How to promote a marketing tool - strategies for getting users and growing your marketing tool

    How to Promote a Marketing Tool

    Real strategies to get your first users and grow

    November 3, 2025

    Ironically, marketing a marketing tool is one of the hardest challenges in SaaS. Your audience - marketers - has seen every tactic in the book.

    Marketing tools compete in one of the most saturated SaaS categories. Your potential customers are sophisticated marketers who understand growth tactics, have high standards for marketing claims, and are bombarded with alternatives daily. Breaking through requires demonstrating clear ROI, building genuine trust, and proving your tool delivers results.

    Success in the marketing tool space isn't about having the flashiest marketing - it's about showcasing real results, providing exceptional value, and building a brand marketers trust. The marketing tools that win combine substance (proven results) with smart distribution (reaching marketers where they make buying decisions).

    Proven Strategies to Promote Your Marketing Tool

    1. Lead with Results & ROI

    Marketers don't care about features - they care about outcomes. Lead with specific results: 'Increase email open rates by 30%,' 'Generate 50% more qualified leads,' or 'Reduce marketing spend by 20%.' Use concrete numbers, case studies, and testimonials that prove ROI. Marketers evaluate tools based on business impact, so make ROI crystal clear from your homepage headline forward.

    Get Your Marketing Tool
    Backlinks, Visibility & Users

    We submit your marketing tool to 100+ directories. You get backlinks, visibility, and users.

    2. Get Listed on Launch Directories & Marketing Platforms

    The fastest, cheapest, and most effective way to start promoting your marketing tool is through strategic directory submissions.

    Launch directories are platforms where marketers and agencies actively browse to discover new marketing solutions. Think Product Hunt (essential for marketing tool launches), startup directories, marketing tool-specific platforms like G2 and Capterra, and hundreds of SaaS listing sites.

    Why directory submissions are critical for marketing tools:

    Immediate qualified visibility: Product Hunt alone can bring thousands of marketer eyeballs and hundreds of sign-ups from a single launch, along with valuable early feedback from experienced marketing professionals.

    Competitive SEO boost: The marketing tool space is incredibly competitive. Marketers constantly search for solutions on Google: 'best email marketing tool,' 'marketing automation for [industry],' '[competitor] alternative.' When you're listed on 100+ directories, your domain rating jumps from zero to 30+ within weeks.

    AI Assistant visibility: Directory backlinks make your tool visible to AI assistants. When marketers ask ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity for marketing tool recommendations or how to solve specific marketing challenges, these AI systems crawl authoritative directories to provide answers.

    Marketing tool visibility on ChatGPT and AI assistants

    Real results: In our recent case study, we found that after listing on 100+ directories, ChatGPT pulled information from these directory listings multiple times when asked about the product, significantly improving its AI visibility and recommendations. Read the full case study →


    Professional credibility: Being listed on recognized platforms like Product Hunt, G2, and Capterra provides trust signals that influence marketing professionals during tool evaluation.

    Permanent results: These listings stay live permanently. Unlike paid ads that drain your marketing budget continuously, directory backlinks keep working 24/7, driving organic marketer traffic for years without recurring costs.

    This is probably the single best way to start promoting your marketing tool because it builds compound growth in a crowded market. LaunchDirectories maintains a comprehensive database of 100+ best platforms for launching your marketing tool. We also offer a done-for-you submission service where we handle all the manual submissions, save you 70+ hours, and get your marketing tool listed across the most impactful directories in just 3-5 days.

    3. Create High-Value Marketing Content

    Your content marketing needs to be genuinely exceptional - your audience literally does marketing for a living. Publish in-depth guides, original research, data-driven insights, and tactical playbooks. Content like 'Email Marketing Benchmarks' or 'Complete Guide to [Marketing Channel]' positions your brand as authoritative while attracting marketers searching for insights. Quality content also generates backlinks from marketing blogs. For consistent content production, AI tools like Outrank, BlogSEO, and BlogBuster can help you maintain a high-quality content schedule that drives SEO results.

