Finding your first—or your next hundred—customers online boils down to a simple, repeatable system. It starts with listening. Find where your audience is already talking about their problems. Then, create content that directly solves those issues, and finally, amplify that content through the right channels.
It's not about being everywhere. It's about being in the right places with the right message. This is the exact playbook we use inside BillyBuzz.
Moving Beyond Guesswork to Find Your First Customers
Trying to find new customers can feel like shouting into the void. The generic advice to ‘be everywhere’ is exhausting and a great way to burn through your budget without seeing real results, especially for early-stage founders.
This guide is different. This isn't theory; it's our founder-to-founder playbook.
We're pulling back the curtain on the exact methods we use at BillyBuzz to attract real customers who have an immediate need for what we offer. We stopped guessing and built a system that turns uncertainty into a consistent flow of qualified leads. To get there, you need to understand the best ways to get digital marketing clients and which channels actually work. This guide is all about practical, hands-on strategies that deliver results without needing a massive budget.
Our Founder-to-Founder Approach
The best way to learn is by seeing what's actually working for someone else. That’s why we're sharing our internal processes.
Throughout this guide, you’ll get a look at:
- Our Social Listening Filters: I'll show you the precise alert rules and subreddits we monitor on Reddit to pinpoint people actively looking for a solution.
- Our SEO Content Framework: You'll learn how we take real customer pain points and turn them into genuinely helpful content that ranks and brings in leads.
- Our Targeted Outreach Templates: See the non-salesy templates and partnership strategies we use to build real relationships and get in front of new audiences.
This isn't about chasing every shiny new tactic. It's about building an efficient, interconnected system where social listening informs your content, your content fuels your SEO, and your outreach amplifies it all.
Forget the fluff. You're about to get actionable steps you can put into practice today to build your own repeatable engine for finding customers. Let's dive in.
Uncover Real Customer Needs with Social Listening on Reddit
Stop shouting into the void and start listening where your customers are already talking. For us, that place is Reddit. It's a goldmine for finding people with immediate problems, making it our go-to strategy for finding prospects who are actively looking for a solution right now.
Instead of pushing your product, you pull in new customers by showing up the moment they ask for help. This is what social listening is all about—turning passive monitoring into an active customer discovery engine. The beauty of this approach is its authenticity. You're not interrupting their day with an ad; you're joining a real conversation with a helpful answer.
Setting Up High-Intent Alerts
Success on Reddit isn't about just showing up. It's about surgically filtering through the noise to find high-intent buying signals. Tracking your brand name is fine, but the real magic happens when you set up hyper-specific alerts that catch phrases indicating a problem you can solve.
We use our own tool, BillyBuzz, to do this. Our main goal is to find people on the verge of making a decision. They might be asking for recommendations, comparing alternatives to a competitor, or venting about a frustrating process. These are the conversations that turn into customers.
This strategy is really about empathy. You find people in a moment of need and offer a genuine solution, not a hard sales pitch. That’s how you build trust from the very first interaction.
We configure our alerts to be incredibly precise using Boolean logic. This lets us combine keywords, exclude irrelevant terms, and zero in on the conversations that matter most. To give you a real-world peek behind the curtain, here’s a look at an actual alert we use to find high-intent leads for BillyBuzz.
Our High-Intent Reddit Alert Configuration
This table shows the exact keyword alert we've configured in BillyBuzz. It's designed to filter out low-quality mentions and surface conversations where people are actively looking for a paid solution.
| Parameter | Our BillyBuzz Configuration |
|---|---|
| Included Keywords | ("how to track" OR "monitor") AND (mentions OR brand OR competitor) |
| Logic | AND |
| Excluded Keywords | free OR "open source" OR cheap |
| Target Subreddits | r/saas, r/marketing, r/startups |
This rule is incredibly effective. It targets users asking about tracking or monitoring brand mentions while filtering out anyone explicitly looking for a free solution. The result is a clean feed of prospects with a clear need and a potential budget.
