Marketing through side projects — Everything you need to know

A trending topic, the right idea, and appropriate technology — here is how we leveraged these ingredients for building a kickass side project in 24 hours and marketed our core product alongside gaining thousands of subscribers.

An idea can come from anywhere in the team if the team is motivated and aligned to the company goals.

I have always believed in this philosophy and recently, I witnessed this principle getting testified at Mailmodo.

While the whole world was obsessing over Wordle, a new viral word game, one of our interns came up with a unique idea — why don’t we play it inside the emails? Instantly, our entire team got excited and could see the potential.

No external links, no hitting ‘wordle’ in google searches day after day, but getting the Wordle dose every day in your emails. By unifying wordle and emails, we could show what AMP emails could achieve and how Mailmodo can make this possible with a no-code, easy-to-use platform.

We realized that this side project was perfectly aligned with our business objective and immediately got to work. In this article, I have jotted down all the steps that we took to launch Wordlemail in 24 hours and explained our thought process behind them with a blueprint. This is a playbook to guide you if you too have ideas for a side marketing project but are unsure about executing it.

So, here we go.

Choose an idea that aligns with your business

Mailmodo aims to bring app-like interactivity inside email inboxes. Imagine sending real-time updates, embedding the entire checkout process, or playing online games within an email without switching to another tab. There is no more redirection to other links and a complex user journey; your inbox could mirror a web page with AMP emails.

Since we launched Mailmodo, we have changed the email marketing game for numerous brands. Now, we want to make interactive emails mainstream, and for that, we need to reach out to as many people as possible.

This is the point where Wordle enters.

In November 2021, it was being played by only 90 people, and in January 2022, this number rose to 2 million. Just like me, these 2 million players can’t end their day without their Wordle score. So, if we brought this game right into their inboxes every day, we would have many people educated about the potential of AMP emails.

We knew that it could be a classic case of moment marketing for our startup! It was already viral and had the potential of demonstrating our product’s use-case in action. If we pulled this off on time, we would tap into a huge market and create a buzz for our product. So without wasting time, we got to work.

Our Playbook for launching a side marketing project

As soon as I was sure about the idea, I called a meeting and got the right people on board. With a brief brainstorming session, we had a plan in hand. This is what we did in the next 24 hours to launch #Wordlemail.

The first steps

1. Block only a certain number of days or hours: Your side project should not impact your main business. Hence, blocking a certain amount of time ensures that your team members do not get occupied in it for a long time and also have a time-bound goal to achieve. While building Wordlemail, we decided to block ourselves for 24 hours and launch it within the timeframe.
2. Start with developing the core idea and checking its feasibility: Your first step should be to start figuring out if your idea is feasible and can be developed within a short time frame. With Worldemail, we had a meeting with our coding team where we discussed the features, possibilities, and resources required to bring World email to life.
3. Focus on the design and UX: A side marketing project doesn’t mean you can compromise on its design and UX. It has to be user-friendly to retain users and leverage the momentary hype. So, the involvement of your design team is essential. While building Worldemail, we ensured that our emails, landing pages, and social media graphics were on point.
4. Create a landing page: A landing page shouldn’t take too much time with tools like Strapi and should be ready and approved before the launch. As soon as we had the plan blueprint, I went ahead and secured the domain name for Wordlemail.com. Meanwhile, our content and design team worked on the landing page copy, creation, and designing the email template.
5. Determine the marketing distribution channels: The whole point of the side marketing project is to create a buzz, so you must keep your marketing playbook ready with the messaging, platforms, and channels sorted.

Now at this point, you must be wondering that not all Wordle fans may be the ideal ICP for Mailmodo. Basically, our goal here was to spread awareness about the features of AMP emails and we could do that by showing people that they could play games inside an email with AMP.

Moreover, all those fans that we reached must be working somewhere or must be sending emails at least; if they are made aware of what emails could achieve and what they’re missing out on, our job is done.

So, keeping this in mind, we started with our distribution prep. Our team of social media marketers was given the task of finding appropriate Reddit and Twitter threads, influencers who loved Wordle, communities, and slack channels where Wordle was a hot topic. The idea was to plug our Wordlemail in these places to get maximum traction.

Here’s what we did to find more and more Wordle Fans:
- Twitter: Used Phantombuster to find people who discussed Wordle frequently, made their list and contacted them via DMs to try Wordlemail.
- Reddit: We made a list of communities based on Wordle, online gaming, puzzles, board games, and word games to spread the word.
- Slack Channel: We targeted channels that discussed emails, online gaming, and marketing.

