Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
So here's the thing about distribution that nobody wants to admit: the channels everyone talks about are oversaturated. Every SaaS startup is fighting for the same Facebook and Google ad placements, posting the same LinkedIn content, targeting the same "decision makers." It's a red ocean bloodbath.
I learned this the hard way when a B2B SaaS client came to me with a problem. They'd burned through €30K on "proven" acquisition strategies - Facebook ads, cold email sequences, content marketing on all the usual platforms. Their competitors were doing the exact same thing. Zero differentiation. Predictable results: mediocre.
That's when we discovered something most businesses miss: niche distribution isn't about finding smaller channels - it's about finding channels your competitors aren't smart enough to use. Sometimes the best distribution strategy comes from looking outside your industry entirely.
Here's what you'll learn from my actual experiments:
Why e-commerce review automation worked better for B2B SaaS than traditional testimonial requests
How treating your SaaS like a physical product (instead of software) opened new distribution channels
The LinkedIn personal branding discovery that replaced €20K in paid ads
Why sometimes the "wrong" marketing channel becomes your unfair advantage
A framework for identifying untapped niche distribution opportunities in any market
This isn't about growth hacking or finding some secret channel. It's about strategic thinking that 99% of your competitors won't bother with.
Industry Reality
What everyone's fighting over (and why it's not working)
Here's what every business consultant, growth expert, and marketing guru will tell you about distribution: focus on the big three. Paid ads (Facebook, Google), content marketing (blog, LinkedIn), and direct sales (cold email, outbound).
The logic seems sound:
Scale potential - These channels can theoretically reach millions
Proven frameworks - Tons of case studies and best practices
Industry acceptance - Everyone's doing it, so it must work
Investor expectations - VCs understand these channels
Tool ecosystem - Massive infrastructure built around these approaches
This advice exists because it's safe. CFOs can budget for Facebook ads. Marketing teams can hire content specialists. Sales teams understand cold outreach metrics. Everyone knows what "good" looks like.
But here's the problem: when everyone uses the same playbook, the playbook stops working. Facebook ad costs have increased 89% year-over-year. LinkedIn content reaches 2% of your followers organically. Cold email response rates are below 1% for most industries.
You're not competing against "the market" anymore - you're competing against every other business using the exact same distribution strategy. It's like opening a coffee shop next to five other coffee shops that serve identical coffee at identical prices.
The conventional wisdom fails because it treats distribution like a commodity rather than a competitive advantage. Most businesses optimize for "best practices" when they should be optimizing for "different practices."
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The breakthrough came when I was working simultaneously on two completely different projects: a B2B SaaS struggling with customer testimonials, and an e-commerce store that was crushing it with automated review collection.
The SaaS client had the typical problem: happy customers who wouldn't write testimonials. We'd tried everything - personalized emails, follow-up sequences, even offering Amazon gift cards. Maybe 5% response rate on a good day.
Meanwhile, the e-commerce client was using Trustpilot's automated system and getting reviews from 40%+ of customers. Same humans, same basic request ("tell others about your experience"), completely different results.
That's when it clicked: I was treating SaaS like software when I should have been treating it like a service. E-commerce businesses figured out review automation years ago because their survival depends on social proof. SaaS companies were still doing manual outreach like it was 2015.
So we tested it. Instead of crafting "perfect" personalized testimonial requests, we implemented the same aggressive but effective email automation that e-commerce uses. The kind that feels slightly pushy but actually works.
This led to a bigger realization: every industry has solved problems that other industries are still struggling with. E-commerce cracked review collection. B2B services figured out personal branding. Consumer brands mastered emotional positioning.
The question became: what other cross-industry solutions were we missing?
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Once I started thinking cross-industry, everything changed. Instead of asking "what do other SaaS companies do?" I started asking "who has already solved this problem, regardless of industry?"
Experiment 1: E-commerce Review Automation for B2B SaaS
We implemented Trustpilot's automated review system for a B2B SaaS client. Instead of manual testimonial outreach, we set up the same aggressive-but-effective email sequences that e-commerce stores use. Result: 40% review collection rate vs. 5% with manual requests.
The key insight: B2B buyers are still human. They respond to the same psychological triggers as B2C customers - they just pretend they don't.
