Marketing Is Not Complicated. Show Up Where Your Customers Are. | Saa Str

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Marketing Is Not Complicated. Show Up Where Your Customers Are.

There are 4,000 marketers sharing their wisdown on Linked In. Entire courses dedicated to funnel optimization and attribution modeling and demand gen frameworks. Conferences full of people arguing about brand vs. performance marketing.

But here’s what I’ve learned after watching hundreds of Saa S companies scale from

It really comes down to one thing: Show up where your customers are.

That’s it. That’s the post. Okay, not quite — let me break it down.

Why Sam Altman and Dario and Amjad and Anton Are Everywhere. For a Reason.

Have you noticed that the CEOs of the biggest AI companies are everywhere right now?

Sam Altman is every podcast. He’s at every conference. He’s doing fireside chats, press interviews, product launches that feel like Apple keynotes. Dario Amodei is writing 10,000-word essays and showing up on Lex Fridman and doing deep dives with policy leaders. Amjad at Replit is shipping product publicly, building in the open, engaging on X constantly. Anton at Lovable is constantly evangelizing.

These are some of the busiest people in technology. They are running companies growing at unprecedented rates, managing thousands of employees, raising billions in capital. They would probably rather be working on product.

But they show up anyway. Because they understand something fundamental: showing up is the product.

When Sam or Amjad goes on Rogan, he’s not doing it for fun. He’s reaching millions of potential users and enterprise buyers who would never read an Open AI blog post. When Dario writes a long essay, he’s building trust with the exact policymakers and enterprise CIOs who need to feel confident betting on Anthropic. When Amjad demos Replit’s AI features live on X, he’s showing every developer in his TAM that Replit is the real deal.

That’s not vanity. That’s marketing at the highest level. It’s showing up where your customers are.

And it applies to every stage. You don’t need to be on Rogan. But you need to be on the podcast your buyers listen to. You don’t need to keynote Davos. But you need to be at the regional conference your ICP attends. You don’t need 2 million followers. But you need to be in the community where your 50 best prospects hang out.

The CEOs who hide behind their desks and say “the product will speak for itself” lose. The product never speaks for itself in B2B. You have to speak for it. Even when you’d rather be shipping code.

In the early days — from

So you have to go to them. You have to show up where they already are:

If your buyers live on Linked In, you need to be publishing on Linked In.

If they go to Dreamforce, you need to be at Dreamforce. Even if it’s just a tiny booth or a dinner for 20 prospects.

If they hang out in Slack communities or Discord servers or niche subreddits — guess where you need to be?

And here’s the thing — showing up isn’t enough. You also have to break out. You need something remarkable to say when you get there. A killer demo. A provocative point of view is OK-ish, but alone often doesn’t get folks to try or buy.  Much better? A customer story that makes people lean in.

You can’t just show up and be boring. You have to show up and be undeniable.  And you have to do it constantly, and for real.  Just doing a Product Hunt and going away isn’t enough.

Here’s what surprises most founders: even after just a few million in ARR, you’ll have a Mini-Brand. I’ve written about this before — it’s one of the most important and under-appreciated dynamics in B2B.

A Mini-Brand isn’t Chat GPT-level awareness. It’s not a household name. It’s something much more subtle but incredibly powerful: it’s when a handful of folks in your core target audience start to hear about you. When prospects come to you instead of the other way around. When someone at a conference says, “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of you guys.”

It might only be 1 or 3 or 5 inbound leads at first. It won’t feel like enough. The model won’t work in your head yet. But trust me — if you serve those early customers well, if you remain innovative, if you keep showing up — your Mini-Brand compounds. Saa S compounds.

The key is to lean into it. Service those early customers like they’re everything (because they are). Talk to 6-10 customers a week on Zoom. Follow up on every inbound lead with 10x the enthusiasm. Bring your customers together at events — even small digital ones. Get them telling their friends and peers about you. That’s how Mini-Brands grow.

And once that Mini-Brand kicks in? It changes everything.

In The Early Days, You Won’t Have Enough Customers. But Your Mini-Brand Will Come to Your Rescue.

In The Early Days, You Won’t Have Enough Customers. But Your Mini-Brand Will Come to Your Rescue.

Once you’ve crossed that threshold — and you’ll feel it, usually somewhere around

Now it’s not about discovery. It’s about reminding them you’re there.

Reminding them to pick you when the buying window opens. Because here’s the dirty secret of B2B marketing: most of the time, your buyer isn’t in-market. They’re busy. They’re dealing with other priorities. And then one day, their contract comes up for renewal, or their CEO asks about a new initiative, or their current vendor drops the ball — and suddenly they’re buying.

You need to be the first name that comes to mind in that moment.

Don’t Flee From Where Your Competitors Are. Go There, Too.

This is one of the biggest mistakes I see, especially from first-time founders: they avoid the places where their competitors show up. They skip the conference because Competitor X is a platinum sponsor. They avoid the podcast because Competitor Y was on last month. They steer clear of the G2 category page because the incumbent owns it.

Go where your competitors are. Go right into the lion’s den.

Why? Because almost every buyer in B2B wants to look at at least 1-2 vendors before they make a decision. That’s just how enterprise buying works. Nobody signs a $50K contract without at least glancing at an alternative. Often their boss requires them to.

If your differentiation is strong and crystal clear — if you can articulate in 30 seconds why you’re different, why you’re better for this specific buyer — you’ll be stunned how often you can steal deals this way. Prospects who walked into a conference fully intending to buy from the incumbent walk out with your demo on their calendar instead.

But you have to show up. You can’t steal a deal from your couch.

