The Complete Guide to Reddit Marketing (That Actually Works)

I don’t post about this often, but Reddit is one of my most solid channels for sourcing leads.

I’ve easily generated over 6 figures in business deals just from the platform.

And the best part?

I don’t even market myself on there.

“So, why are you writing an article about marketing on Reddit?”

Well, because most advice on Reddit marketing is hot garbage.

All of it deals with spam and posts, completely neglecting the main reason people use Reddit: authenticity.

But there is still plenty of potential to be had from Reddit.

Just maybe not in the way you might expect.

In this article, I’ll show you exactly what my marketing strategy looks like for Reddit and how you can replicate that for your brand.

Why does Reddit work so well as a marketing platform? Because it isn’t one

From my experience, Reddit can be the perfect platform for marketing a brand or yourself.

But you really shouldn’t view it as just a marketing platform.

It’s a community platform.

Users will join different communities based on their interests, hobbies, and work.

They don’t usually want to buy things, and they definitely don’t want to see ads.

They want authentic interactions.

They want to learn from others.

Not to be seen as an “opportunity” or pitched to.

That’s why aggressive marketing on Reddit backfires fast.

It’s like seeing a “no soliciting” sign and still trying to sell solar panels.

So that’s why, as a marketer, I truly believe that most “marketing” strategies for Reddit suck.

And completely ignore why people are using Reddit in the first place: to connect with others.

This will be a heavy theme throughout this article, so before I continue on, please throw what you know about Reddit marketing out the window and let’s start from scratch.

Some tips before you start marketing on Reddit

Before you get started, here are a few tips to set you on the right path.

Find the right subreddits to target

Before you do anything, you need to find the right subreddits to target.

You don’t need to show up everywhere.

Just where your ICP is genuinely active AND your expertise applies.

Don’t force yourself into communities you don’t know or care about just for a potential lead.

The less authentic your engagement, the more it looks like marketing.

Stick to the most relevant places you’ll find your audience.

So, as an SEO who primarily works with B2B SaaS companies, I am very active in communities like:

• r/saas
• r/startup
• r/marketer
• r/saasmarketing
• r/b2bmarketing
• r/seo

These are all subreddits where my ICP is active, and they’ll likely be asking marketing-related questions where I can add my expertise.

Before you do anything, plan out the subreddits where you want to be active.

You can do this by:

• Using the suggested subreddit feature: If you’re on desktop, it’ll show you related communities on the right-hand side of the subreddit.
• Doing a Google search for your niche term: Do a search for your specific service or product, and see if any Reddit threads pop up. If nothing comes up, add Reddit to the end of your search.
• Using the subreddit finder tool: You can use a subreddit finder tool like Nicheprowler to find all of the subreddits related to your industry, or you can use GummySearch to find similar subreddits and validate if their questions are relevant to your solution. I can see on r/SaaS that a common topic is marketing, so I know users are occasionally posting about it.
• Even using ChatGPT: I’d probably vouch for the other tactics over this one, but this is a good idea if you’re stumped on which subreddit to target. ChatGPT (or really any LLM) should give you an idea of the subreddits that may fit the bill.

However, just keep in mind that just because there is a community for your ICP doesn’t mean your ICP is actually there.

It’s very common for others to use those communities just to spam.

In my case, I frequent r/saas, and I’d say around 95% of that community is just all promotional.

Don’t get me wrong, r/saas is still worth it just for those 5% who need help.

But just be prepared to sort through some garbage.

And don’t think you have to stick to the larger subreddits only.

In my experience, the smaller, more niche subreddits (like r/b2bmarketing or r/saasmarketing) have a much higher-quality community and deal with less spam.

Make your profile authentic, whether it’s personal or professional

Now, this can go two ways.

I’ve heard people with professional Reddit profiles say that it’s very beneficial for driving recognition and encouraging leads to take the next step.

I’m not against it.

But, I think if you want to nail the authenticity aspect, it’s best to stick with a personal profile.

Don’t get me wrong, it probably works against me when people considering my services see my unfortunate comments on r/nba.

But those comments still show that I’m just a regular person on Reddit. Trashtalking and all.

I think that carries a lot of weight, especially on a platform where people are trying to connect with others and escape the feeling of being sold to.

That’s just my personal opinion; I’d at least advise you to test the waters and see what works best for you.

If you use your personal profile, just try not to get banned.

If you want some inspiration on a professional profile done well, I’d recommend checking out u/SEOPUB, Mike Friedman’s account.

Mike’s an active SEO consultant on r/SEO who is somehow active on every possible thread.

He’s kind of like the un-knighted moderator of that subreddit.