Listen in the Right Subreddits
Finding the right communities is just as crucial as tracking the right keywords. You need to hang out where your ideal customers—in our case, founders, marketers, and indie hackers—spend their time.
Here are the subreddits we monitor constantly. These are hubs for our target audience:
- r/saas: The go-to community for SaaS founders and pros to talk growth, marketing, and product.
- r/startups: A place where entrepreneurs share their struggles, ask for advice, and discuss the startup rollercoaster.
- r/marketing: A massive community for marketers to exchange ideas on strategy, tools, and trends.
- r/growmybusiness: A subreddit focused on practical, actionable advice for small business owners looking to scale up.
While these are great starting points, we are always learning how to get customers from Reddit in 2025 and constantly refine our subreddit targeting based on where we find the best conversations.
Our Proven, Non-Salesy Response Template
Once you find the right conversation, your reply is everything. A hard sell will get you downvoted into oblivion. The goal is always to be genuinely helpful first.
Here’s the basic template we use internally at BillyBuzz. Think of it less as a script and more as a flexible guide we adapt for every unique conversation.
BillyBuzz Internal Response Template
Subject: Re: [Original Post Title]
Hey [Username],
Tough spot. I've been there, manually trying to keep tabs on what people are saying online is a huge time sink.
One thing that helped us was setting up a simple Google Alert for key phrases in quotes, like "competitor name" vs. It's not perfect but can catch some of the bigger mentions.
Full disclosure, we actually got so frustrated with the manual process that we built a tool (BillyBuzz) to automate this and send alerts straight to Slack.
Happy to share more about our setup if it's helpful. No pressure at all.
This founder-to-founder approach works because it prioritizes helping over selling. You come across as a knowledgeable peer, not just another vendor trying to make a sale.
Building an SEO Engine That Attracts Ready-to-Buy Leads
While hunting on Reddit gives us those quick, high-intent wins, a rock-solid SEO strategy is our long game. It's the machine that works for you 24/7, pulling in leads who are actively looking for a solution, freeing you up to actually build your product.
This isn't about chasing the latest Google algorithm update or stuffing keywords into a blog post. For us, SEO is much simpler: it’s about systematically answering the exact questions our ideal customers are typing into their search bar. It’s a direct line into their most urgent problems. Our whole approach boils down to one core belief. If we can create the most genuinely helpful, founder-to-founder advice on the internet for a specific problem, we’ll earn both trust and traffic.
From Reddit Threads to Ranking Content
The best ideas for our content rarely come from a keyword research tool. They come from the real, unfiltered conversations happening every day on Reddit.
When we see the same question or frustration pop up over and over in subreddits like r/saas or r/startups, it’s a massive signal. That’s a real pain point, right there in the open. We call this our 'problem-first' content strategy. This gives us a huge head start. We aren't just guessing what people might want to read; we're creating content based on proven demand. We even get to use the exact language and phrasing our audience uses, which helps us connect and rank. A perfect example of this in action is knowing that Reddit posts now rank on Google, turning threads into evergreen SEO for your startup if you know what you're doing.
By listening first, we ensure every article we write is laser-focused on solving a real-world problem. This isn't just a content strategy; it’s a customer-centric growth strategy.
Targeting Long-Tail Keywords for High-Intent Traffic
Early on, we made a strategic choice to completely ignore broad, high-volume keywords. Trying to rank for a term like "customer acquisition" as a startup is a fool's errand. The competition is insane, and you have no idea who is on the other side of that search.
Instead, we focus exclusively on long-tail keywords. These are longer, more specific phrases that tell you the user is much closer to making a decision.
Just think about the difference in intent between these two searches:
- Broad Keyword: "social media marketing" (Who is this? A student? A job seeker? A bored marketer?)
- Long-Tail Keyword: "how to find first customers for saas with reddit" (You can bet this is a founder with a very specific, urgent problem they need to solve right now.)
Going after these queries means we get less traffic overall, but the traffic we do get is incredibly qualified. These visitors are actively hunting for a solution, and that makes them far more likely to convert.
