How to get your first SaaS customers with content marketing (on zero budget)

Verdict

Guide TL;DR

Step by step

1. 1

   Step 1: Find 5 questions your customer types into Google

   Go to Reddit, Quora, or niche forums. Find the 5 most common questions your target customer asks about the problem your product solves. Not questions about your product — questions about the problem. If your product helps write cold emails, the question is "how do I write a cold email that gets replies?" not "is [your product] better than [competitor]?" Use AnswerThePublic or simply Google autocomplete to find the exact phrasing people use.

2. 2

   Step 2: Write the answer as a complete guide

   For each question, write a 1,500–2,000 word guide that answers it completely. No fluff, no "10 reasons to choose X" — just the answer. Use the exact language your customer uses. If they say "cold email bounce rate," do not say "email deliverability metrics." Match their vocabulary for SEO and for trust.

3. 3

   Step 3: Add your product as a solution, not the solution

   In each guide, mention your product as one of several ways to implement the answer. Not "use [product name] for best results," but "if you want to automate this, tools like [product name] handle [specific step]." Being one of several options signals honesty and builds trust. The reader who finishes the guide and wants to implement will remember the product that helped them learn.

4. 4

   Step 4: Publish on your domain + Medium + Dev.to

   Publish the original on your own domain for SEO. Then republish on Medium and Dev.to (or LinkedIn Articles) with a canonical link back to your domain. The republished versions bring traffic from platforms that already have reader trust, while the canonical link passes SEO value to your domain.

5. 5

   Step 5: Share in every relevant community thread

   For each guide, find 5–10 forum or group threads where someone asks the exact question the guide answers. Share the guide as a reply: "I wrote a guide on this — here is the tl;dr version: [2–3 sentence summary]. Full guide at [link] if you want the details." Do this for each guide once, not once per week. One share per thread, forever.

Pro tips

• The first 5 articles should target 'learning' keywords, not 'buying' keywords. 'How to reduce email bounce rate' gets more traffic and converts more pre-revenue founders than 'best cold email tool 2026.'
• Internal-link between guides. If guide 1 mentions bounce rate and guide 2 covers deliverability, link them. Each link passes SEO authority and keeps the reader on your site.
• Update each guide every 3 months. Google ranks freshness. Add one new section or update one statistic. Set a calendar reminder.