But since he’s so active on that subreddit, his profile is instantly recognizable and includes a link to the SEOPub Slack channel where he’s built up an audience of over 750 members.

And because of this established brand and how active he is as an SEO on these subreddits, he even has his own Reddit community.

Not to say you have to go to this length with your profile, but it is something to consider as something that can work in your favor.

Some tips on what you absolutely, positively should not do on Reddit

Honestly, it’s easier to do something wrong on Reddit than do it right.

So before I tell you what to do, I want to tell you what NOT to do.

I’m typically a get-to-the-point person, but I think this section is more needed than the actual tips on what you should do.

I feel that you can waste a ton of time (and probably brand equity, realistically) on Reddit, so I want you to have an idea of what you have to avoid to see success from Reddit.

Spamming communities with low-quality posts and comments

Tip #1: Don’t spam communities.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be active in communities.

Just don’t be seen as “that account.”

The person who’s only there to promote themselves, uses AI to generate all their comments, and is obviously creating posts that are just to rank for SEO (happens more often than you think).

Don’t be that account.

If you go this route, people are initially going to form negative associations with your brand, and you run the risk of having your profile banned by moderators, too.

If you’re going to be a part of a community, act like you’re actually a part of that community.

Provide value to that community without expecting anything in return, and it’ll repay you tenfold.

Creating posts that are obviously just promotional

I truthfully think this is the worst offender by far.

Especially in communities that don’t have a heavy moderator presence.

Like I said with r/saas, this is 95% of the posts.

Even worse is that it’s the same people over and over again, just posting to sell themselves.

Again, don’t be that account.

If you go in with the expectation to sell, you’re going to land flat on your face.

If you post a generic case study, people are going to downvote you.

If you post a generic article to your site, people are going to downvote you.

I’ll talk about this later on in the article, but I truthfully think you should stay away from creating threads on Reddit.

I think your ROI will go much further by being an active commenter rather than someone who posts.

Think about it: Would you rather toss bait out onto a lake and hope a fish takes it, or literally have a fish jump into your lap?

Using nothing but AI for comments

As I’ll mention later on, the best-performing content on Reddit is genuinely helpful content that answers the poster's question to the best of your ability.

If you think you can just automate this with AI, then you’re on a fast track to getting downvoted or flat-out banned.

Please, for the love of everything, don’t do this.

I love my fellow SEOs, but r/seo is absolutely filled with this.

And again, this strategy is not the point of Reddit.

Your goal with Reddit isn’t just to be seen.

It’s to have people listen and learn from what you have to say.

And the fastest way to turn someone’s brain off is to have them see a generic comment that doesn’t provide anything of substance.

So, I strongly encourage you to avoid using an AI commenting tool for this.

Trying to sell yourself in every community

Most of my advice here will just boil down to one thing: DON’T SELL.

Don’t go in with the expectation to earn a lead.

Don’t respond to comments in a way that promotes yourself or your product.

Literally use the platform to provide value.

It does not need to be any more complicated than that.

If you go in with the expectation to sell, people are obviously going to see right through it.

I don’t care how subtle you might think you’re being. They’ll clock it from a mile away.

Again, even worse if you’re combining promotions + AI comments like the image below.

Instead, let users determine for themselves whether they like what you’re saying.

Don’t try to force it on them.

The different ways you can market yourself on Reddit

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the actual “how to” of doing this.

There is a lot to talk about here, but I’ll be focusing primarily on the engagement aspect of a subreddit.

Be as helpful as possible in your answers; literally give away everything you know

Starting off, being helpful is quite literally the most important thing to consider when engaging with someone’s post on Reddit.

Don’t use it as a chance to promote yourself.

And don’t use it as a chance to promote your product, either.

Just focus entirely on the user's question.

What are they asking, and how can you provide the most helpful answer possible to their question?

Is their question:

• Related to your expertise?
• Relevant to your industry?
• Something that requires a detailed response?

It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.

You don’t have to go for a lengthy answer, either.

It just needs to be a helpful one.

Here’s an example: Someone recently put out a post on r/saas about free trial users not converting.

While this isn’t my strong suit, I still tackled the question anyway.

I offered all different reasons for why they might be facing this issue, covering ideas like:

• The pricing strategy might be off
• Maybe they need to have an interactive demo
• Add an option for a demo
• Review their service pages

I basically gave them a majority of reasons for why they might be facing that issue.

I didn’t promote myself either; I was just focusing on providing the most helpful answer possible.

The idea here is not to hold back with your advice.

I charge thousands for my SEO advice, but here it’s free.

This means I will provide a 10/10 response that I’d typically give to a client of mine.

I will give them the entire, fully fleshed-out and explained answer that they can use.