The Trade-Off Between SEO and Paid Ads
Let's be clear: building a real SEO engine is a long-term investment. It's not a switch you can flip for instant results, and it requires patience. This is where it differs dramatically from channels like paid advertising, which can get you in front of people immediately, but usually at a much higher cost.
For example, a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign might break even in about 4 months, but the average customer acquisition cost (CAC) hovers around $802.
In contrast, SEO takes longer to get going—think 9 months to break even. But the payoff is a much lower average CAC of $647. It's a classic tortoise and hare scenario. We look at SEO as building a valuable asset. Every article we publish is like a piece of digital real estate that can attract new customers for years, long after we hit publish.
Our Content Creation Process
Our content isn’t farmed out to freelance writers who don’t get our business. It’s created by our own team, drawing directly from our own experiences, mistakes, and successes building BillyBuzz. This founder-to-founder perspective is our secret weapon.
Here’s a quick peek at how we do it:
- Spot the Pain Point: We find a recurring problem on Reddit or through conversations with our own users.
- Frame the Solution: We outline an article that gives a practical, step-by-step fix, packed with real examples.
- Write Like a Human: We write like we're talking to another founder at a coffee shop—no corporate jargon, just actionable advice.
- Optimize for People (and Google): We make sure the article is easy to scan with short paragraphs, clear headings, and helpful visuals. Then we layer in the basic on-page SEO so it can get found.
This approach ensures our content doesn't just rank; it resonates. By being genuinely helpful, we build the kind of trust that turns a casual reader into a loyal customer.
Using Paid Ads Surgically to Amplify Your Reach
Paid advertising gets a bad rap with bootstrapped founders. It often feels like a budget-draining monster with a questionable return. But that's only if you treat it like a megaphone. When you start thinking of it more like a scalpel, it becomes an incredibly powerful tool for amplifying what’s already working.
At BillyBuzz, we steer clear of broad, expensive “awareness” campaigns. Instead, we run small, highly targeted ad campaigns with one simple goal: to speed up the buying journey for people who are already warm leads. Our entire paid ad strategy is built on the back of our SEO and content marketing. We let our blog articles do the heavy lifting—attracting and educating potential customers. Then, we use paid ads to give them a gentle nudge toward making a decision. It's a low-cost, high-return way to find customers who have already shown they're interested.
The Power of Retargeting Engaged Readers
The most straightforward and effective ad campaign you can run is a retargeting campaign. You show ads specifically to people who have already visited your website. We take this one step further by only targeting visitors who have engaged with our most valuable, problem-solving SEO articles.
Why does this work so well? These aren't cold prospects. They found us by searching for a solution, read our advice, and have a genuine problem we can solve. They're already pre-qualified. Showing them a relevant ad simply keeps us top-of-mind. This approach flips the script on paid ads. You're not paying to interrupt strangers; you're paying to continue a conversation that you've already started.
This kind of precision is critical. Global digital ad spending is projected to climb by 10.1%, hitting over $765 billion. With the average cost per action (CPA) for paid search hovering around $49 and display ads at $75, a surgical approach is the only way for smaller companies to compete. You can dive deeper into these digital marketing statistics to see just how intense the competition for attention has become.
Our LinkedIn Retargeting Playbook
Since our audience is mostly B2B founders and marketers, LinkedIn is the perfect playground for this strategy. It lets you get incredibly granular with targeting.
Here’s the exact setup for a campaign we run to promote BillyBuzz. This one targets people who have read our blog posts about using Reddit for lead generation.
- Audience: We create a custom audience of anyone who has visited a URL on our site containing
/blog/. - Targeting Filters: We then filter that audience on LinkedIn to only include people with specific job titles like
Founder,Co-Founder,Head of Marketing,Marketing Manager, orGrowth Manager. - Exclusions: Finally, we exclude our current customers and employees. This ensures every penny of our ad spend is focused on attracting new business.
This level of targeting is what makes the strategy so efficient. We know every dollar is going toward showing our ad to a decision-maker at a relevant company who has already engaged with our content. It's the polar opposite of "spray and pray."
