How to get clients from Reddit: a 30-day plan for agencies, consultants and coaches

Reddit judges your messages by your account. When someone gets a Reddit Chat request, they see your username, karma, account age and history before they read a word. A blank, brand-new account pitching a stranger looks like spam because it usually is.

Reddit also restricts brand-new accounts. Community guidance for new users says sending chat requests is limited for roughly the first week, and karma and good standing matter after that. Reddit doesn't publish an exact daily chat number for people sending from the app.

• Use an account with real history: some posts, some comments, some karma, a few months of age.
• Write a short bio that says what you do. Disclosure buys trust.
• Spend a few days reading and upvoting in your target subreddits before you message anyone.

Your goal this week is a shortlist of 5 to 10 subreddits where your buyers talk about their work. Not where your peers talk about theirs.

• Agencies selling to SaaS: r/SaaS, r/startups, niche founder communities.
• Sales and lead gen services: r/sales, r/smallbusiness, industry-specific trade subs.
• Coaches and consultants: the communities of the profession you serve, not coaching subs full of other coaches.
• Local and trade services: trade subreddits where owners discuss running the business.

Test each one: read the last 25 posts. If 3 or more describe a problem you solve, from people who clearly run or work at a business, keep it. Read the rules too. Many ban self-promotion entirely, which is fine, because you won't be promoting there.

Search your shortlist for the phrases buyers use when they're shopping: "any recommendations for", "alternative to", "how are you handling", "we tried X and it didn't work". Sort by new. A thread from this week is a live problem. One from last year is solved.

Collect 2 kinds of people from every good thread:

• The author, who described the problem.
• The commenters, especially ones who shared what they tried and why it failed. They're often better leads than the author.

For each one, write down the post, what they said and the subreddit. If you can't write one sentence about why they're on your list, drop them. Aim for 50 to 100 good names by the end of the week.

Before the message, visit their profile and upvote 1 or 2 posts you actually found useful. Don't leave a comment just to get noticed.

Then write 2 or 3 sentences: where you saw them, what they said, one real question. (More examples.) No pitch, no link, no company name.

Send 10 to 15 a day, spread across normal hours. Steady beats bursts. Never paste the same text twice.

Reply within the hour if you can. Answer the actual question. Share one useful thing before you talk about yourself. When they ask what you do, say it plainly and disclose that you sell it.

Follow up once or twice if they go quiet, a few days apart, each time adding something useful. If they say no, stop completely. On Reddit, a pestered person can post about you, and that thread outlives your campaign.

Count 4 numbers per subreddit: chats sent, chats accepted, replies, calls booked. Then make 3 decisions.

1. 1Cut the subreddits with replies but no calls. They're full of the wrong people.
2. 2Double the subreddits that booked calls, and find 2 more like them.
3. 3Compare authors and commenters. Whoever books more gets more of next month's messages.

By the end of 30 days you should know whether Reddit is a channel for you, and which corner of it. Most people find that 2 or 3 subreddits produce most of the calls.

• Posting promo threads or dropping links in comments.
• Sockpuppet accounts praising your own service.
• Copy-pasting the same chat to dozens of people.
• Messaging people who never wrote about anything related.
• Ignoring a no, or following up 5 times.

Reddit's own line sums it up: it's fine to be a Redditor with a website, not a website with a Reddit account.