The Product, the Marketing, and the Strategy
A few weeks ago, I had a funny side hustle idea. The idea was to collect, package, and sell a collection of ChatGPT prompts.
And so far, it’s proven to be quite successful for me and I will be sharing the strategy for you to get those same results.
Stripe revenue
In this story, I’ll explain what the product exactly is, and what marketing channels I used to promote it.
I’ll also talk a bit about my future plans because what started as an innocent side hustle, is quickly becoming a full-time business.
So without any further ado, let’s get into it.
What I Built
The product is called Prompt Advance, and as I mentioned, it’s a collection of ChatGPT prompts.
Rather than coming up with a perfect prompt to write a sales letter, my customers just search for the prompt on my platform and copy & paste it without any additional effort.
Prompt Advance Hub
To be honest, I don’t really like the friction about copying & pasting and switching tabs between ChatGPT and my platform.
That’s why I also built the official extension you can install directly in ChatGPT.
Prompt Advance extension
And that’s pretty much the product in a nutshell. Now that you know what it is, let’s see how I made people know about it.
How I’m Marketing It
I tried multiple marketing channels. And to my surprise, each one of them worked to a certain point — some of them better than the others.
Paid Advertising
First, I launched a Facebook ads campaign. It performed really well from the start, but the performance started slowly increasing over time.
In the end, I stopped the campaign and the aftermath was that I barely broke even.
Facebook ads results
But while the Facebook ads were running, I started experimenting with other (FREE) marketing channels.
Engineering as a Marketing
Don’t worry if you’ve never heard about engineering as a marketing. Neither did I until a couple of months ago.
Engineering as marketing is a marketing strategy that involves creating free useful tools for your target audience. These tools are complimentary to your product or service meant to draw in potential customers.
(source: Userpilot)
Since I’m a developer, I could create free tools for free and share them with my potential customers.
The process was simple for me. Build a tool, share it on Reddit, and hope it gets attention.
I built 4 free ChatGPT tools so far. They all got some buzz on Reddit and together generated a couple thousand visitors.
Website Visitors
I also see long-term potential in these free tools because they can attract new visitors from good SEO.
Creating Helpful Content
The last marketing channel for me is creating blog posts and Medium stories.
I’m sharing tips & tricks, useful prompts, and all the knowledge I have when it comes to ChatGPT.
I’m not overselling the product in the content and promising unexpected things, but do include the link to my product in places where it fits.
I see a lot of potential in this marketing channel, and I’ll be putting much more effort into it in the near future.
But for now, let’s quit the marketing talk and let’s give you some ideas on how to replicate this business model.
How to Do the Same
So now that you understand the product and the marketing behind it, let’s see how you can replicate this formula.
Do Literally the Same
The first and most obvious solution is to do literally the same. Of course, you’ll be at a disadvantage because you’re competing against me and other people who already had a fresh start.
But to be honest, I think you can still succeed by nailing down the marketing strategy.
Do Something With a Twist
If you’re not interested in becoming a copycat, good for you. Because I think there are plenty of other similar opportunities.
Here are some ideas:
- ChatGPT prompts for a specific niche (e.g. creative writing, data analysis, programming…)
- ChatGPT prompts for a specific language (e.g. German prompts, Spanish prompts, Italia prompts…)
- ChatGPT cheat sheets, tutorials, and secret tips.
- Prompts for other platforms like Bard, Midjourney, Stability, or other generative AI platforms.
- There are definitely more directions you can go, but I think you’ll get the point and see how I’m thinking about it.
In terms of marketing, I gave you plenty of ideas. You can use them, use similar ones, or try to come up with a different angle yourself.
Last Words
As you might’ve guessed, the point of this story was not to brag how much I made, but to show that ChatGPT is a lucrative niche and there are a lot of various ways to make money there.
So if you’re interested in that space, I highly suggest you sit down a try to think of a product you can build.
