Ask HN: If my market is agencies (ad, mktg, etc.) how do I reach them? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: If my market is agencies (ad, mktg, etc.) how do I reach them?

3 pointsmarcamillion9 comments

It's kinda easy to reach a 'small circle' of developers and designers that are influencers here on HN.

Also, on Forrst, I can reach designers.

But if I wanted to reach agencies - marketing, advertising, any agency that hires designers and does design work - how would I reach them in a cheap/free way ?

I am creating a startup targeted to them, so would love a scalable way to reach them online.

Thanks.

P.S. I know they read Ad Age and those sorts of publications, but what are the more lower-level outlets that I can reach them? Popular blogs that they read, etc?

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My company (an ad network) just had a booth at AdTech (http://www.ad-tech.com/) in New York. I think admission for the public is free, so that could be a great way to reach them all in one place. There are upcoming dates in cities around the world over the next year.

I am not based in the US, and I am creating a web app - so I don't think trade shows are the most cost effective way to reach them.

What blogs do you guys read, what email lists do you subscribe to? Where do you get your news? Who are the thought leaders in your industry?

If I wanted to target you, how would I do that?

Thanks.

There are AdTech dates in Australia, UK, India, Singapore, and China coming up. You'd be surprised how much of the ad industry is driven by in-person meetings and handshakes, even for online advertising. Note that AdTech is a trade show specifically for digital marketing, and our company signed several hundred thousand dollars worth of deals there.

As far as how to reach people at my company, all of the developers (like me) are the ones reading HN and blogs, but the ones who sign our paychecks and make deals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars spend their time at trade shows. When they came back from AdTech they hired half a dozen more people to handle the increased business.

You can definitely try the 37signals method. Teach your customers. If your material quality is good enough, they will come to you, for free, everyday.

If you don't have an expertise yourself on marketing/advertising/writing, you can always reach out to them personally via emails. Or you can even find out their social media presence and see what they are talking about.

What does your product do? There are many different kinds of advertising agencies.

Do you have any agencies using it yet? What do they tell you?

My product is http://www.compversions.com

No agencies using it yet, but looking for a few to start off with little by little. So if you know any that you can recommend, I would appreciate it :)

This is antithetical to the way that most designers work. Ideally, you understand the brief and produce one (and only one) design that expresses the brief. Producing multiple versions from the jump is a game for chumps.

> I know they read Ad Age and those sorts of publications, but what are the more lower-level outlets that I can reach them? Popular blogs that they read, etc?

if you don't know the answer to that yourself (if there is one), you don't really know your niche that well.

outside of straight up cold calling, though, this is the type of thing i'd be going after. blogs and such, to try and find some low-hanging but valuable fruit.

You are right. I don't know my niche that well, that's why I am trying to learn.

I worked in an agency for a few years - on the web development side - and never took much interest in finding out what the designers were attuned to.

However, now I regret that and am trying to learn.

All I am doing is simply trying to solve a problem that I had while I was there, that I am sure many others will likely have too.

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