I want to share how I grew my business to $350K, with MOST customers coming from organic channels like Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more.
How it started
Back when I was a kid, I ran a Minecraft server. I loved getting customers through organic means, so I advertised on forums, YouTube videos, and even on other people’s servers (evil!). The result? My server made $61K — and I was just a middle schooler!
Organic is super freaking awesome because
- It’s usually much cheaper than paid ads. (lower CAAC)
- Mainstream competitors aren’t doing it, leaving a huge opportunity.
- You pick up so many customers you wouldn’t have otherwise. In places like Reddit comments, tweets, etc.
And it’s profitable. For my last business, most of my customers came from organic channels
How I did it
When I was running Founders Cafe, finding new customers was a daily challenge. I spent hours on Reddit, searching for relevant posts and making a comment, subtly mentioning Founders Cafe.
It was time-consuming, but I had no choice.
If I didn’t do it, my business wouldn’t survive.
How I automated the process
I needed a more efficient way to scale. Here’s what I did:
First I chose keywords I wanted to be alerted on Reddit and other forums
Then I had a dashboard where I would get alerted
Then me or my marketing person would jump in and add a comment!
And more and more people would know about founders cafe!
Result? My business hit $350k in revenue.
With most of customers coming from organic channels like Reddit and twitter
Example: Shimmer
Let me share a more recent example with Shimmer, a VC-backed ADHD coaching platform run by Chris Wang.
The problem.
Chris was looking for a marketing approach with a low CAC and a high return. She had been running paid ads on Instagram, but wanted to find a more cost-effective solution. She had tried organic methods like Reddit and Facebook groups, but it was just too time-consuming.
That’s where we came in.
The Solution
We set up a similar system to what I used for Founders Cafe:
First we setup keywords to watch
- ADHD coaching
- Inflow (competitor)
- Agave (competitor)
- ADHD therapist
- etc.
Then we setup alerts from select channels (Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn)
- Chris received alerts from channels like Reddit, Twitter, and LinkedIn, with the system filtering out irrelevant content.
AI would generate a comment to reply
- These comments would be generated based on her persona (diagnosed with ADHD at 28) and her past comments.
Then Chris would mark the post as done!
The Results
With this consistent strategy, Shimmer saw amazing results:
- 4x lower CAC than any paid marketing channel they tried
- $20 ROI for every $1 spent.
- Consistent monthly conversions, opening up a new channel for growth.
Chris eventually outsourced this task to her team, freeing up her time to focus on growing her business while still benefiting from organic marketing.
Next steps!!
I’m looking to replicate this case study for others! If you’re interested in automating organic marketing for your product/service, get started at ogtool.com
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