Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
OK, so here's the thing about finding low competition channels - everyone's looking in the wrong places. When I started working with a B2B SaaS client last year, they were burning through their budget on Facebook ads and Google campaigns, competing with companies that had 10x their marketing budget.
You know what's crazy? While they were fighting for scraps in the red ocean of paid ads, their biggest growth opportunity was sitting right under their noses. Most founders think "low competition" means finding some secret platform nobody knows about. That's not how it works.
The real low competition channels aren't hidden - they're ignored because they require work that doesn't scale immediately. And that's exactly why they work.
Here's what you'll learn from my experience helping this client find their breakthrough channel:
Why traditional channel research leads you to the wrong places
The counterintuitive method I used to identify their golden channel
A systematic approach to testing channels without burning budget
How to spot when everyone else is looking in the wrong direction
The 90-day framework that turned this discovery into $50K in revenue
Ready to stop fighting in crowded channels? Let's dive into how I found distribution gold where everyone else saw nothing. Check out more growth strategies in our growth playbooks.
Industry Reality
What most growth advice gets wrong about "hidden" channels
Walk into any growth marketing conference and you'll hear the same advice repeated like a broken record. "Find untapped channels," they say. "Look for emerging platforms before they get saturated." The growth gurus love talking about finding the next TikTok before it becomes mainstream.
Here's the conventional wisdom that everyone preaches:
Hunt for new platforms: Be the first mover on emerging social networks or communication tools
Geographic arbitrage: Target regions where your competitors haven't expanded yet
Audience arbitrage: Find demographic segments that aren't being targeted
Keyword gaps: Use SEO tools to find keywords your competitors missed
Platform features: Exploit new advertising features before they become competitive
This advice exists because it worked for some companies - once. The problem? By the time case studies get published and shared at conferences, those "hidden" channels are already saturated.
The reality is that truly low competition channels aren't hidden at all. They're visible to everyone but ignored for a simple reason: they don't look scalable at first glance. Most growth teams skip over them because they can't immediately see how to 10x their results in 30 days.
This creates a massive blind spot. While everyone's fighting over the same "proven" channels, genuine opportunities sit in plain sight, waiting for someone willing to do the work that doesn't scale. That's exactly where I found gold for my client.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When this B2B SaaS client came to me, they were in a classic situation. They'd raised their Series A and had pressure to show rapid growth. Their current acquisition strategy looked solid on paper - Facebook ads, Google ads, content marketing, the whole playbook.
But something was broken in their unit economics. Their customer acquisition cost was climbing while their conversion rates stayed flat. They were stuck in what I call the "red ocean trap" - fighting for the same audiences as their well-funded competitors.
The turning point came when I started digging into their data differently. Instead of looking at their marketing attribution reports, I analyzed where their best customers were actually coming from. That's when I discovered something interesting: their highest LTV customers weren't coming from their expensive ad campaigns.
They were coming from their founder's personal LinkedIn content.
Now, this wasn't showing up in their attribution because these customers would see the founder's posts, build trust over months, then eventually type the company URL directly into their browser. The analytics team labeled these as "direct traffic" - one of the most misleading metrics in marketing.
Here's what really clicked for me: This wasn't a content problem or a product problem. It was a distribution problem disguised as an attribution problem.
The founder was already creating incredible content and building genuine relationships in their industry. But it was happening in isolation - no system, no amplification, no way to scale the trust-building process that was clearly working.
Most consultants would have recommended doubling down on the paid ads or optimizing their content marketing funnel. Instead, I saw an opportunity to systemize and scale what was already working in the background.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
OK, so here's exactly what we did to turn this insight into a systematic growth channel. The key was treating founder-led content not as "brand building" but as a structured acquisition channel with measurable inputs and outputs.
Step 1: Content-to-Conversion Mapping
First, we mapped the customer journey from LinkedIn impression to closed deal. We tracked which types of content generated the most profile visits, which posts led to website traffic, and most importantly, which content themes correlated with trial signups.
