Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
OK, so everyone's fighting for the same marketing channels, right? Facebook ads are expensive, Google ads are getting more competitive every day, and LinkedIn? Don't even get me started on the CPCs there.
Last month, I was talking to a SaaS founder who told me they were spending $15 per lead on Facebook ads for B2B prospects. I almost choked on my coffee. $15 per lead for software that costs $30/month? The math just doesn't work.
Here's the thing everyone gets wrong: while you're fighting in the red ocean with everyone else, there are blue ocean channels sitting right there, practically empty. But you have to know where to look and more importantly, how to think differently about what constitutes a "marketing channel."
I've spent the last few years deliberately avoiding the obvious channels, and what I discovered changed how I approach growth entirely. Not because I'm some genius, but because I was forced to get creative when budgets were tight and competition was fierce.
In this playbook, you'll learn:
Why looking outside your industry is the key to finding untapped channels
My framework for identifying channels before they become saturated
Specific examples of low-competition channels I've used successfully
How to validate a channel quickly without wasting money
When to abandon a channel before it becomes competitive
Let's dive into how you can stop competing and start exploring channels that actually give you breathing room to build something sustainable. You can also check out our complete growth playbooks for more distribution strategies.
Industry Reality
What everyone's doing (and why it's getting harder)
Let's be honest about what's happening in marketing right now. Everyone's reading the same playbooks, following the same "growth hacking" advice, and piling into the same handful of channels.
Here's what the industry typically recommends for B2B SaaS growth:
Content marketing and SEO - Because "everyone needs to be creating content"
Paid ads on Google and Facebook - The "proven" channels with tracking
LinkedIn outreach - Cold prospecting at scale
Email marketing - Building lists and nurturing leads
Webinars and events - Thought leadership and demos
This advice exists because these channels do work - when you have the budget, time, and expertise to compete effectively. The problem is that everyone heard the same advice and rushed to the same places.
Think about it: when was the last time you saw a B2B SaaS company doing something genuinely different for customer acquisition? Most growth strategies look identical because everyone's following the same frameworks from the same thought leaders.
The result? Every "proven" channel becomes a bidding war. CPCs keep rising, organic reach keeps declining, and your customer acquisition costs climb while your conversion rates stay flat or drop.
But here's what the gurus won't tell you: while everyone's fighting over these saturated channels, there are entire categories of distribution that remain practically untouched. The key is learning to think differently about what constitutes a marketing channel in the first place.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
So here's where I got stuck a few years ago. I was working with B2B SaaS clients who were all facing the same problem - traditional acquisition channels were becoming too expensive relative to their customer lifetime value.
One client in particular - a workflow automation tool for small marketing agencies - was burning through their runway trying to make Google Ads work. Their average customer paid $49/month, but their cost per acquisition was creeping toward $180. You don't need a calculator to see that math doesn't work.
My first instinct was to optimize what they were already doing. Better landing pages, improved targeting, different ad copy - all the standard stuff. And yes, we got some improvements. But we were still fighting in an incredibly crowded space against companies with much bigger budgets.
That's when I started looking at this differently. Instead of asking "how do we compete better in existing channels," I started asking "where are our ideal customers spending time that our competitors aren't thinking about?"
The breakthrough came when I realized something obvious in hindsight: marketing agencies consume tons of content, but not just marketing content. They're also interested in design, productivity, business operations, even personal development. And in those adjacent spaces, there was way less competition for attention.
This shift in thinking - from competing in obvious channels to finding adjacent, unconventional ones - became the foundation for everything that followed. The key wasn't being smarter about marketing; it was being smarter about where we chose to market.
By the way, this connects to something I learned about building comprehensive distribution systems - sometimes the best strategy is going where others aren't looking.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
OK, so here's the framework I developed for finding low-competition channels, and I'll walk you through exactly how I applied it.
Step 1: Map Your Customer's Full Interest Graph
Instead of thinking "where do marketing agencies look for tools," I mapped out everything they care about: design trends, productivity hacks, client management, pricing strategies, even work-life balance. Each interest area represented a potential channel.
Step 2: Cross-Reference with Competition Analysis
I used tools like BuzzSumo and social listening platforms to see where competitors were active. Anywhere with high competitor density got marked as "red ocean." But I also found tons of spaces where our ideal customers were active but our competitors were nowhere to be seen.