    4. Offer a Product-Led Growth Experience

    Let your tool sell itself through a generous free trial or freemium tier. Marketers want to test tools extensively before committing. Make onboarding frictionless - show value within minutes. Use in-app prompts to guide users toward 'aha moments' where they experience clear value. Product-led growth reduces sales cycles and creates organic word-of-mouth as users experience results.

    5. Engage Marketing Communities

    Join communities where marketers gather: GrowthHackers, Indie Hackers, marketing subreddits, LinkedIn groups, and Slack communities. Share insights, answer questions, and provide genuine value before promoting your tool. Marketers appreciate authentic engagement and punish obvious self-promotion. Build relationships - community members become your most powerful advocates.

    6. Partner with Marketing Influencers

    Connect with marketing influencers on LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube who review tools or share marketing insights. Partner through sponsorships, affiliate programs, or free access for honest reviews. A recommendation from a trusted marketing voice carries enormous weight - their audiences actively seek tool recommendations and trust their judgment. Marketing influencers running affiliate partnerships often publish comprehensive tool reviews, case studies, and how-to guides on their blogs - content that includes valuable dofollow backlinks while driving qualified users. To streamline influencer partnerships, Affonso provides everything you need to track, manage, and reward your affiliate partners efficiently.

    7. Create Comparison & Alternative Pages

    Marketers frequently search '[competitor] alternative' or '[Tool A] vs [Tool B].' Create honest comparison pages that highlight your unique strengths without bashing competitors. These pages rank well and capture high-intent users actively evaluating alternatives. Be transparent about tradeoffs - authenticity builds trust with sophisticated marketers.

    8. Run Strategic Paid Campaigns

    Once you've validated product-market fit, paid advertising can accelerate growth. Google Ads capture marketers searching for solutions. LinkedIn ads allow precise targeting by job title, seniority, and industry. Facebook and Twitter ads can target marketing interests. Start with small budgets, test messaging and audiences, and scale campaigns that show positive LTV:CAC ratios.

    Get Listed on 100+ Directories

    The marketing tool space is crowded. Standing out requires strong SEO for competitive keywords marketers search daily. Directory submissions provide immediate benefits: backlinks that boost domain authority, exposure to marketing professionals evaluating tools, and improved rankings for high-value searches.

    Domain rating growth for marketing tool after directory submissions

    Real domain rating growth after our directory submission service. See our pricing →

    You get backlinks that help you rank for competitive searches like 'best marketing tool for [use case]' and '[competitor] alternative'
    Marketing professionals and agencies browse these directories when actively searching for solutions - that's where they find you
    Marketing tools need strong domain authority to compete - these directory backlinks accelerate this process significantly
    We handle all the tedious work (saves 70+ hours), so you can focus on product development and customer acquisition
    Directory listings provide trust signals that influence marketing professionals when they're evaluating which tool to choose
    These backlinks keep improving your rankings for years, bringing you organic marketer traffic long-term without ongoing work

    Improve Your SEO & Visibility with Our Launch Service

    Join 50+ founders who already got results with our directory submission service

    Final Thoughts

    Promoting a marketing tool successfully requires proving ROI, building genuine trust, and reaching marketers where they make buying decisions. Focus on creating exceptional marketing content (you're marketing to marketers - raise the bar), building SEO for competitive searches, and letting your product demonstrate value through freemium or trial experiences. The marketing tools that win combine strong fundamentals (clear ROI, excellent UX) with smart distribution (SEO, communities, influencers). Start with foundational tactics like directory submissions to build domain authority, create data-driven content that attracts backlinks, and engage authentically in marketing communities.

    Ready to accelerate your marketing tool's growth? LaunchDirectories can get you listed on 100+ directories in 3-5 days, giving you the backlinks and visibility you need to start ranking for competitive marketing tool searches.

    See Related

    Krzysztof Cichy

    Written by Krzysztof Cichy

    Founder of LaunchDirectories. I help founders and makers get their products listed on 100+ directories, boosting SEO and visibility. As a builder myself, I understand the challenges of promoting new products in competitive markets.

    Ready to promote your marketing tool?

    Get listed on 100+ directories in 3-5 days