I’ve seen this over and over again. The scrappy challenger brand that shows up at the same events, writes for the same publications, targets the same accounts — and wins 20-30% of competitive deals they had no business winning on paper. Just by being there, being sharp, and being clear about why they’re different.

Customer Marketing Is Just as Important as Demand Gen. And Almost Everyone Underinvests.

Most founders and marketers don’t market to the customers they already have.  That’s a big mistake. Once you have even 100 customers, customer marketing is just as important as demand gen. Maybe more important.

And yet almost nobody invests here. The entire marketing budget goes to acquiring new logos. New leads. New pipeline. And meanwhile, your 100 or 500 or 2,000 existing customers — the people who already chose you, who already love your product, who already have stories to tell — are sitting there, untapped.

This is a massive missed opportunity. Because your customers are the single most powerful marketing channel you have.

Think about it: when a VP of Engineering is evaluating your product, what do they do? They don’t read your whitepaper. They ask their friend at another company. They ask Claude or Chat GPT or check G2. They look for someone in their network who’s used it. And if one of your happy customers happens to be in that network? That deal is 80% closed before your AE even gets on a Zoom.

Your job is to enable your customers to be advocates and champions for the next generation of customers.

Build a real customer marketing program. Case studies, customer spotlights, video testimonials, reference programs. Make it easy for happy customers to tell their story.

Do as many customer events as you can. User conferences, regional meetups, digital roundtables, customer advisory boards. Get your customers in a room together — physically or virtually. Let them share best practices, swap war stories, and build community around your product. And invite your best prospects, too. There’s no better sales environment than a room full of happy customers.

Show up where your customers are, even when there’s no new business on the line. Go to the conference your customers attend. Sponsor the community they’re part of. Be present in their world. Not because there’s a deal to close today, but because every touchpoint strengthens the relationship and turns a customer into a champion.

Publish all your success stories.  AI and Google will find them.

The math is simple: one super passionate customer advocate is often worth 10x what any paid campaign can deliver. They have credibility you can never buy. They have relationships you can never reach. And they speak in a language — the language of a peer who’s been through it — that no marketing copy can replicate.

Yet most companies spend 90% of their marketing budget on demand gen and 10% on customer marketing. Flip that closer to 60/40 and watch what happens.

Why Multitouch Attribution Is So Important. Even If It’s Frustrating.

Attribution is the thing that makes many marketing leaders want to throw their laptop out the window. And I get it.

Because in B2B, deals are messy. A single closed-won deal might look like this: the buyer first saw your CEO’s Linked In post six months ago. Then they attended your webinar. Then their colleague mentioned you at lunch. Then they Googled you, clicked a paid ad, compared competitors on Chat GPT, and then … booked a demo. Then they visited your booth at a conference before signing.

So… what was the lead source? Linked In? The webinar? The paid ad? The event? GEO? The word-of-mouth referral you can’t even track?

The honest answer: all of them. They all mattered. They were all moments of showing up.

Yes, it’s annoying that you may have 3-4 touches — and thus 3-4 plausible lead sources — for each deal. But you have to track this. You have to invest in multitouch attribution, even if it’s imperfect.

Here’s why: if you only track first-touch or last-touch attribution, you will inevitably kill the channels that are actually working. You’ll see that paid search gets “credit” for the demo booking and double down on it — while cutting the event budget and the content program that actually put you on the buyer’s radar in the first place. And then six months later, you’ll wonder why pipeline dried up.

Every touch is a moment of being present. The Linked In post. The conference booth. The case study a customer shared. The webinar invite. The ad retarget. None of them closed the deal alone. All of them were necessary.

Track them all. Give credit where credit is due. And understand that this is what “showing up” actually looks like in practice — it’s not one heroic moment. It’s 3-4 touches over weeks or months that collectively say: we’re here, we’re real, and we’re the one to pick.

Way too many marketing leaders make this impossibly complicated. They build these Byzantine attribution systems. They argue about MQLs vs. PQLs. They optimize for metrics that don’t matter.

They’re not showing up at the 3-4 top places and events where all their buyers go. They’re not producing content that actually helps their ICP. They’re not staying top of mind with the accounts that already know them.

Be where your customers are. With an incredible value prop. And remind them why to pick you.

This is especially critical right now. We’re in the middle of the biggest platform shift since cloud. Every buyer in every company is trying to figure out:

Which existing vendors are actually shipping real AI features vs. just slapping a chatbot on their homepage?

And which vendors to move on from because they’re not keeping up?

The buying windows are wide open right now. Budgets are shifting. Incumbents are vulnerable.

If you’re an AI-native startup or an incumbent that’s shipping real AI value — this is your moment. But only if your buyers know about it. Only if you’re showing up where they are, with a clear, compelling reason to pick you.

Don’t overthink it. Don’t hide behind a 47-slide marketing strategy deck.

Go where your customers are. Break through. And when they know you — remind them, again and again, why you’re the one to pick.

That’s how you win. In 2026. In the Age of AI. And always.

Dear Saa Str: Should We Over-Charge or Under-Charge our First Customers?

Dear Saa Str: Should We Over-Charge or Under-Charge our First Customers?

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• Free e Books

    e Book: Hiring a Great VP of Sales
    e Book: Raising Capital
    e Book:  The First $1m ARR
  

• University All Posts University Podcasts The Top CROs VC Fundraising Top Videos Q&A Best of Saa Str #1 Bestselling Book Search Everything Join the Community

• Free e Books

    e Book: Hiring a Great VP of Sales
    e Book: Raising Capital
    e Book:  The First $1m ARR
  

• London 2025 Annual 2026 Events Overview Sponsors

    Event Sponsorship
    Media Sponsorship
  

• Digital AI Day 2025 (Free) Speaker Submissions Speaker Requirements Overview