Founder of Vivid, maker of Vivid Trace for Atlassian Jira and Confluence. Landing page:

https://vivid-inc.net

I'd like to put this up (primarily the landing page) for constructive critique. Hopefully there is an opportunity for all of us to learn here.

While there are some people behind the scenes and many outsourcers, I have been doing all marketing by myself. Crucially, I recognize that I have a severe lack of skill in this department. I've been running this business for 8 years and have "enough" skills in value creation, customer development & support, etc. The product has traction, it solves real problems for currently paying customers. BUT after reading much Indie Hackers etc. and HN items on marketing like

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29538355

marketing feels like a gaping void to me. And that deficiency has been acting as a dis-abler to the business. So, last week, I decided to dive into the deep end of marketing.

The current landing page was completed several months ago in 2021 October. Perhaps it's a reasonable image of my current thinking and abilities. Transforming customer problems into messaging was interesting and even fun, but I still find writing to be excruciating. I believe in focusing on the desired outcomes for people, and in truthful representation of reality; so that should be on the page. The main purpose (CTA or Call To Action) is for the reader to start a 30-day free trial. The landing page content is structured to be later divided into targeted landing pages, one per profession (software dev, QA tester, lead, etc.), and also one per vertical (insurance, banking, manufacturing, and so on) where current customers are (also thinking case studies here). Each landing page will harmonize well with targeted SEO and ads.

Point of interest: This is how I have grown in terms of awareness of marketing, off the top of my head:

Early 2010s: Importance of SEO, on-page SEO (WWW), "The SEO Periodic Table", Google Webmaster / Search Console (or whatever it was called). Business Model Canvas. Customer Development (marketing materials speak in the customers' own language). Book "Nail It then Scale It" by Nathan Furr. Pirate metrics, AIDA. Customer Experience, and in particular Customer Journey and touchpoints.

Late 2010s: Features/Advantages/Benefits (FAB). Importance of positioning & declaring your niche amongst the competition, Book "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind" by Al Ries. Jobs To Be Done. Headline writing. Tone, phrasing.

This week: Initiated Google Ads and Facebook Ads campaigns to build up high-intent top-of-funnel leads. Book: "The 1-Page Marketing Plan" by Allan Dib (pragmatic + really good so far), "Obviously Awesome" by April Dunford.