Not 95% of an answer—the whole playbook they can use.

When I do this, it comes with 2 benefits:

• The user likes what I have to say and decided they want to chat through things more
• A lurker on that post likes what I have to say and does the same thing

In my experience, it’s normally the lurker who ends up reaching out.

So, don’t just think about the person you’re responding to.

Think about who else is reading what you have to say.

Chances are, the poster is not alone in that situation.

Always give users the option to reach out to chat more

This one depends a lot on the conversation you’re having, but always try to offer the option to take things to a private message.

Most redditors don’t want to give away any personal information on a public thread, so usually it’s better to take things into a DM.

Don’t do this for every comment, though.

Only do it when it makes sense to have them reach out.

For example, early-stage startups with a unique idea they don’t want to make public, or when sharing site traffic information.

If there are any privacy concerns to consider, offer to take the conversation to DMs.

But don’t force them. If they want to keep it public, stay mindful, but don’t let it deter you from helping.

Continue not to sell even in the DMs

Even though you’d think DMs are the right time to sell, don’t.

At least not right away.

Your main focus should be entirely on helping this person with their problem.

If you need to be a part of that equation, then fine.

If they need your services to fix this issue, then fine, mention that this is something you can help them with directly.

But let them initiate that.

Stay focused on helping them overcome that problem.

Don’t just use that as an opportunity to pitch your services.

Helpful posts on a specific subreddit (PLEASE READ)

I’ll be honest with you here: I have never put out a Reddit post with the intention of selling myself.

I’ve done SaaS reviews when I’ve been bored, but I think, especially with subreddits that are bombarded with spam, the worst thing you can do is add to the noise.

If you have something genuinely valuable to share that isn’t done in a promotional way, then go for it.

But if you’re just posting for the sake of it, you’re just asking to get ignored or even banned by moderators.

So when you do this, please focus on what will be helpful for the reader, not what’s helpful for you.

The posts that seem to be helpful are:

• Ones that call out a genuine problem that people are facing: Not just a generic one like “backlinks are important,” but one that touches on a root issue or problem your audience is facing. It could be something like “your SEO strategy isn’t taking off because your product and sales teams are refusing to get involved.” Something that’s highly specific, and you have a direct answer for.
• Case studies: Again, these can be a bit hit or miss. But if you have a case study that genuinely walks a reader through everything you did and think it might be helpful for the reader, then go for it. I’ll be honest: I think it’s a bit easier to be genuine doing this as a service provider vs doing it as a SaaS platform.
• Asking a subreddit for feedback on a known issue: This isn’t promotional in any way, but I do see this as a great audience research tactic (and getting in touch with prospects who are facing that issue). I’ve done this a few times on r/saas, where I’ll ask what people’s biggest marketing problems are and then see if I can help them out in any way. It’s more of an audience validation tactic for me, but I can see it working well for a SaaS platform looking to maybe find beta testers.

Whatever you do, I strongly encourage you to separate your service or platform 100% from the post.

There’s no toxicity like Reddit toxicity, so if you’re looking to avoid getting torn apart, keep your post as neutral as possible.

Be featured in threads that are ranking on the SERPs

I think this may be a slightly spammy tactic, but it's worth discussing.

Reddit obviously has seen insane growth from Google since the helpful content update a few years ago.

And traffic from Google to Reddit is still growing.

Even beyond this, people are searching more directly for Reddit, too.

Again, to bypass the SEO content on the SERPs and get access to insights coming directly from others with similar experiences.

So, you ideally want to be visible in the threads that they’re landing on.

As long as you have something helpful to add, of course.

Even if you do a simple search for SaaS SEO, there are probably 1,000s of people landing on this thread from Google each month.

You need to be a part of that conversation (when relevant).

Don’t do it just for the sake of it, but only if you have something valuable to add.

As an example of what this could look like:

I met an awesome startup at a recent Techstars event that’s building a meeting scheduler tool specifically for neurodivergent people (people with ADHD and autism).

Their product is perfectly designed for neurodivergent folks like me who struggle with pre- and post-meeting prep.

Now, there are lots of neurodivergent communities on Reddit (r/adhd, r/neurodivergent, etc.) with plenty of opportunities to plug themselves in as a genuine solution.

Even just a quick Google search for something like “meeting prep ADHD” shows there are multiple threads on the first page asking for solutions directly to this problem.

Now, I’d probably advise them to stay away from going in and just name-dropping their product, but this is a topic where they genuinely have a solution that their audience will likely care to know about.

As someone with ADHD, this is a product I am very excited about, and I know others will be as well.

And that’s a huge benefit of understanding your audience (and the subreddits they’re active on): you go in with the understanding of whether you’re being tone-deaf or not.

