Bit of a long post here but I wanted to help anyone trying to figure out where to advertise their product. Where to Promote / Advertise Your Product This is long but should be helpful. For background, I've been working in marketing for 11 years, have built and currently host a podcast with over 40 million downloads (I don't do guests so don't ask), and started a podcast network where we launch and grow shows around specific hosts.  Recently, I've seen people asking about where to advertise or post their product. It's a fair question - we all live and die by our ability to bring in and retain a customer base for the products we are building. Unfortunately for the people asking this question, you aren't likely to find a good answer here.  I think everyone in this group is more than capable of giving good answers, but you're asking the wrong question. "Where do I advertise my product" isn't something anyone else can answer for you without context. In fact, all you'll get is a generic list of places that you could theoretically promote in, but it'll be no better than just googling the question.  So, in an attempt to help, I wanted to share a quick process for refining your question and maybe even finding the answer for yourself.  Question 1: Who are your customers?  This is a pretty standard question that you need to have some answers to. Simply put, who has the problem that your product is positioned to solve? The deeper you can go with your answers the better. For example, let's say your ideal customer's name is Steve. If you know that Steve is 27, lives in a major city, has been in and out of relationships, orders his food through Uber Eats, works in accounting at a big consulting company, and loves playing racquetball on the weekends you'll have a wealth of information for figuring out how to reach the Steves of the world.  Now, if you don't have all the demographic and psychographic info about your customer yet that's okay. The bare minimum for the purpose of marketing (IMO) is Age and Problem.  Understanding what age range your customer falls in will help you filter out specific platforms or marketing opportunities. Understanding the problem will help you craft a message that gets people to raise their hands and say "That's me!".  For example, if you know your customer is 17 and struggles with acne, you can make some basic assumptions like: • Email marketing is a waste of time • General Google search probably won't do much • YouTube search would be great • TikTok would be great • Facebook ads would be pointless So the first step is figuring out the bare minimum about your ideal user.  Question 2: What is your message?  The key difference between sales and marketing is in the approach. Sales is a hunter mentality, you go out into the world and find leads to contact. You contact them, position your product as a solution to their problem, and close the deal.  Marketing is a gatherer mentality, you figure out who the ideal customer is and where they hang out, craft a message that will resonate with them, deliver that message, and then let them come to you asking for your solution.  Both are phenomenal and deserve mad props and both require a strong understanding of the problem you're solving and the way you communicate that problem.  This is what I refer to when I say "your message".  The truth is that no one gives a crap about you or your idea or your product. Part of your job is to get them to pay attention, you do this by making a promise that grabs their attention (this product will cure your acne) and then delivering on it to keep their attention.  Everything else, the social proof, testimonials, endorsements, money-back guarantees...etc is really just a function of raising trust. At its core, marketing is putting a message out there and getting people to trust that message. Here's what I mean. If you yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater you will get everyone to pay attention to you. But if they look over and don't see a fire, they'll quickly lose interest.  On the other hand, if they look over and there really is a fire, they'll pay more attention to that than anything else. In this scenario, the "message" was that there is a fire and they should pay attention. If they smell smoke or see other people panicking then it will increase their trust in your message. Similarly, your job is to find a message that gets your ideal user's attention. Going back to the acne example, if you post an ad on TikTok for your acne cure and you find the right way to present it that builds trust (social proof...etc) you will likely get their attention. Once you have the attention though you need to deliver on the promise or you'll quickly lose it.  Question 3: Where can you reach them?  You know who your users are and you have a message for them. By this point, you should already have a really good idea of where to put that message in order to get in front of those users. If you don't, go back to question 1 and learn more about your user. With that said, there are really only a few ways to reach a person, I'll share a list of potential approaches below. One thing you should keep in mind is that all of these platforms work and winning on any single one of them would give you more users than you know what to do with. But that doesn't mean they all work for every type of user. If you look at this list and aren't sure where to go, go back to question 1 and spend more time on your user.  • Social Media ◦ Instagram (best for millennials & up) ◦ TikTok (best for gen z - millennials) ◦ Snapchat (best for...I'm honestly not sure but somebody) ◦ Facebook (best for older millennials & up) ◦ Twitter (best for everyone but really difficult to extract value from) ◦ LinkedIn (best for professionals & b2b) • Influencers & Creators ◦ YouTube ◦ Podcasts ◦ Blogs • Email Marketing ◦ Your own list ◦ Partner lists • Groups / Communities ◦ Reddit ◦ Facebook Groups ◦ Discord Servers ◦ Slack Channels ◦ Forums • Search ◦ Google ◦ YouTube • Ambassadors ◦ Your Existing Users Each of the options above has organic, earned, and paid opportunities that you can take advantage of, but before paying for anything you should first identify if something is the right platform. Hope this helps, I'll be around for questions.