Experiment 2: E-commerce Landing Pages for SaaS
Instead of traditional SaaS landing pages (features, benefits, testimonials), I tested e-commerce style pages for a SaaS product. Minimal text, product showcase format, prominent "Sign Up Now" button positioned like a "Buy Now" button.
The e-commerce style page converted 28% better than the traditional SaaS layout. In a world where every SaaS page looks identical, being different isn't just creative - it's strategic.
Experiment 3: LinkedIn Personal Branding Discovery
While analyzing attribution data for a client, I discovered their best leads weren't coming from ads or content marketing. They were coming from the founder's personal LinkedIn content. People were seeing his posts, building trust over time, then typing the company URL directly when ready to buy.
This "direct" traffic looked like organic discovery in analytics, but it was actually the result of systematic personal branding. We shifted budget from paid ads to supporting the founder's content strategy.
Experiment 4: Physical Product Marketing for Software
For a client with 1000+ SKUs, traditional marketing channels weren't working. The catalog was too complex for quick-decision Facebook ads. Instead of forcing square peg into round hole, we treated their software like a catalog business and focused on SEO for discovery-based shopping behavior.
Each "product" (software feature) got its own discoverable page, just like physical products in an e-commerce store. Customers could browse and compare instead of being forced into quick conversion funnels.
The Pattern: Channel-Product Fit
These experiments revealed something crucial: you can't change the rules of a marketing channel, but you can change how your product plays within those rules. Facebook demands instant decisions. LinkedIn rewards personal relationships. SEO works for patient discovery.
Your product isn't broken if it doesn't work on paid ads. You might just need to find the channel where your product's characteristics become advantages, not obstacles.
Cross-Industry Mining
Systematically stealing solutions from other verticals
Channel Characteristics
Understanding the "physics" of each distribution method
Attribution Reality
Why most "direct" traffic isn't actually direct
Pattern Recognition
Identifying when conventional wisdom doesn't apply
Here's what actually happened when we stopped following industry playbooks:
The SaaS Review Automation: Increased testimonial collection from 5% to 40%. More importantly, these weren't just testimonials - they became distribution channels themselves. Happy customers started sharing reviews, creating word-of-mouth loops.
The E-commerce Style Landing Page: 28% conversion improvement in 30-day A/B test. But the bigger win was differentiation. In a sea of identical SaaS pages, standing out drove qualified traffic from people specifically looking for "something different."
The LinkedIn Attribution Discovery: Revealed that 60% of "direct" traffic was actually founder-driven personal branding. We reallocated €2K/month from Facebook ads to LinkedIn content support. Better leads, lower acquisition cost, stronger brand.
Timeline of Results: Most changes showed impact within 30-45 days. The LinkedIn shift took 90 days to fully manifest as content built momentum. Attribution fixes were immediate but required tracking setup.
The unexpected outcome: these "niche" strategies became our mainstream strategies. What started as experiments became our go-to approaches because they worked better than conventional methods.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After running dozens of these cross-industry experiments, here are the lessons that changed how I think about distribution:
Industry best practices are starting points, not finish lines - The moment something becomes "standard," it stops being an advantage
Your biggest competition is sameness - Fighting for the same channels creates commodity positioning
Cross-industry solutions hide in plain sight - Every industry has solved problems others are still struggling with
Attribution lies, but behavior doesn't - Dig deeper than surface metrics to understand real customer journeys
Channel-product fit matters more than channel popularity - The "wrong" channel for your product might be the right channel for your business
Different beats better - In saturated markets, differentiation trumps optimization
Personal beats corporate - Humans trust humans more than brands, especially in B2B
The meta-lesson: stop asking "what should we do?" and start asking "what is no one else doing?" The gap between conventional wisdom and actual results is where opportunities live.
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 niche distribution strategies:
Start with founder-led content on LinkedIn before scaling paid channels
Implement automated review collection systems borrowed from e-commerce
Test e-commerce style landing pages for differentiation
Focus on product-led growth only if you can build genuine growth loops
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores struggling with traditional distribution:
Apply B2B personal branding tactics for founder-driven brands
Use SaaS-style educational content for complex product catalogs
Implement omnichannel strategies that prioritize owned media over rented
Test service-based positioning for high-consideration purchases