Edit: I’ll be sharing our journey to $10M ARR on LinkedIn & Twitter, so feel free to follow me!

Hey, I'm Elie,

I'm the CMO of Submagic (AI SaaS to edit short-form content faster).

Today, I wanted to share with you the growth hacks that helped us go from 0 to $1M ARR in 90 days when we launched Submagic.

We now have over 2 million users after one year, and we're still using these growth hacks, here's the post:

How we grew Submagic from 0 to $1M ARR in 90 days

Here's every growth hack we used at the launch of Submagic:

I believe that the product makes up 80% of marketing. 

Amazing product + good marketing strategy = success.

However, many great SaaS products struggle with their go-to-market strategy.

Here are the 3 main distribution channels we used for Submagic:

1. Influencer Marketing

This is our best acquisition channel.

We collaborate with influencers on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok & LinkedIn. 

Leveraging communities of influencers is powerful because it helps us reach engaged audiences who trust their recommendations.

First, we find the best influencers who create content for our ICP and contact them by email.

Then, we ask them to make dedicated videos about the product (this works better than integrations).

For compensation, we offer a fixed payment + 30% commission on sales through our affiliate program.

Our product converts well, so many influencers end up promoting it on their own.

Not every collaboration is a success (in fact, 80% fail).

But out of 10 collaborations, 2 successful ones can offset the 8 failures.

When we have successful collaborations, we book the creators for several months.

2. Paid Ads

→ Google Ads: we use Search ads targeting specific keywords.
→ Facebook Ads: we mainly use videos created by our Influencers (we test ~15 creatives per month).

Content that performs well organically is more likely to succeed as an ad.

Since we are bootstrapped, we spend on ads profitably with a CAC:LTV ratio of 1:3.

Besides creatives, the best way to reduce CAC is by improving the product, funnel, and offer.

• Optimize the signup rate on the LP
• Optimize the product’s conversion rate
• Maximize the product’s retention (to increase LTV)

Then the scaling phase can begin.

I wouldn’t recommend a new SaaS to start marketing with ads.

It's hard to be profitable, ads should just complement a solid organic strategy.

3. Short-Form Content

We use Submagic to create short-form content that promotes Submagic.

SFC is the simplest way to bring in thousands of leads in a short time.

What’s amazing is that anyone can get millions of views even without followers.

Platform algorithms have changed, making it possible for anyone to go viral.

At the start of Submagic, we posted a few TikToks that went viral, got millions of views, and brought in hundreds of customers.

When we have a viral video, our Google Search Console searches spike dramatically, it's crazy.

New SaaS founders should start by creating short-form content to promote their products.

It's easy, free, and you can share the same videos across all platforms for maximum reach.

That’s a wrap on our main acquisition channels (we also do SEO).

I’ve tried to keep this simple (because I could literally talk about our marketing for hours).

I’d be happy to answer any questions you have in the comments, let’s go 🚀