Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Last year, I started working with a B2B SaaS client who was burning through marketing budget like crazy. They were doing everything the "growth gurus" recommended - Facebook ads, SEO content, cold email sequences, LinkedIn outreach. The founder was frustrated because they had traffic coming in from multiple channels, but conversion rates were terrible and they couldn't figure out which efforts were actually working.
Sound familiar? Here's the thing - most SaaS companies are stuck in what I call "spray and pray" marketing. They try everything at once because every marketing expert tells them to be "omnichannel" from day one. But here's what I learned working with this client: when you're trying to be everywhere, you're actually nowhere.
That's when I introduced them to the bullseye framework - a systematic approach to finding your ONE breakthrough channel before scaling to others. The results completely changed their trajectory, and more importantly, it revealed that their real growth driver wasn't any of the channels they were already testing.
In this playbook, you'll discover:
Why the bullseye method beats trying multiple channels simultaneously
The 3-step testing framework I used to identify their breakthrough channel
How we discovered that founder-led content was driving 70% of quality leads
The surprising channel that outperformed paid ads by 300%
A step-by-step template you can apply to your own SaaS
Ready to stop guessing and start growing? Let's dive into what actually works when it comes to sustainable SaaS growth.
Industry Reality
What every SaaS growth expert preaches (and why it's wrong)
Walk into any SaaS conference or browse through growth marketing content, and you'll hear the same advice repeated endlessly:
"You need to be omnichannel from the start."
The conventional wisdom goes like this: diversify your marketing channels early, test everything simultaneously, and whoever has the most touchpoints wins. Growth advisors will tell you to run paid ads on Google and Facebook, start SEO immediately, build an email list, do cold outreach, create a podcast, post on LinkedIn daily, and somehow manage community building on the side.
Here's why this approach exists: it sounds sophisticated and comprehensive. Investors love hearing about "multi-channel strategies" because it feels like you're de-risking the business. Marketing agencies love it because they can sell you more services. And frankly, successful companies with big budgets do eventually use multiple channels.
But here's where this conventional wisdom falls apart for early-stage SaaS:
Resource Dilution: You spread thin budgets across channels that need focused investment to work
Attribution Nightmare: You can't tell which efforts actually drive results
Optimization Paralysis: You're constantly switching between channels instead of mastering one
False Signals: Multiple weak channels create the illusion of progress
The reality is that most successful SaaS companies built their foundation on ONE breakthrough channel before expanding. Slack dominated through word-of-mouth and team virality. HubSpot built an empire on inbound content. Zoom grew through product-led referrals.
That's exactly what the bullseye framework helps you find - your singular breakthrough channel before you waste time and money on everything else.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When I started working with this B2B SaaS client, their situation was textbook "spray and pray" marketing. They were a project management tool for creative agencies, and the founder was convinced they needed to be everywhere because their market was "diverse."
Their monthly marketing spend looked like this: $3K on Facebook ads, $2K on Google ads, $1K on LinkedIn campaigns, plus they were producing blog content, sending cold emails, and the founder was posting occasionally on LinkedIn. After six months of this approach, they had generated plenty of "direct" traffic but couldn't figure out where their best customers were actually coming from.
The founder was getting frustrated because their cost per acquisition was climbing every month, but they couldn't identify which channel to double down on or which to kill. Every channel seemed to be "working a little bit" but nothing was driving consistent, scalable growth.
That's when I suggested we step back completely and apply the bullseye framework. The idea was simple: instead of trying to optimize six different channels simultaneously, we'd systematically test them one by one to find the breakthrough channel.
But here's where it got interesting - when we actually dug into their analytics and talked to their best customers, we discovered something none of us expected. Most of their highest-value customers mentioned they had been following the founder on LinkedIn for months before signing up. Not because of his sponsored posts or cold outreach, but because of his organic content sharing behind-the-scenes insights about running a creative agency.
The "direct" traffic we'd been seeing wasn't actually direct - it was people who had been building trust through his personal brand, then typing the URL directly when they were ready to buy. This was a classic attribution gap that we never would have discovered without the systematic approach of bullseye marketing.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Here's exactly how I implemented the bullseye framework with this client, and the step-by-step process you can use for your own SaaS:
Step 1: Channel Brainstorming and Prioritization
First, we listed every possible marketing channel relevant to their audience. Instead of just going with what felt right, we researched where their ideal customers (creative agency owners) actually spent time and consumed information.
