If you just build it, they won’t come. They’ll come only if you’re clever, persistent, generous, and loud.

We’ve been trying for 2 years now to build a following for our web apps. If you told us how successful we would be two years ago, we would’ve been shocked. But it’s still not enough.

Like many of the people who read this blog, we’re pretty relentless about outdoing what we’ve already done. The success you already have never feels real, it just feels like a stepping stone to that place you’re trying to get to.

When it comes to web app promotion, things that “don’t work” are your friend. The real enemy is the thing that “kind of works.” A powerful, and seemingly important distraction is one that generates a few results, and allows you to assume it might make more. Eliminating a failure, is almost as valuable as finding a winner.

Like a cruddy book, a poorly thought out video game, or a bad movie, you eventuality face a decision; quit, or keep going?

• On one hand, maybe the sample you have is only part of the reward that persistence might pay.
• On the other hand, every second you waste on this mess, is a second of productivity you lose on something better.

It pays to quit…

• If you’re not sure it’s working, it probably isn’t. But the good thing is that you’ve isolated a problem: you’re not monitoring your efforts well enough.
• If it is working, but only a little bit- it’s not working. If you’re not seeing results in your efforts nearly immediately, you need to change routes.
• If it’s working a lot- keep doing it… and tell us what it is!

We don’t want to say success doesn’t take hard work. We’re just saying we see so many people working really hard at the wrong stuff. “Polishing the brass on the Titanic” might be the apropos phrase?

One quick note: Just because it worked for some other dude, doesn’t mean it will work for you. You’re after your own true genuine marketing voice. A lot of marketing is repetitive, and their are a few tricks- but mostly it’s scrapping hard, fast, and repeatedly that creates success. A formula only pops up in hindsight, after it’s too late to be useful.

Still, we hope a few things that we’ve been thinking about lately might spark some creative juices for your own needs:

• If you think you’re too good to advertise, great. Let us know what makes you so special, and we’ll bottle it. We understand there is a notion in our business that “if it’s really good, you don’t need to advertise.” Let those noble souls get the crumbs while we all yell from the mountains about how great we think the products we built are. Like has always been the case, advertising eventually tips the scale towards the brands that care to try.
• If your Google ads aren’t doing much good- tweak them. Tweak them quickly, tweak them often, and get smarter every time. Pay more. Pay less. Create landing pages. Check stats. You’ll be shocked and embarrassed at what you learn about your business in a week.
• Consider niche site advertising. We’ve got lots of new users with advertisements on Fusion, 9Rules, and Daring Fireball. Some upgrade, some don’t, but without fail, the ads eventually pay for themselves and turn to gravy. The more we advertise, the more we realize what works, and what doesn’t. Bite the bullet, and write some checks… (btw. Fusion is by far the best gross, and net traffic earner)
• Your blog? You know the one you keep forgetting about? Get reacquainted. We recently had a BS, half thought out article get picked up by a larger site. It created a few visits, and a few new users. Lesson learned. For every article you write:
  • You get a bit smarter by putting your thoughts in order
  • You get a bit braver to have a voice
  • 1/10, 1/20, even 1/50 articles that achieve larger notice eventually add up.
  • Have you heard of “back catalog” when it comes to music? It works in blogs too. Words pay with traffic. The more you have, the better.
  • It’s free! Except for your time, which has varying worth, your blog is usually a cheap way to advertise.
• Twitter might not make you rich, but it does make friends. We look several times a day for people who comment about our products. We respond quickly, as effeciently as we can, and with heart. We consider our critics our friends, just like our promoters.
• Last thing, and not totally promotion related, but it’s been echoing through our thoughts a lot lately. Get off the hamster wheel. It’s easy to get locked up in support, small feature requests, emails, etc. All this stuff is important, – but keep your eye on the ball. Processes are meant to aim at a goal, not to self-procreate. If you get used to chasing the “next thing” in front of you, you’ll chase it the rest of your life. What’s better is to get a plan, and make the time to stick to it. Triage the rest, but stick to what you know will pay back in money, or better yet in joy.