1. Prepare for the launch on Product Hunt: For PH launch, you need to have a hunter, tagline, first comment, and landing page ready. Before the launch of Wordlemail, we reached out to Kevin William to hunt wordle on PH. Before the PH launch, we finalized the PH launch checklist, which covered product tagline, description, link, thumbnail, and hunter’s first comment beforehand so that we had no showstoppers on the D-Day.
2. Jotted down all our social media messages: From the official announcement posts to individual messages, we wrote down every caption and prepared a universal template that we could use for distribution.

The Launch Day

1. Test your product: Our day began with sending a test Wordlemail, the first wordle in email, to our team, finding out any shortcomings in UI/UX or copy, and ensuring that everything was on point before we sent out our first official Wordlemail.
2. Launch on Product Hunt: Our Product Hunt page was ready — we had tested it on Preview Hunt to see if there were any discrepancies. After the final check, we went live on PH. Kevin William David was gracious enough to hunt us on PH.
3. Send messages to connections: All our team members reached out to Wordle fans in their network and told them about Wordlemail. (We already had a message template — ready)
4. Start posting in communities and different threads: We made a list of people on different channels where our target audience was. So, we took no time to shoot our messages after the launch.
5. Post on individual social media profiles with the hashtag #wordlemail: Our goal was to take Wordlemail to as many people as possible. So, Team Mailmodo got together and started posting on their personal social media profiles. We also sent WhatsApp messages to our contact, who we knew were Wordle fans, and shared details about Wordlemail in Whatsapp groups to amplify reach.
6. Monitor all the channels to reply on time and boost conversations: Engagement is a must! So, our social media team was glued to mentions, comments, and tags so that we didn’t miss out on any opportunity to start a conversation about Wordlemail.

Wordlemail might have been our side project, but we’re still getting reviews, appreciation, and even queries about AMP emails after its launch.

These few days helped us achieve great results and taught us a few valuable lessons, too. Let’s look at what we gained from Project Wordlemail — in terms of conversion and learnings.

What we learned with this side project

Following the launch of Wordlemail, Mailmodo’s recorded signup spike. We also recorded 1400 sessions in the day on the Wordlemail page post the release. This has been a rewarding side project for us at Mailmodo.

Some lessons that we picked up along the way are -

Seize the moment: A marketer’s job is anything but 9 to 5. You need to be up and running 24/7 and should always have your eyes open for trends. With Wordlemail, we seized the opportunity to use the right trend at the right time. And so, we were able to catch maximum eyeballs.

Plug your value: Your side project should convey what your brand offers to the users. Your goal should be to educate and spread awareness. Online games, including Wordle, is a use-case for AMP. By embedding it into an email and reaching out to the right fans (startup owners, marketers, small and mid-sized businesses, and even individuals who read email on a daily basis), we were able to show what Mailmodo can accomplish and opened up a stream of conversations.

Always have a gameplan ready: Use task allocation and collaboration tools, automate your messages and emails, note-taking apps, or even Google sheets — but always have a gameplan ready before you hit launch. Moment marketing is all about the right timing, and you can’t get it right unless you’re well-prepared.

Don’t forget the follow-up: Nothing matters more than amplifying visibility and discussions in moment marketing. Your main job begins after the launch, so keep following up and reply to every message, comment, and feedback.

Use no-code and automation tools : Today, trends become popular in a matter of days and disappear in a similar manner. If you have an idea that leverages a momentary trend, you need tools that are agile, scalable, and require minimum coding efforts. The good news, however, is that we now have great no-code, automation platforms to support quick development and rapid changes.

In our case, we had Mailmodo. Because of its no-code functionalities and smart automation features, we were able to develop Wordlemail in 24 hours straight and execute our idea. So, if you’re still toying with the idea of shifting to a low-code or no-code stack, we suggest taking the plunge as soon as you can.

Wordlemail allowed us to hack a current trend and showcase our functionalities. Our marketers sensed the opportunity, came up with the idea, got the team together to build it up, and made sure it was launched on time. What worked for us was the combination between timing, teamwork, and trend.

If you, too, have an idea in mind for a side project, assess its potential, give it a deadline, don’t overthink, create a playbook, and go for it. If you need any tips, why don’t you let us know in the comments?

Meanwhile, don’t forget to check out Wordlemail and Mailmodo while you’re at it!