Ad Copy Pulled from Real Pain Points
The final piece is the ad copy. Just like our blog content, our ad copy comes directly from the pain points we find by listening to conversations on Reddit. We take the exact words people use to describe their frustrations and turn that language into compelling, empathetic ad copy.
Here’s a real example of an ad we've run:
- Headline: Tired of manually searching Reddit for leads?
- Body: You know the conversations are happening, but finding them is a full-time job. Get real-time alerts for new customers on Reddit, delivered straight to your Slack.
- CTA: Start finding customers.
This copy works because it holds up a mirror to the user's exact problem. It proves we understand their struggle on a deeper level, which is the fastest way to build trust. By combining this empathetic copy with our hyper-targeted audience, we create small but mighty ad campaigns that deliver real, measurable ROI without breaking the bank.
Unlock New Audiences Through Strategic Partnerships
You don’t have to find every single customer yourself. Trying to go it alone is one of the fastest ways to burn out. Strategic partnerships are a huge force multiplier, giving you a direct line to established, trusting audiences that would otherwise take months, if not years, to build from scratch.
At BillyBuzz, our partnership strategy isn't about complex affiliate programs or chasing big-name influencers. It’s simpler: a founder-to-founder process where we identify non-competing companies that serve the exact same customer we do. This approach is all about borrowing trust. When a company your ideal customer already knows and likes introduces you, a ton of friction melts away. Those leads come in pre-warmed and are far more likely to convert.
Identifying Your Ideal Partners
First, figure out who to team up with. We think of it in terms of the "customer journey stack." What other tools, services, or communities does our ideal customer use right before, during, or after they'd need a tool like ours?
This question helps us build a laser-focused list of potential partners who are complementary, not competitive.
- Marketing Agencies: They are always on the hunt for new tools to recommend to clients—tools that make their own services more effective.
- Other B2B SaaS Tools: A CRM or an email marketing platform that also caters to early-stage startups is a perfect match. Their audience is our audience.
- Startup Communities & Newsletters: They've already put in the hard work of building a dedicated following of founders and marketers.
The key is to find companies where a partnership feels like a natural, win-win scenario. They get to offer more value to their audience, and you get access to a pool of highly qualified potential customers.
Our Outreach Strategy: Offer Value First
Generic "let's partner" emails are deleted on sight. Your first interaction has to be about giving, not asking. You have to lead with value and show you're invested in helping them before you ever ask for anything in return.
We never send a completely cold pitch. Instead, we look for an opening to help them first. Maybe we spot a conversation on Reddit where their tool is being discussed and we can jump in with a positive, helpful comment. Or we can feature them in one of our own blog posts and then shoot them a note to let them know. These small gestures build real goodwill and make your actual outreach feel genuine.
Your initial email shouldn't read like a sales pitch. It should read like a note from one founder to another who genuinely admires what they're building and has an idea that could benefit both of you.
Here’s the exact, no-fluff template we adapt for our first email. It's designed to be personal, concise, and centered on a specific, valuable idea.
Our Go-To Partnership Outreach Template
Subject: Idea for your audience, [Partner Company Name]
Hi [Founder's Name],
Big fan of what you're building at [Partner Company Name] – especially love [mention something specific, like a blog post or feature].
I was just looking at your recent article on [Article Topic] and had an idea. We specialize in helping founders find customers through Reddit monitoring, and I think a joint webinar on "Uncovering Leads in Online Communities" could be incredibly valuable for your audience.
We'd handle all the content creation and promotion on our end.
No pressure at all, but let me know if you're open to a quick chat next week.
Best,
[Your Name]
Structuring a Win-Win Collaboration
Once you get a positive reply, the focus shifts to creating a collaboration that is low-effort and high-impact for both of you. For us, co-hosted webinars are an absolute favorite starting point.
They’re relatively easy to organize and offer immense value. Your partner gets fresh, expert content for their audience without having to create it, and you get an hour of undivided attention from dozens of pre-qualified leads. This entire approach of finding adjacent audiences is similar to leveraging Reddit for effective marketing; you’re tapping into existing communities instead of trying to build them from the ground up. By finding the right partners and always leading with value, you create a powerful and sustainable channel for finding new customers online.