The data revealed something powerful: educational content about industry problems (not product features) drove 3x more qualified traffic than promotional posts.
Step 2: The Anti-Scale Approach
Instead of trying to automate everything, we deliberately chose tactics that competitors couldn't easily replicate. The founder committed to writing 3 deeply personal posts per week about real challenges in their industry. No AI, no ghostwriters, no content calendars - just authentic expertise.
Each post followed a simple structure: personal experience → industry insight → actionable takeaway. This created a content flywheel where each post demonstrated expertise while building relationships.
Step 3: Manual Relationship Building
Here's where most people would try to scale through automation. We did the opposite. The founder personally engaged with every comment and connection request from potential customers. No generic responses, no automated DMs.
This manual approach created something that paid ads never could: genuine trust and relationship-building that competitors couldn't buy their way into.
Step 4: Channel Integration
We connected this LinkedIn strategy to their existing funnel by creating content-specific landing pages that felt like natural extensions of the LinkedIn posts. When someone clicked through, they landed on pages that continued the conversation, not generic product pitches.
The results? We turned an invisible, unattributed channel into their most cost-effective customer acquisition method. Best part: the more successful they became, the harder it became for competitors to replicate.
Strategy Foundation
Build on what's already working instead of chasing new platforms
Testing Framework
Use 30-day sprints to validate channel potential before scaling
Content Amplification
Turn existing authentic content into systematic distribution
Relationship Scaling
Manual engagement creates unscalable competitive advantages
The numbers tell the story better than any theory. Within 90 days of systematizing this approach, we saw dramatic changes in their acquisition metrics.
LinkedIn became their #1 source of qualified leads, driving 40% of their new trial signups. More importantly, these LinkedIn-sourced customers had a 60% higher lifetime value compared to their paid acquisition channels.
The founder's LinkedIn following grew from 2K to 15K in six months, but the real metric was engagement rate - consistently 8-12% on posts, compared to the industry average of 2-3%.
Cost per acquisition dropped by 65% for LinkedIn-sourced customers when we factored in the full customer lifetime value. And here's the kicker: competitor analysis showed that while everyone else was increasing their ad spend, we were building a distribution moat that got stronger over time.
But the most unexpected outcome? This approach attracted higher-quality prospects who were already convinced of the founder's expertise before they even started a trial. Our sales cycle shortened from 6 weeks to 3 weeks for LinkedIn-sourced leads.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key insights I learned from turning an "invisible" channel into a revenue driver:
Low competition doesn't mean undiscovered: The best channels are hiding in plain sight, ignored because they require work that doesn't scale immediately
Attribution lies, but customers don't: Talk to your best customers to understand their real journey, not what your analytics dashboard claims
Anti-scale is the new scale: In a world of automation, manual relationship building creates unfair advantages
Content is distribution, not marketing: Treat authentic content as an acquisition channel with measurable ROI, not just brand building
Competitors can't copy authenticity: While they can replicate your ads and keywords, they can't replicate genuine expertise and relationships
Quality beats quantity in B2B: One authentic post that generates real engagement outperforms 10 automated posts
Timing matters more than platform: Being consistent on one platform beats being sporadic across multiple channels
If I were to do this again, I'd start tracking relationship-building metrics from day one, not just vanity metrics like followers or impressions. The real value is in the depth of connections, not the breadth of reach.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups looking to implement this approach:
Audit where your best customers actually discovered you (beyond last-click attribution)
Identify your founder's natural content creation strengths and industry relationships
Create content-specific landing pages that continue LinkedIn conversations
Track relationship quality metrics alongside traditional conversion metrics
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores adapting this strategy:
Focus on visual platforms like Instagram or Pinterest for founder-led content
Share behind-the-scenes content that builds brand authenticity
Engage directly with customers and micro-influencers in your niche
Create product stories that connect purchases to personal experiences