Step 3: Test Channel Viability with Minimal Investment
Here's where it gets practical. For that workflow automation client, we identified several unconventional channels:
Design community newsletters - Agency owners read design content
Business podcasts for small agencies - Way less crowded than marketing podcasts
Local business meetups - Physical world, almost zero digital competition
Industry-specific Slack communities - Not the obvious marketing ones
Step 4: The Adjacent Content Strategy
Instead of creating content about "workflow automation" (crowded topic), we created content about agency profitability, client boundaries, and scaling challenges. Then we naturally wove in how workflow automation solved these broader business problems.
Step 5: Partnership Channel Development
We identified complementary tools that served the same customer base but weren't competitors - project management tools, invoicing software, design platforms. Instead of trying to outspend everyone on ads, we built integration partnerships and cross-promotion arrangements.
The beauty of this approach? We were building relationships in spaces where our ideal customers were already gathering, but our competitors weren't competing for attention. We could provide genuine value without fighting through noise.
For validation, we used a simple three-metric test: audience quality (are these actually our ideal customers?), engagement rate (are they paying attention?), and conversion potential (can we naturally introduce our solution?).
This systematic approach to finding blue ocean channels became something I now apply to every client project, whether they're in SaaS, ecommerce, or services.
Adjacent Thinking
Map your customer's full interest graph beyond your obvious industry category
Validation Framework
Test channel viability with minimal investment before scaling efforts
Cross-Channel Partnerships
Build relationships with complementary tools serving the same customer base
Content Positioning
Create content about broader business problems rather than your specific solution
The results were honestly better than I expected, and way more sustainable than traditional paid channels.
For the workflow automation client, we saw some interesting shifts in their acquisition metrics:
Cost per acquisition dropped to $67 - down from $180 through Google Ads
Customer quality improved significantly - higher engagement and lower churn
Word-of-mouth referrals increased - because we were building real relationships
Brand awareness in their niche exploded - they became known outside just marketing circles
But here's what surprised me most: the channels stayed effective longer. When you find a genuinely overlooked channel, you have months or even years before it becomes saturated.
Compare that to paid ads, where your CPCs can double in a matter of weeks if competitors decide to aggressively target your keywords. The partnership channels we built are still working today, generating leads at low cost because we invested in relationships rather than just ad spend.
The timeline was interesting too. Traditional paid channels gave us immediate results but declining returns. These unconventional channels took 2-3 months to build momentum, but then kept improving for over a year.
One partnership channel alone - cross-promotion with a popular invoicing tool - generated more qualified leads in month six than Google Ads ever did, at basically zero ongoing cost.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here's what I learned about finding low-competition marketing channels that I wish I'd known from the start.
1. Competition follows predictable patterns - Everyone reads the same growth blogs and implements the same tactics. If it's in a "Top 10 Marketing Channels" article, it's probably already crowded.
2. Adjacent industries are goldmines - Your customers care about more than just your category. Map their full interest graph and you'll find untapped communities.
3. Relationships beat algorithms - Paid channels are subject to platform changes and bidding wars. Partnership channels get stronger over time.
4. Quality matters more than scale - 100 highly engaged prospects beat 1000 disinterested clicks every time.
5. Timing is everything - The best channels are the ones you find before they become obvious. Stay ahead of trends, don't follow them.
6. Test fast, commit slow - You can validate most channels with minimal investment. Don't bet the farm until you see consistent results.
7. Physical world still exists - While everyone fights online, offline channels (events, partnerships, direct mail) often have way less competition.
Most importantly: stop thinking like a marketer and start thinking like your customer. They don't live in your industry bubble. They have interests, challenges, and communities that extend far beyond your product category. That's where you'll find your blue ocean channels.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups specifically:
Partner with complementary tools in your customer's tech stack
Target industry-specific communities rather than general SaaS groups
Create content about business problems, not software features
Look for integration opportunities before building paid campaigns
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores:
Find customer communities in adjacent lifestyle categories
Partner with complementary product brands for cross-promotion
Target local and niche communities before going broad
Use customer interest data to discover overlooked channels