Putting It All Together: Your Customer Acquisition Flywheel
We've walked through our tactics: social listening, SEO, paid ads, and partnerships. But the secret is that they aren't meant to be used in isolation. Think of them as interconnected gears. When you get them working together, you build a powerful customer acquisition flywheel that gains momentum over time.
This is the shift from constantly chasing the next lead to building a machine that reliably brings new customers right to your door. It’s the real endgame when you're figuring out how to find customers online. The process is a continuous loop. You start by getting clear on who you're talking to, then you find them on the right channels and measure what actually moves the needle.
As you can see, it's not a one-and-done deal. The data you collect should constantly feed back into your strategy, helping you refine your personas and double down on the channels that work.
Connecting the Dots: A Real-World Example
Let's make this tangible. Here’s how we turn a single insight into a multi-channel campaign at BillyBuzz.
The Spark (Social Listening): We monitor Reddit and notice a thread in
r/saas. A founder is venting about how much time they waste manually tracking competitor mentions. That's a raw, unfiltered pain point.The Content (SEO): That single conversation becomes the seed for a new blog post: "How to Automate Competitor Monitoring on Reddit." We know this founder's problem isn't unique. The article provides a direct solution.
The Boost (Paid Ads): Once the article starts getting organic love from Google, we put a little budget behind it. We run a highly targeted LinkedIn retargeting campaign, showing ads for a free trial specifically to people with "Founder" or "Head of Marketing" in their title who have already visited that blog post.
The Scale (Partnerships): Seeing the ad campaign convert well validates the topic's appeal. We reach out to a marketing agency that works with early-stage SaaS businesses and pitch a co-hosted webinar based on the content from our successful article, giving us direct access to their entire audience of qualified leads.
See how that works? It’s a self-reinforcing loop. The Reddit insight fueled the SEO content. The SEO content created the ad audience. And the ad data gave us the confidence to pitch the partnership. Each step built on the last.
This is what an integrated strategy looks like. Your efforts don't just add up; they compound, creating a system that gets more efficient at finding customers online over time.
Common Questions We Hear From Founders
We talk to a lot of other founders in the trenches. Based on our own experience building BillyBuzz, here are some straight answers to the questions that pop up most often.
How Much Time Should I Actually Spend on Social Listening Every Day?
Honestly, you don't need to live on Reddit. With a good tool feeding you real-time alerts, it’s all about surgical precision, not brute-force effort.
We've found the sweet spot is about 15-20 minutes a day. That's enough time to scan the most important alerts and jump into two or three conversations that look promising. It's the daily consistency that builds your presence and reputation, not trying to answer every single mention you find.
What’s a Realistic Budget for a First-Time Paid Ad Campaign?
Don't feel like you have to break the bank. We always tell people to start small and smart. A budget of $300-$500 for a one-month retargeting campaign is a perfect starting point.
Your goal here isn’t to get a flood of new leads. It’s to collect data. You want to see which messages actually stick with the people who are already checking you out thanks to your content marketing. That data is pure gold for your next move.
This kind of focused, small-scale test gives you real insights without burning through your cash. You learn what your audience cares about before you even think about scaling up your ad spend.
How Can I Tell if My SEO Content Is Really Working?
It's easy to get obsessed with traffic numbers, but they can be a vanity metric. The numbers we actually care about are keyword ranking improvements and, most importantly, "organic search signups" in our analytics dashboard.
When you see someone find a blog post through a Google search and then actually sign up for your product, that's when you know you've hit the jackpot. It’s concrete proof that your content isn't just getting eyeballs—it's getting the right eyeballs. Just remember, SEO is a long game. It can easily take 3-6 months to see these kinds of results start rolling in. But the payoff is a customer acquisition channel that works for you around the clock.
Stop searching and start listening. BillyBuzz uses AI to find your next customers on Reddit and delivers real-time alerts so you can join the conversation at the perfect moment. Find your customers now.