In this case, their product is solving a genuine problem, so it’ll be easy for them to plug in their product as a solution and, ultimately, build hype.

The goal of doing this is to create an “Aha!” moment for the user and lurkers of that thread.

Don’t get me wrong, they shouldn’t use it as an opportunity to drop their product and leave.

BUT, they should spend time educating readers about: what their product does, why it’s relevant to the thread, and ultimately, give users a way to test out the product.

A free trial or freemium model works great in this situation, if possible.

Obviously, this is a very specific case where the product is solving a genuine problem that people care about.

So, unless you’re 100% sure your solution’s what they need, be cautious when doing this.

I’d imagine it’s much easier to get away with this when it’s B2C and not B2B.

Be involved in conversations about your brand

I personally believe that social listening is extremely underrated when it comes to Reddit, especially when people are actively talking about your brand.

Take the example below.

The user posted about looking for commission tools, and a user recommended a tool called Spiff as an option.

If Spiff were watching out for brand mentions on Reddit, they could get an alert when a user mentions their brand on Reddit.

This would’ve probably been the easiest layup for a lead possible.

All the company profile had to do was jump in, address that they do have that capability, and that the user is free to schedule a demo if they’d like to see things in more detail.

Literally, that’s all they’d have to do.

The user:

• Already knows what they want
• Is already actively looking for a tool
• Just got referred your brand

I’d argue that your sales team NEEDS to be on this.

It is the easiest possible way to get someone to commit to a free trial or demo.

Combat negative PR or capitalize on competitors’ PR

An extremely, extremely underrated aspect of Reddit is using it to either combat negative PR against your brand, or capitalize on your competitor’s negative PR.

Unless you’re an early-stage startup, chances are you’ll have threads about you or your competitor’s brand asking what the best alternatives are to you.

You should actively be engaging with these posts.

And I don’t mean starting Call of Duty MW2 lobby-like fights with people on Reddit or just trashing your competition.

I mean, actually listening to what they have to say and taking it into genuine consideration.

It’s one thing to just look defensive on Reddit (which I’d argue makes things even worse).

It’s another way to show users you’re genuinely invested in improving your product.

So, if users are posting about alternatives, see why they’re looking for them in the first place, and if it’s possible to change their minds.

Now, if your competitor is dealing with negative PR or is just unpopular in general, you can use these threads as a way to bring awareness to your own product.

If someone is actively searching for alternatives, this is a totally acceptable moment to directly mention your product as a solid alternative.

And mention why it can be seen as an alternative, too.

But don’t just make a generic sales pitch. Tailor it to their post.

Do you have better pricing? Is your feature list more comprehensive? Do you offer boutique support that the big guys can’t?

Whatever it is, give users a reason to consider your product beyond just saying that they should look into your product.

How I tend to stay up to date on different Reddit threads

Like I mentioned, Reddit has a lot of spam to sort through.

It’s almost intimidating, depending on the subreddits you want to follow, so I’ll explain what I commonly use to watch for posts.

Just manually browsing subreddits

You heard it right.

My favorite tactic is to literally just go to a subreddit and just browse by new.

Is it a time investment? Sure.

Are there better methods? Probably.

But keyword matching for alerts isn’t always reliable.

People can frame their questions in a way that matches the intent without including the exact keywords you’re watching for.

So even though it’s nice to track “seo” queries coming from r/saas, I much prefer to find the hyper-specific posts that no one is answering and still could use my input.

I usually set time aside in my day to browse Reddit for these questions. Usually, I’ll do my mornings and evenings when work is slowing down.

Just saying, not everything has to be automated, but for those that like automations….

Reddit alerts

Reddit alerts are also quite nice. You can set them up in the Reddit app or download an app for it.

This app basically is set to fire on certain subreddits when they mention a key term.

For me, I have it set to:

• r/saas
• r/startup
• r/entreprenuer

And my key terms are:

• SEO
• Leads
• Converting

For the most part, these terms will uncover recent posts where I can jump in and explain my thoughts a little bit more.

It’s a bit hit and miss when it comes to the quality of these posts, but it’s still worth being notified anyway.

The ultimate key for Reddit is authenticity

I know I’ve said it a dozen times already, but just remember: Reddit rewards authenticity, not salesmanship.

Show up like a real person, solve real problems, and opportunities will open up for you.

Every tactic in this guide revolves around the same point: deliver value before you even think about selling.

And honestly, go in without expecting to drive a single lead.

If you’re truly helpful and making an impact, the leads will come to you.

Start by finding the right subreddits and sharing what you know.

Give away your best answers and honest feedback, and expect nothing in return..

That’s the entire playbook.