Why I Never Used Ads to Grow My Startup (And Never Will)

I built two successful startups without spending a single cent on ads. Instead, I discovered a better way to attract customers.

Today, I'm going to show you how you can use this powerful strategy to grow your startup too.

Let's dive right in!

Before you say, "Wait, I've used ads and they worked for me," let me explain why I don't rely on them. There are two main reasons:

Selling directly from ads can work, but the conversion rate is usually very low. According to serial entrepreneur Allan Dib, the average conversion rate is around 3%.

So, instead of selling directly, he recommends using ads to share valuable content-and I totally agree. But the problem is, even if you're using ads to share valuable content, the funnel isn't efficient.

Think about it: If you're a fitness trainer and you spend $100 to share a tip on how to lose weight, most of your viewers won't buy your product. You just spent money to educate people. And this will probably not work.

The second reason I don't rely on ads is that once you stop paying for them, they stop working. Once your budget is gone, they are gone.

So, I prefer a strategy that keeps working for me long after I create it. Now, creating ads can make sense, but before you use them, you need to understand the downsides, and if you do use them, you need to track them properly.

So what's the alternative? Let's find out.

My go-to strategy is content marketing. Content marketing means creating valuable content-like blog posts or YouTube videos-that people find organically.

Here's how it works: People discover my free content through Google or YouTube, visit my website, and then buy my products.

What I love about content marketing is that it doesn't interrupt people or push products in their faces. People naturally find my content and take the next step on their own.

And second, it's long-lasting. Content I published years ago is still bringing in leads today.
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Long story short, you don't need ads to grow your startup. Now that you know why content marketing is so powerful, let me show you how you can use it yourself to get customers.

Here's my 3-step framework to get you started.

The first step is to define your target audience, your personas.
Ask yourself:

• Who exactly am I trying to reach?
• What are their challenges?
• How can I help them in a way that makes sense for my business?

Remember, you can't help everyone - so, especially if you're an early-stage startup, it's better to focus on a specific customer segment that's most likely to buy your solution. It's better to niche down.

The next step is to figure out what these people will find valuable. It could be tips, strategies, industry insights, or a free demo of your product.

For example, what I do: Since I help startup founders get their first 100 customers with proven business strategies, I show them valuable tips, free worksheets or best practices.

Anything of value.

Now comes the important part, because simply creating content and hoping for the best will not work. Whether it's a blog post, video or infographic, your content should always lead to your product or service as a logical next step.

For example, if you have a meditation app and want to promote it, you could write a blog post about why meditation is important and at the end of the post link to your app and let people download it directly.

That's the goal of content marketing. You want to lead to your solution.

Take a moment right now: Take a piece of paper and write down these three things:

1. Your target audience
2. What they find valuable
3. How you can lead them to your product.

This is the foundation of your content marketing strategy. Now let me give you three pro tips to make your content marketing even more effective.

These are the best practices that successful startups use.

The first tip is to repurpose your content. Content marketing takes time - if you keep doing everything from scratch. So it's better to repurpose your content.

For example, you can write a blog post on your website to get organic traffic from Google. Based on the text, create a YouTube video. From the long YouTube video, create short videos for Instagram or TikTok - you get the idea.

Reuse your content, you don't have to create everything from scratch.

The second tip is to use a content calendar. Many companies start content marketing but stop after 3 months.

Why is that?

Because it's a lot of work and it takes time to grow. If you're not aware of that, you're not going to stay in the game. But a content calendar will help you stay consistent.

You post something valuable the first week, the next week, the next week, and so on. That's what makes a calendar so powerful.

But there is another benefit to a content calendar - you can easily track and manage all your content in one place and plan your content in advance.

There is a lot of content calendar software out there - but if you want to keep your costs down, a simple Excel spreadsheet will do the trick.

The third tip is a big one. Lead to a lead magnet. If you lead directly from your content to your product, most people will not buy directly. They're just not in the mood, don't have their credit card ready, or whatever.

So, it often makes more sense to lead to a lead magnet - like a free worksheet, ebook, or free demo of your service.  

The goal of this lead magnet is to get people's email address. And once you have their email address, you send an automated series of emails to those people, and lead them to your main offer within those emails.

That is why a lead magnet is so powerful. You move people closer to becoming customers.

The big takeaway is this: Most of the time, ads are not profitable. They have a bad conversion rate, and they are gone once you stop paying for them.

Instead, try content marketing.

Define your audience, define what content your audience might love, and lead them to your offer. That's how you get customers organically.

But content marketing is not the only marketing strategy you can use to get new customers. If you want to learn how to find the best marketing channels for your startup - WITHOUT you having to waste your hard-earned money on expensive ads, get my Marketing Channel Bundle.

It's a proven 4-step framework that will help you find your best marketing channels.

Check it out!