I struggle with marketing so much. I built an amazing product, existing customers love it, but spending any time on doing marketing feels like either wasting development time or spending time to try to force people into buying something they might not want.
Most ads are trying to trick you into buying stuff you don't really need. I know there are cases in which you actually see a relevant ad for something you really want to buy and that will bring value to your life, but that's usually an edge case.
What I am working on doing now is to combine development + marketing. Instead of creating marketing material to sell, I am creating marketing material to educate: create how-to instructional videos, technical blog posts, improve the documentation, etc. If you sell a tool I think this is the best way to go, instead of advertising how cool your tool is, teach people how to use your tool and what they can do with it (eg. if you sell a hammer don't show people how to drive nails and give a 50% limited time discount code; teach them how to build a chair and let them decide themselves if they need a hammer or not).
I think you are confusing marketing with advertising. What you are doing IS marketing. Marketing is about understanding the market’s problem you are solving and figuring out ways to connect those people with your product.
A great way to market your product is to use “content marketing” where you create truly useful information on how people can solve their problems that may or may not even need your product to work. This combines being altruistic (they may read your content and figure out how to solve their problem without your product, and that is ok) with being business savvy (they may be so impressed with your knowledge and articulation that they want YOU to solve their problem, so they hire you/buy your product).
Advertising is just one very small aspect of marketing. A really good marketer understands this and finds the best way to expose their product and reach customers that really need your help.
He never even tried to sell his company’s software FogBugz, but the exposure FogBugz got through his blog was so much greater than he ever could have gotten through advertising. He created a reputation that eclipsed his product several times over. You don’t have to go to the length he did, but hopefully you get the point.
I tried to do dev and marketing at the same time, it was impossible for me. I searched my network and had a friend of a friend who is a marketer actually sit down and help me over beers one night. It really opened my eyes into how much I don't know. They later on continued to help me for a bit but I would recommend reaching out to someone who actually does it for a living and pick their brain.
Most ads are trying to trick you into buying stuff you don't really need. I know there are cases in which you actually see a relevant ad for something you really want to buy and that will bring value to your life, but that's usually an edge case.
What I am working on doing now is to combine development + marketing. Instead of creating marketing material to sell, I am creating marketing material to educate: create how-to instructional videos, technical blog posts, improve the documentation, etc. If you sell a tool I think this is the best way to go, instead of advertising how cool your tool is, teach people how to use your tool and what they can do with it (eg. if you sell a hammer don't show people how to drive nails and give a 50% limited time discount code; teach them how to build a chair and let them decide themselves if they need a hammer or not).