Architecture Notes
3.3 · Marketing

Marketing Management — Getting Found with Zero Ad Budget (DECAX)

2026.07.11~5 min

00Overview

01Why

It's built. Now — how does it reach anyone? Most minds jump to advertising. But a solo project has no ad budget. On a few cents of revenue, there is nothing to spend.

No money? Change the method. Instead of pushing it at people, design for being searched for — pull. And fortune smiles here: my target is "people with the same problem I had." People with a problem search for its solution, on their own initiative. No pushing needed — the other side is already walking toward you. All that's required is to actually be findable, in the place they look.

02How

The frame is the DECAX model — a consumer-behavior model for the content era, proposed by Dentsu. Discovery → Engage → Check → Action → eXperience, in that order. It begins from the consumer's own discovery rather than attention seized by ads, which is exactly the shape a zero-budget solo project needs.

Implemented, it folds into three stages:

  • Get discovered (Discovery) — social feeds flow too fast; nothing accumulates. So: a website and a blog, with SEO. Let the people who have the problem find you by searching it.
  • Earn trust (Engage / Check) — being found isn't being used; a stranger's app doesn't get installed on sight. Articles build empathy and trust. No embellishment; honest; useful — nothing else.
  • Turn users into fans (Action / eXperience) — a good experience gets shared, and the share becomes someone else's discovery (the viral loop). Plus in-app links to my other apps: cross-selling.

The discovery machinery is 3.3.1, the trust machinery 3.3.2, the fan machinery 3.3.3.

03What

Zero ad budget — and still searched for, trusted, and spread.
The machine that keeps that turning is marketing management.

Discovery breeds trust, trust breeds action, and the good experience beyond it becomes the next person's discovery. Encounters that began as dots join into a line, and the line closes into a circle — a loop. That is the first lap of marketing. But some things only a completed lap can teach. What to make of the results, and what to fix — that's the next stage's work.