How I Learned to Stop Shouting into the Void and Actually Find Customers

I used to think marketing was a numbers game. Write more blog posts. Post more on social media. Build more backlinks. If you just poured enough content into the internet, the traffic graph would eventually have to go up. Right?

I was chained to my content calendar, churning out posts I thought my audience wanted. I was doing all the "right" things. And for my efforts, I got crickets. A few likes from my friends, maybe a spam comment or two. My business wasn't growing.

Then I realized something: we were all doing it wrong.

The Problem with "Content Marketing"

Most advice about content marketing is built on a fantasy. "Content is king," "build your brand voice," "post consistently." It’s no wonder most company blogs read like they were written by a corporate robot trying to sound human.

The real issue isn't that content is useless—it's that the internet is drowning in it. Your brilliant article is a drop of water in an ocean of noise. And when your strategy is just "show up and hope for the best," you're not marketing. You're gambling.

We’re all just tossing content into the void and praying the right person stumbles upon it. It's a lottery ticket, not a business plan.

What Actually Works: Three Shifts That Don't Feel Like Marketing

Instead of shouting at everyone, what if you just whispered to the right person? Here’s what started working for me when I ditched the content treadmill.

1. Talk to Real People (Not "Personas")

Forget your "Marketing Mary" persona. That vague, stock-photo description of a 35-year-old manager is useless.

I've seen businesses transform when they get ridiculously specific:

"We help VPs of Demand Gen at Series B SaaS companies who use HubSpot and are struggling to prove ROI to their new CFO."
"We help Shopify store owners in the fitness apparel space who are getting killed by Facebook ad costs."
"Our clients are CTOs at logistics companies with over 500 employees who are still using legacy software from the 90s."

These work because they're real. You can't write a useful message for "Marketing Mary," but you know exactly what the VP of Demand Gen is worried about after her company's last board meeting.

The key: Stop trying to talk to everyone. Pick one specific person you were born to help.

2. Make a "Who Do I Actually Want to Talk To?" List

Once you know who you’re looking for, the next step is to… well, go find them. By name.

This isn’t about buying some dead email list. This is about building your own personal "dream list" of people you’d love to work with.

Tools that work:

LinkedIn Sales Navigator: This is the cheat code. You can filter by job title, company size, keywords, and tech they use to find the exact people from step one.
Industry Lists: Who made the "Inc. 5000" list? Who won "Best Place to Work"? These companies are growing and have problems you can solve.
Your Own Customers: Who's your best customer right now? Go find ten more companies that look just like them.

The key: Your goal isn't to build a massive list. Your goal is to build a good list. Start with just 50 names.

3. Have a Real Reason to Reach Out

Spamming your list with "Hey, wanna buy my stuff?" is a speedrun to getting blocked. Your outreach only works if it’s helpful and human.

Good examples of first messages:

"Hey Sarah, saw your post about the challenges of remote team management. I wrote a short guide on how we cut down on useless meetings—thought you might find it interesting."
"Congrats on the new funding round! I know scaling the sales team is usually next. Here’s a framework I put together for another founder on hiring top reps."
"Noticed you're using HubSpot. I found a clever way to automate lead scoring that saved one of my clients 10 hours a week. Happy to share if you're interested."

The key: Your content is no longer bait for strangers. It’s a gift for people you've already identified as a perfect fit.

The Real Rules of Outreach

Every platform is different, but here’s what actually matters:

Do your homework. Spend two minutes on someone’s LinkedIn profile before you message them. Find something real to connect with.
Be a human first. Your first message should never be a hard pitch. Start a conversation. Offer something for free with no strings attached.
Make your profile work for you. When they get your message and click on your profile, it should be obvious what you do and who you help. But it shouldn't look like a giant ad.
Accept that you'll be ignored. A lot. That’s just part of it. Don't take it personally. The goal isn't a 100% reply rate; it's a handful of real conversations.

What This Actually Looks Like

Here's a story from a friend of mine who runs a small B2B service.

She was burning out, writing two blog posts a week that went nowhere. She stopped. For one month, she didn't write a single new article.

Instead, she spent an hour a day on LinkedIn. She built a small list of 100 potential clients. Each day, she'd send a simple, personalized connection request to 5-10 of them. Something like: "Hey [Name], I see we're both in the [Industry] space. I work with companies like yours on [solving a specific problem]. Love your recent post on [Topic]."

When they connected, she’d send a link to one of her old blog posts that was relevant to them.

Result: In one month, she had more qualified sales conversations than she'd had in the previous six months of blogging. Her old content was suddenly more valuable than ever, because it was being delivered to the right people.

Getting Started (Without the Overwhelm)

Spend one hour defining your perfect customer. Get uncomfortably specific.
Go to LinkedIn and find 20 people who match that description. Put them in a spreadsheet.
Find one piece of content you've already created (a blog post, a case study, a video) that would be genuinely useful to them.
Write a simple, one-sentence reason for reaching out to each person.
Send 5 messages a day.

That’s it. No complicated funnels. No expensive ads. Just talking to people.

The Bottom Line

Effective marketing works when it doesn't feel like marketing. When you stop screaming into the void and start whispering in the right person’s ear, people listen. They don’t see you as a marketer trying to sell them something; they see you as an expert who understands their world and wants to help.

And that's not a strategy you can automate—it's just being useful.