| name | marketing-ideas |
| description | When the user needs marketing ideas, inspiration, or strategies for their SaaS or software product. Also use when the user asks for 'marketing ideas,' 'growth ideas,' 'how to market this,' 'what should we try,' or 'marketing experiments.' |
| allowed-tools | Read, Write, WebSearch, WebFetch, AskUserQuestion |
| model | sonnet |
Marketing Ideas & Growth Strategy
Expert knowledge for generating, prioritizing, and validating marketing experiments for SaaS and software products.
Idea Generation Frameworks
1. ICE Scoring (for rapid prioritization)
Score every idea on:
- Impact: How much will this move the needle? (1-10)
- Confidence: How confident are you this will work? (1-10)
- Ease: How easy is this to execute? (1-10)
ICE Score = (I + C + E) / 3
Run highest-scoring ideas first. Reassess after each experiment.
2. SCAMPER for Marketing Ideas
Apply to your current marketing approach:
- Substitute: What if we replaced [channel/tactic] with something entirely different?
- Combine: What two tactics haven't we combined? (e.g., content + community + cold email)
- Adapt: What works in adjacent industries that we could adapt?
- Modify/Magnify: What would happen if we went 10× bigger on [tactic]?
- Put to other uses: What assets (customer list, content, data) could we use differently?
- Eliminate: What would happen if we stopped [tactic] entirely and focused elsewhere?
- Rearrange: What if we changed the order of our funnel?
3. Channel Expansion Matrix
Map where your ICP spends time and attention:
| Where | What they do there | Marketing opportunity |
|---|
| LinkedIn | Consume professional content | Organic posts, sponsored content, outreach |
| Slack communities | Ask questions, share tools | Community presence, answer questions |
| Reddit | Research tools, share experiences | Genuine participation, AMA |
| Twitter/X | Follow industry discourse | Thought leadership, product updates |
| YouTube | Watch tutorials, product reviews | Tutorial content, sponsor channels |
| Podcasts | Listen during commute | Sponsorship, guest appearances |
| Email | Read newsletters | Newsletter ads, dedicated sends |
| Product Hunt | Discover new tools | Launch strategy |
| G2/Capterra | Evaluate software | Review acquisition, profile optimization |
For each channel: Is your ICP there? Are competitors there? Can you add value?
High-Leverage Growth Tactics by Stage
Early Stage (< 100 customers)
Manual first, then scale:
- Founder-led sales: Sell personally and document every objection
- Targeted cold outreach: 20 personalized emails/day beats 1,000 generic
- Community presence: Genuinely help in 2-3 Slack/Discord/Reddit communities
- Partner with adjacent products: Co-market with non-competing tools to same ICP
- App integrations: Build where your ICP already spends time
Content that punches above weight:
- Comparison pages (alternative to [competitor])
- Specific use case pages for your ICP's industry
- One definitive guide per quarter (2,000+ words)
Growth Stage (100-1,000 customers)
Capitalize on existing traction:
- Referral program: Give your happiest customers a reason to refer
- Case study machine: 1 case study per month from best customers
- SEO at scale: Topic clusters around your core domain
- Paid acquisition: 1-2 channels with proven unit economics
- Conference/event presence: Where your ICP gathers
Product-led growth layer:
- Free tier or trial that delivers the "aha moment"
- In-product sharing and collaboration (viral loops)
- Usage-based email triggers (when to upgrade)
Scale Stage (1,000+ customers)
Brand and defensibility:
- Annual industry report (original research → media coverage)
- Community building (owned audience vs rented)
- Analyst relations (Gartner, Forrester, G2)
- Video content at scale (YouTube + Shorts + tutorials)
- Affiliate and partner programs
Viral Loop Design
A viral loop is when using your product naturally causes new users to discover it.
Types of viral loops:
- Collaboration loops: "Invite your team" — invites sent per new user
- Sharing loops: "Share your [output]" — product used publicly creates impressions
- Referral loops: Incentivized referral — both parties get value
- Word-of-mouth loops: Product creates such a remarkable experience that users evangelize
Viral coefficient formula:
K = i × c
- i = average invites/shares per user
- c = conversion rate of those invites
- K > 1 = viral growth; K < 1 = assisted growth
Designing your viral loop:
- Identify the natural sharing moment in your product
- Make sharing frictionless (one click, pre-populated message)
- Make the shared output valuable to the recipient
- Give the referrer a reason to share (credit, status, money)
Product-Led Growth (PLG) Ideas
PLG uses the product itself as the primary acquisition and conversion channel.
PLG motion options:
- Free trial: Limited time access to full product (14-30 days)
- Freemium: Permanently free tier with upgrade incentives
- Free tool: Standalone free tool that leads to the product
- Open source: Community version drives enterprise leads
Free-to-paid conversion levers:
- Usage limits (you hit the cap → upgrade)
- Collaboration features (invite team → team pays)
- Advanced features gate (premium features visible but locked)
- Integrations gate (connect to CRM → paid tier)
PLG activation milestones:
Define the actions that correlate with conversion and retention, then optimize for them:
- Signup
- First key action (the "aha moment")
- Habitual usage (3+ sessions in week 1)
- Collaboration event (invited a teammate)
- Upgrade trigger (hit a limit or saw a premium feature)
Partnership & Co-Marketing Ideas
Integration partnerships:
- Build integrations with the tools your ICP already uses
- Get listed in their marketplace/app directory
- Co-create content ("How to use [Product A] + [Product B] together")
Audience-sharing partnerships:
- Guest posts on partner blogs
- Cross-promotion in email newsletters
- Co-hosted webinars (split the lead list)
- Joint research reports
Reseller/affiliate programs:
- Consultants and agencies who serve your ICP
- Influencers in your niche
- Complementary SaaS companies (with revenue share)
Idea Validation Before Building
Before investing in a new marketing idea:
The lean validation test:
- Define success metric (reply rate, conversion rate, CAC)
- Set a minimum threshold ("If we don't hit X in 30 days, we stop")
- Run the smallest possible version
- Measure against threshold
- Scale or kill
Common validation shortcuts:
- Cold email to your ICP before building a landing page
- LinkedIn post testing a message before writing the full article
- Manual process before automation (do it by hand to see if it converts)
- Concierge onboarding before building the self-serve flow
Channels to Stop / Reduce
Just as important as ideas to try: ideas to cut.
Stop signals:
- CAC is > 3× LTV for the channel
- You've run the channel for 90+ days without hitting your conversion threshold
- The channel requires constant manual attention without scaling
- You're doing it because competitors do it, not because it works for you
The one-channel focus test: If you could only use one marketing channel for the next 90 days, which would it be? That's your primary. Don't dilute it with 10 experiments simultaneously.
Common Rationalizations
| Rationalization | Reality |
|---|
| "We need to be on every channel" | Three channels done well beat seven done poorly. Pick and commit. |
| "This idea worked for [famous company] — let's do it" | Context matters. Their audience, stage, and brand are different. Validate before copying. |
| "Let's build a viral loop first" | Viral loops amplify existing traction. Without a base, K-factor math doesn't help you. |
| "We should focus on brand awareness before conversions" | Brand without conversion measurement is a money pit. Track every channel to outcome. |
| "Marketing is about creativity — we don't need frameworks" | Creativity generates ideas. Frameworks prioritize them. You need both. |
Verification
