Let's get something straight: some of these tactics feel illegal. They're not. They're just the kind of aggressive, resourceful marketing that most people are too lazy or too scared to execute. The difference between a scrappy startup that wins and one that dies? The willingness to do what competitors won't.
Here's the thing. Large companies have entire teams dedicated to competitive intelligence, influencer outreach, SEO gap analysis, and reputation management. They have people whose entire job is to monitor mentions, track competitor pricing, and find backlink opportunities. It costs them $400K+ per year in salaries alone.
You? You've got OpenClaw running on a $20/month VPS. And with the right prompts, you can match—or beat—what those teams produce. Not because AI is magic. Because AI doesn't get tired at 3pm, doesn't need coffee breaks, and can check 500 sources while you sleep.
This guide gives you 20 battle-tested marketing tactics you can deploy with OpenClaw. Each one includes the exact prompt structure, what skills it uses, and why it works. By the end, you'll have an automated marketing operation that would make funded startups jealous.
Fair warning: These tactics are aggressive but ethical. We're not talking about spam, fake reviews, or deception. We're talking about doing legitimate marketing activities at a scale and speed that humans simply can't match.
5-Minute Setup
Before we dive into tactics, you need OpenClaw running. If you've already got it set up, skip ahead. If not, here's the fastest path from zero to dangerous:
🚀 Quick Deploy on ScalaHosting ($19.95/mo)
- Go to ScalaHosting and click Get Started
- Select Unmanaged Cloud VPS
- Choose Build #1 ($19.95/mo) — plenty for what we're doing
- Select Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04 as your OS
- Complete checkout and wait for your server credentials
Connect via SSH (note: ScalaHosting uses port 6543):
ssh root@YOUR_SERVER_IP -p 6543
Install OpenClaw (one command):
curl -fsSL https://molty.bot/install.sh | bash
Follow the prompts to add your Anthropic API key. Five minutes later, you're ready to terrorize your market.
Get Started with ScalaHosting →
Phase 1: Discovery & Intelligence
Before you attack, you need intelligence. These tactics help you understand your market, find opportunities, and map out where to strike first.
When you launch something, you have about 72 hours of "newness energy" before people stop caring. This tactic monitors dozens of platforms where your target audience hangs out and finds the perfect moment to drop your launch announcement—then helps you craft platform-specific messaging.
I'm launching [PRODUCT] on [DATE]. Target audience: [DESCRIPTION].
Research and create a launch blitz plan:
1. Find 20 communities where my audience is active (Reddit, Discord, Slack groups, forums, Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups)
2. For each community, note: posting rules, best times to post, tone expectations
3. Create a tailored announcement post for each platform (not copy-paste—actually adapted)
4. Identify 5 "high authority" members in each community I could DM personally
5. Build a launch-day timeline: what to post where, in what order
Output as a launch playbook I can execute.
Research
Social
Content
âś“ Totally legal. You're just being organized about announcing your launch in relevant communities.
Backlinks are SEO gold, but finding opportunities manually is soul-crushing. This tactic identifies websites linking to your competitors that would logically also link to you—then gives you outreach angles for each one.
My website: [YOUR_URL]
Main competitors: [COMPETITOR_1], [COMPETITOR_2], [COMPETITOR_3]
Find backlink opportunities:
1. Search for "resources" and "links" pages in my niche that list tools like mine
2. Find listicles ("Best X tools", "Top Y alternatives") that mention competitors but not me
3. Identify broken link opportunities (pages linking to dead competitor URLs)
4. Find guest post opportunities (blogs that have published competitor founders)
5. Locate unlinked brand mentions of competitors (they're mentioned but not linked)
For each opportunity, give me:
- The page URL
- Why they'd want to add me
- A personalized outreach angle
- Contact info if findable
Prioritize by estimated domain authority.
SEO
Research
Outreach
âś“ Totally legal. Link building is fundamental SEO. You're just doing it smarter.
Your competitors are doing things that work. Why guess when you can just watch? This tactic creates an always-on monitoring system for everything your competitors do publicly.
Set up competitor monitoring for: [COMPETITOR_1], [COMPETITOR_2], [COMPETITOR_3]
Track and alert me on:
1. New blog posts or content published
2. Pricing page changes (compare to last known version)
3. New features announced (changelog, Twitter, Product Hunt)
4. Job postings (indicates what they're building)
5. Social media engagement spikes (what content is working)
6. New backlinks they're getting (where should I also be?)
7. Mentions in press/media
8. App store/review site updates
Check daily. Send me a weekly digest every Monday, but alert immediately if:
- They launch a major feature
- They change pricing significantly
- They get major press coverage
Store historical data so I can see trends over time.
Monitoring
Research
âś“ Totally legal. This is public information. Companies pay big money for competitor intelligence tools that do exactly this.
Bad reviews kill conversions. Most companies find out about them weeks later, if ever. This tactic monitors review sites in real-time and helps you respond appropriately—fast.
Monitor reviews for [PRODUCT_NAME] on:
- G2, Capterra, TrustRadius (B2B)
- Product Hunt, App Store, Google Play (Consumer)
- Reddit (search for product name + "review" or "alternative")
- Twitter/X mentions with sentiment
For negative reviews (3 stars or below):
1. Alert me within 1 hour
2. Summarize the complaint
3. Draft a professional response that acknowledges the issue without being defensive
4. If the complaint is about something we've fixed, note that
For positive reviews (4-5 stars):
1. Add to weekly digest
2. Draft a thank you response
3. Flag particularly quotable reviews for marketing use
Track review velocity and average rating over time. Alert if rating drops below [X].
Monitoring
Social
Content
âś“ Totally legal. Responding to reviews is expected. You're just doing it faster and more systematically.
