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The Marketing Playbook That Grew My App to $13K/month | Starter Story
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The 7-Step Free Tools Marketing Playbook
At 14:47 · chapter starts 13:50
This chapter captures Bhanu's most actionable contribution to the episode. Asked to give a step-by-step playbook for founders starting from scratch in 2026, Bhanu outlines seven steps. Step 1: open Ahrefs Keywords Explorer and search with a blank query to surface every possible keyword. Step 2: apply include filters using terms relevant to your product category (e.g. 'AI' + 'generator'). Step 3: filter by keyword difficulty below 10 — the threshold below which any decent website can realistically rank. Step 4: add a minimum monthly search volume of 1,000 to ensure the traffic is worthwhile. Step 5: export the surviving keywords into a Notion page with volume and difficulty columns. Step 6: design a CTA for each keyword that naturally bridges the free tool to the main product. Step 7: score every opportunity by volume, difficulty, build effort, and product relevance, then prioritise accordingly. The playbook is immediately executable by any founder with an Ahrefs account [1] — Bhanu "Start with a blank Ahrefs search, layer in keyword filters (include term, KD < 10, volume > 1,000), list candidates in Notion, design a CTA…" 15:27 .
Marketing feels painful for most builders. Engineering as marketing flips the script: instead of writing cold emails or blog posts, you build things — and those things rank on Google forever.