We identified 12 potential channels, then used a simple scoring matrix based on three criteria: potential reach, conversion likelihood, and resource requirements. This wasn't about gut feeling - we researched competitor activity, analyzed search volumes, and studied where their best existing customers had come from.
Step 2: The Three-Ring Testing Framework
Instead of testing all channels at once, we implemented the classic bullseye approach: Inner ring (most promising), Middle ring (maybe), and Outer ring (long shots). We allocated 70% of effort to inner ring, 20% to middle, and 10% to outer.
For each channel in the inner ring, we created a minimal viable test with clear success metrics and a 30-day timeline. For LinkedIn content (which emerged as our top hypothesis), this meant the founder posting 3x per week with specific content formats and tracking engagement-to-website conversion.
Step 3: Systematic Testing and Attribution Tracking
Here's where most companies fail - they don't set up proper tracking before they start testing. We implemented UTM parameters for every channel, set up goal tracking in Analytics, and most importantly, added a simple "How did you hear about us?" question to their onboarding flow.
The results were eye-opening. LinkedIn organic content generated 3x more qualified leads than their entire paid advertising budget combined. But here's the kicker - it wasn't the promotional posts that worked. It was the founder sharing honest insights about the challenges of running a creative agency.
Step 4: Channel Deep Dive and Optimization
Once we identified LinkedIn personal branding as the breakthrough channel, we went deep instead of wide. We analyzed which content formats performed best, what topics resonated most with their audience, and how to systematically turn LinkedIn engagement into trial signups.
We created a content system around three pillars: industry insights, behind-the-scenes agency operations, and product development updates. The founder went from posting randomly to having a strategic content calendar that consistently drove qualified leads.
Test Framework
Set up proper attribution before testing any channel. Most failed marketing efforts are actually attribution problems in disguise.
Content Reality
The best-performing content wasn't promotional - it was the founder sharing authentic industry insights and challenges.
Channel Focus
Focus 70% of resources on your most promising channel rather than spreading budget across multiple weak efforts.
Attribution Truth"
Direct' traffic often masks your real growth drivers. Customer surveys revealed the true source of conversions.
The transformation was remarkable. Within 90 days of implementing the bullseye framework:
LinkedIn organic content became their primary lead generation channel, driving 60% of new trial signups compared to 15% from all paid advertising combined. More importantly, these leads converted to paid customers at 3x the rate of paid traffic leads.
Their customer acquisition cost dropped by 40% because they shifted budget away from expensive paid channels toward content creation and personal brand building. What used to cost $200 per trial signup through ads now cost effectively $60 through organic LinkedIn content.
But the most surprising result was the quality improvement. Customers acquired through the founder's LinkedIn content had 2x higher lifetime value and 50% lower churn compared to paid traffic. They were coming in pre-educated and pre-qualified because they had been following his insights for weeks or months.
The founder went from spending 20 hours per week managing multiple marketing channels to focusing 5 hours per week on strategic content creation. The streamlined approach was not only more effective but actually sustainable for a busy founder.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Looking back on this project, here are the key lessons that apply to any B2B SaaS implementing bullseye marketing:
Attribution gaps hide your real growth drivers. What looked like "direct" traffic was actually the result of personal brand building over time.
Systematic testing beats intuition. None of us predicted that authentic LinkedIn content would outperform polished ad campaigns.
Quality trumps quantity in B2B. One focused channel with great attribution beats six channels with mixed results.
Founder-led content is often undervalued. Especially in B2B SaaS, people buy from people they trust, not from brands.
Resource concentration creates compound effects. Getting really good at one channel builds momentum faster than being mediocre at many.
Customer feedback reveals attribution truth. Surveys and interviews often expose the real customer journey that analytics miss.
Sustainability matters more than speed. A founder creating 3 strategic posts per week beats a team creating 20 random posts.
The biggest mistake I see SaaS founders make is thinking they need to be sophisticated with their marketing from day one. But sophistication comes from mastery, not from complexity. Master one channel with the bullseye framework, then expand from a position of strength.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS implementation:
Start with a 90-day single-channel focus rather than multi-channel spreading
Set up attribution tracking before testing any channel
Test founder-led content as your first inner ring hypothesis
Survey customers to understand their actual discovery journey
For your Ecommerce store
For E-commerce adaptation:
Apply bullseye to product categories rather than entire stores
Test visual content channels (Instagram, Pinterest) in your inner ring
Focus on customer lifetime value metrics over just conversion rates
Use customer reviews to identify your strongest marketing messages