Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
When I started working with a B2B SaaS client last year, they had what looked like a solid acquisition strategy on paper. Multiple channels, decent traffic, trial signups coming in. But something was fundamentally broken.
Their beautiful product was sitting in what I like to call "a digital ghost town." Perfect conversion optimization, sleek design, feature-rich platform – but nobody could find them. They were spending 90% of their time perfecting the product and 10% thinking about how people would actually discover it.
That's when I realized most businesses have it completely backwards. They're obsessed with building the perfect mousetrap while ignoring the fact that the world doesn't even know it exists. Distribution isn't just one part of your marketing strategy – it should BE your strategy.
After working across SaaS startups and e-commerce stores, I've seen this pattern repeat: the companies that win aren't necessarily the ones with the best product. They're the ones with the best distribution.
Here's what you'll learn from my real client experiments:
Why I moved a client from Facebook Ads dependency to omnichannel distribution (and 10x'd their organic traffic)
The "dark funnel" discovery that changed how I think about attribution
How founder's personal branding became the real growth engine (not paid ads)
My 3-step framework for building distribution-first marketing
Why product-channel fit matters more than product-market fit
Industry Reality
What every marketer thinks they know about distribution
Most marketing advice follows the same tired playbook. Build a great product, create some content, run ads, optimize conversion rates, and growth will follow. The industry has convinced everyone that marketing is about funnels, attribution models, and campaign optimization.
Here's what every marketing guru tells you about distribution:
Multi-channel approach: Be everywhere at once – social media, content marketing, paid ads, email, SEO
Attribution tracking: Know exactly which channel drives which conversion
Conversion optimization: A/B test everything until you squeeze out maximum ROI
Customer acquisition cost focus: Find the cheapest way to acquire customers
Funnel thinking: Guide prospects through awareness → consideration → purchase
This conventional wisdom exists because it's measurable, teachable, and makes agencies money. Platforms like Facebook and Google have trained us to think in terms of campaigns, targeting, and optimization.
But here's where it falls short: Real customer journeys aren't linear, attribution is mostly fiction, and most "marketing" activities don't actually create demand – they just fight over existing demand.
The reality? While everyone's optimizing their funnels, the companies that actually grow are the ones that solved distribution first. They're not just better at marketing – they've built marketing into their business model.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
Let me tell you about the moment everything clicked. I was working with a B2B SaaS client who was burning through their marketing budget trying to crack the acquisition code. They'd hired me initially for conversion optimization because their trial-to-paid rate was terrible.
On paper, everything looked good. They were getting signups from multiple channels – Facebook ads, content marketing, some SEO traffic. But when I dug into their analytics, I found something fascinating: tons of "direct" conversions with no clear attribution path.
Most consultants would have started throwing money at paid ads or doubling down on SEO. Instead, I dug deeper into user behavior and discovered something that changed my entire perspective on marketing.
The highest-quality leads weren't coming from their "official" marketing channels at all. They were coming from the founder's personal content on LinkedIn. People would follow his insights for months, build trust over time, then type the URL directly when they were ready to buy.
Google Analytics labeled these as "direct traffic," but they were actually the most sophisticated nurture campaign running – just not one we'd intentionally built. The founder's authentic expertise was doing what thousands of dollars in Facebook ads couldn't: creating real demand.
This discovery led me to completely rethink how distribution actually works. It's not about channels and campaigns – it's about creating multiple pathways for discovery and building trust before people even know they need your solution.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Based on this insight, I completely restructured their approach using what I now call the "Distribution-First Framework." Instead of optimizing campaigns, we optimized for omnipresence and trust-building.
Step 1: Map Your Real Attribution
I spent two weeks actually talking to customers – not just looking at analytics. We discovered that 60% of their best customers had multiple touchpoints before converting. Someone might discover them through a LinkedIn post, research them via Google, read their content, join their newsletter, THEN sign up for a trial weeks later.
Traditional attribution models completely missed this journey. We stopped trusting "last-click" data and started mapping real customer stories.
Step 2: Build Distribution Into Content Strategy
Instead of creating content for their blog that nobody found, we focused on publishing where their audience already was. The founder started sharing tactical insights on LinkedIn daily. Not promotional posts – actual helpful content that solved immediate problems.
Within three months, this generated more qualified leads than their entire paid ad spend. People weren't just reading – they were sharing, commenting, and DMing specific questions about their use cases.
Step 3: Create Multiple Discovery Pathways
We identified every possible way someone could discover them and optimized each one:
- Search: Built content around problems, not just product features
- Social: Consistent presence where customers spent time
- Referral: Made it easy for customers to share specific use cases
- Direct: Ensured people could easily find and remember them
Step 4: Focus on Product-Channel Fit
Here's where it gets interesting. We realized their complex B2B product was actually perfect for LinkedIn's professional network but terrible for Facebook's quick-scroll environment. Instead of trying to make Facebook work, we doubled down on LinkedIn and added complementary channels like email newsletters and industry podcasts.
The result? We moved from attribution guesswork to actual relationship building. Customers started coming to them already educated and ready to buy, rather than needing to be convinced through aggressive sales tactics.
Channel Mapping
Identify where your customers actually spend time and prioritize those channels over "marketing best practices"
Trust Building
Focus on providing value before asking for anything – authentic expertise creates demand better than any ad
Omnichannel Presence
Be discoverable wherever customers might look, not just where it's easiest to track attribution
Product-Channel Fit
Match your product complexity to channel behavior – some products work better in certain environments
The transformation was dramatic. Within six months, we saw their organic traffic increase by 400%, but more importantly, the quality of leads improved significantly. Trial-to-paid conversion increased by 150% because people were arriving already educated about the product.
The founder's LinkedIn following grew from 2,000 to 15,000 genuinely engaged followers. More interesting than the numbers: competitors started copying his content approach, and industry publications began reaching out for his insights.
The real metric that mattered: Customer acquisition cost through "direct" channels dropped by 60% while customer lifetime value increased by 200%. We'd built a sustainable growth engine that didn't depend on paid advertising budgets.
But the most unexpected outcome? The founder became a recognized thought leader in his space, which opened doors to partnerships, speaking opportunities, and business development that traditional marketing could never have achieved.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons from building distribution-first marketing across multiple client projects:
Attribution is mostly fiction. Real customer journeys are messy and multi-touch. Stop trying to track everything and focus on being discoverable everywhere.
Authentic expertise beats advertising. Personal branding and thought leadership create demand better than any paid campaign.
Product-channel fit matters more than perfect targeting. Some products naturally work better on certain platforms.
Distribution should be built into your business model. The best companies don't just do marketing – they are marketing.
Focus on coverage, not control. Be present across multiple touchpoints rather than trying to optimize single campaigns.
Dark funnel awareness is crucial. Most conversions happen through paths you can't track – optimize for that reality.
Quality beats quantity. Better to be valuable to 1,000 people than visible to 100,000.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS companies, distribution-led marketing means:
Founder-led content on LinkedIn and industry publications
SEO content focused on use cases, not just product features
Integration partnerships for discoverability
Community presence in relevant forums and Slack groups
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores, focus on:
Multi-channel presence (Amazon, social commerce, marketplaces)
Content that showcases products in context
Influencer and affiliate partnerships
SEO for product discovery and comparison terms