If you were able to complete the assignments from the last article, you now have a working document for your Reddit marketing strategy. This strategy starts with the purpose and goals of your campaign and then outlines the different types of marketing activities you will execute to engage redditors.
Technically, you have everything you need to start executing your strategy, but you should understand a few things before doing so.
Start monitoring, commenting, and non-promo submissions
Your Reddit marketing campaign should slowly build on itself over time. If you have been following our tips and completing the assignments, you should have already spent significant time learning the Reddit platform and getting to know the subreddits that matter to your business.
Now that you have a marketing strategy in place, it does not mean that you will all of a sudden start promoting your business constantly in an attempt to create marketing results.
Instead, you should start by contributing value in ways that do not directly promote your business. A good way to do this is to be very diligent about monitoring Reddit and leaving quality comments. You can think of monitoring and commenting as the foundation of your strategy.
Not only does it show the community that you are not just there to promote yourself, but it also keeps you in the loop so you can continue to engage them as a community member (as opposed to an outsider). Every promotional activity you try on Reddit will benefit from a consistent effort to stay connected to the community through monitoring and commenting.
The next layer of your strategy is your non-promotional submissions. Even though these submissions do not promote your business, you should still take it slow and only submit 1-3 non-promotional posts per week to a given subreddit (depending on the activity of the community).
By limiting yourself to a few posts per week, it gives you time to evaluate how different posts are performing and then focus on the types of posts that are contributing the most value to the subreddit.
If you are able to take your time and focus on monitoring, comment, and nonpromotional submissions, you will greatly increase your chances of success on Reddit long-term. This is because you can learn so much while engaging in these nonpromotional activities.
When you are listening and contributing without getting anything in return, you are much more likely to discover opportunities to engage the subreddit in ways that will generate results for your business.
Be flexible and respond to feedback
During every stage of your Reddit marketing campaign, it is important to listen to the feedback you are receiving from redditors. On Reddit, feedback comes in the form of comments and votes. Often times on Reddit, a user will submit a post or comment, it will receive many downvotes and negative comments, and they will become defensive about what they submitted.
While there is a time and place to defend your ideas on Reddit, always start with the assumption that you made a mistake. This allows you to be open to the feedback you are receiving instead of dismissing it.
Reddit is not going to like everything you submit. Still, they will upvote a higher percentage of your submissions if you are able to listen to feedback and make the appropriate adjustments to your strategy.
Evaluate your strategy on a regular basis
Depending on how fast you’re moving with your strategy, you can evaluate your progress on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis. The feedback you are receiving from redditors is an important part of your evaluations but also look at the results you are getting from the campaign.
Think about the time and resources you are putting into Reddit and the results you are getting from that investment.
Do not be discouraged if you do not see short term results. Think long-term and be able to discern if you are building something valuable through your participation on Reddit. Most importantly, make sure that your Reddit marketing strategy is sustainable.
If you want long-term results from Reddit, then you need to have a strategy that you can continue to execute over time.
If the resources you are putting into your campaign are too costly, look for ways to concentrate your efforts and cut out any non-essential activities. The worst thing you could do is burn out after two weeks and never give your Reddit marketing strategy a chance to produce results.
Examples of successful Reddit marketing
Everything you have learned so far comes down to executing successful submissions on Reddit that both contribute value to the community and promote a brand. The following three examples demonstrate real-world examples of businesses executing submissions on Reddit that are both ethical and effective.
Note: See the profile of Small Batch Cigars in the Appendix for a more detailed look at how a business leveraged a single community using a long-term strategy for impressive results.
/u/VideoGameAttorney’s AMA:
There is a more complete case study of Ryan Morrison (the “Video Game Attorney”) in the “The Marketer’s Guide to Reddit AMAs.” Still, we included him here as well because he truly understands Reddit and knows how to achieve marketing results on the platform.
His strategy has largely consisted of recurring AMAs where he contributes value by offering his expertise as an attorney to indie game developers on Reddit. The first example of a successful AMA:
There is a lot to love about how Ryan engages redditors. He is offering up his valuable time and expert knowledge to the community for free. Ryan has expert knowledge in a specific field of practice (video game law), and he is engaging a specific community on Reddit (/r/GameDev, a community for game developers).
The copy is written in a personal tone, and he includes his own email address, Twitter profile, and link to his website. He also states that this AMA is “Attorney Advertising,” which is required by law.
He gets away with this “shameless promotion” (his words) because he is doing something valuable for redditors. Ryan might be the best example of any user who has leveraged his own expertise in Reddit AMAs for marketing results.
This AMA alone received 140 comments and a score of 1162. If you have the opportunity to do an AMA, read more about Ryan and AMAs in the “Marketer’s Guide to Reddit AMAs.”
Local Brewing Company Asks for Feedback:
Some businesses pay thousands of dollars conducting focus groups to learn what their customers like and do not like about them. On Reddit, you can do this for free if you are not afraid of a little public criticism. That is what Arcadia Brewing Company did in their local subreddit.
We wanted to share this post because it generated authentic, valuable feedback even though it was not a post that went viral on Reddit. For a small local business, it is essential to demonstrate that you care what customers think.
Reddit provides a great space for anonymous customers to speak their minds and have a real discussion with management.
We think more businesses, especially in the customer service industry, can benefit from these types of Reddit submissions. It is a great way to hear what your customers think, and you always gain some free exposure in the process.
Just make sure you are ready to handle criticism in a public space without turning negative.
Cinesift Creator Shares New App with /r/DataIsBeautiful
In this example, /u/yomboto made a simple link post to /r/DataIsBeautiful about his new
app, and it received a ton of attention. The post scored ~6,300 and received ~560 comments. We do not have access to traffic data generated by this submission, but it surely led to impressive results.
An important thing to note is that /u/yomboto made a killer app that was highly relevant to the subreddit he submitted to. There are no shortcuts if you want to hit a marketing home run on Reddit – you have to do something really cool.
We love this submission because the user did not have to hide his ownership of the app he was promoting. He plainly stated what the app was and was honest about his involvement. Because the app is so impressive and relevant to the community, they loved it.
