves”?
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@dheerajdotexe DMs were the most effective for sure :D
Great list already 👏 Thanks for putting it together@busmark_w_nika!
One thing I’d add is testing your core messaging in small loops before launch.
For example:
Drop different versions of your value prop on LinkedIn/Twitter and see which phrasing gets traction.
Run a quick landing page A/B (even with small traffic) to see what resonates.
Talk directly with a handful of early users to pressure-test how they describe your product back to you.
That way, when launch day comes, you’re confident that the way you talk about the product will actually stick.
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@andreitudor14 Regarding the first point – I am not so sure about this one in terms of results because your audience on LI and X can be different, so it is a different aspect. In other words, you cannot be sure whether the change was caused by the different messaging or the different audience.