A Foray Into Digital Marketing

I’ve been creating software for 5 years now. I’ve mainly focused on the actual product - at first from the business side, and subsequently from the technical sides. Despite appreciating the important role digital marketing plays in getting people to use software, I’ve never actually done any of it myself for any of the projects I’ve worked on. At this point it would be fair to say I know how to create pretty compelling software, but have no clue how to get people to use it.

I decided that the best way for me to acquire some basic digital marketing skills would be to get my hands dirty and run a few ad campaigns. Over the last week or so I’ve now run 4 facebook ad campaigns. I targeted, a/b tested, optimized, adjusted, and obsessively watched as the likes, shares, and comments kept pouring in. In just a few hours of my time I was able to get a great crash course in digital marketing and now know the basics.

The thing that surprised me the most was how much I actually enjoyed doing this. Collecting facebook likes reminded me of the countless hours I spent trying to get the most coins in a game of Super Mario Brothers - except with the twist that I was spending money instead of just my time. As with all things that I like, I want to pursue this further. To that end I’ve set up a few meetings with some friends in the digital marketing world to review the work I’ve done, and run a few more test campaigns on other networks. I’m very much looking forward to learning more about digital marketing and expanding my ‘digital’ skillset.