Phase 2: Outreach & Relationships
Discovery is useless without action. These tactics help you reach out to the right people at scale while still feeling personal.
You wrote a great blog post. Ten people read it. What a waste. This tactic repurposes and syndicates your content across every platform where your audience exists.
I just published: [BLOG_POST_URL]
Target audience: [DESCRIPTION]
Create a content syndication plan:
1. Rewrite for LinkedIn (professional angle, hook in first line, no links in body)
2. Create Twitter/X thread (5-7 tweets, hook + value + CTA)
3. Write Medium version (slightly different angle to avoid duplicate content)
4. Create Reddit post version (no self-promotion, pure value, link in comments only)
5. Draft Hacker News title + comment I'd leave on my own post
6. Create email newsletter version for my list
7. Pull 5 quotable snippets for social graphics
8. Write a YouTube script if I wanted to make a video version
9. Create a podcast talking points outline
For each platform, note the best time to post and any platform-specific rules I should know.
Content
Social
SEO
âś“ Totally legal. Content repurposing is standard marketing practice. You're just not wasting your hard work.
Mega-influencers are expensive and usually worthless. Micro-influencers (1K-50K followers) have engaged audiences and actually respond to DMs. This tactic finds them and crafts personalized outreach.
Find micro-influencers for [PRODUCT] in the [NICHE] space.
Search criteria:
- YouTube: 5K-100K subscribers, posted in last 30 days
- Twitter/X: 2K-50K followers, actively engaging with followers
- Instagram: 5K-50K followers, good engagement rate (>3%)
- TikTok: 10K-200K followers, content in my niche
- Newsletter writers: 1K-20K subscribers
For each potential influencer, research:
1. Their content style and what they typically promote
2. Whether they've promoted competitors
3. What their audience demographics seem to be
4. Best way to contact them (email, DM, etc.)
5. What kind of deal they'd likely respond to (free product, affiliate, paid)
Draft personalized outreach for my top 20 prospects. Reference specific content they've made. Don't be generic.
Outreach
Research
Social
âś“ Totally legal. Influencer marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry. You're just doing it yourself instead of paying an agency.
Industry events (virtual and physical) concentrate your target audience in one place for a limited time. This tactic helps you maximize visibility during events—even if you're not a sponsor.
Upcoming event: [EVENT_NAME] on [DATE]
My product: [PRODUCT]
My goal: [generate leads / get press / network with speakers]
Create an event hijacking playbook:
1. Find the speaker list and research each one—who should I connect with?
2. Get the attendee list if public (LinkedIn "attending" posts, Twitter hashtag users)
3. Identify sponsors and what they're selling (potential partners or competitors)
4. Find the official hashtag and related hashtags
5. Create content I can post during the event that references hot topics
6. Draft DM templates for connecting with attendees/speakers
7. If virtual: find the community Slack/Discord and engage naturally
8. Find parties/meetups associated with the event
9. Create a post-event follow-up sequence for new connections
Timeline it out: what to do before, during, and after the event.
Outreach
Social
Research
âś“ Totally legal. Events are for networking. You're just being strategic about it instead of wandering around hoping for the best.
Your competitors rank for keywords. Some of those keywords, they're barely trying on—thin content, outdated info, poor UX. Those are your targets. This tactic finds the gaps and plans the attack.
My site: [YOUR_URL]
Competitors: [COMPETITOR_1], [COMPETITOR_2]
My niche: [DESCRIPTION]
Find SEO gaps I can exploit:
1. Keywords competitors rank for that I don't (especially positions 5-20—vulnerable)
2. Topics they've covered poorly (short articles, outdated, low engagement)
3. Questions people ask that have no good answers yet (People Also Ask, forums)
4. Long-tail keywords with decent volume but low competition
5. Comparison keywords ("[competitor] vs", "[competitor] alternatives")
For my top 20 opportunities:
- The keyword/topic
- Current top result and why it's beatable
- Search intent (informational, transactional, navigational)
- Content outline that would outrank current results
- Estimated monthly search volume
Prioritize by: beatable + decent volume + matches my product.
SEO
Research
Content
âś“ Totally legal. SEO competition is the backbone of the internet. You're just being data-driven about it.
People trust other customers more than they trust you. This tactic systematically collects and organizes testimonials, case studies, and social proof from everywhere it exists.
Find and collect social proof for [PRODUCT]:
Search for:
1. Tweets/posts mentioning us positively (exact name, common misspellings)
2. Review site testimonials (G2, Capterra, etc.)
3. Reddit comments recommending us
4. YouTube videos reviewing/using our product
5. Blog posts that mention us positively
6. Case studies or results people have shared publicly
7. LinkedIn posts from customers
For each piece of proof:
- Screenshot or quote the exact text
- Note the source URL
- Identify who said it (name, title, company if relevant)
- Rate it: generic praise vs. specific results
- Suggest where to use it (landing page, sales deck, social, ads)
Also reach out to power users and request:
- A short testimonial
- Permission to create a case study
- A review on [PLATFORM]
Draft the outreach messages.
Research
Social
Outreach
âś“ Totally legal. Collecting public testimonials and asking happy customers for reviews is Marketing 101.
Hacker News can send a tsunami of traffic, but timing and positioning matter enormously. This tactic optimizes your HN strategy based on historical patterns and current front page analysis.
I want to post [CONTENT_URL] to Hacker News.
Topic: [DESCRIPTION]
Goal: [front page / discussions / recruiting visibility]
Analyze and optimize my HN strategy:
1. What titles have worked for similar content? (Search HN history)
2. What times have similar posts succeeded? (day of week, hour)
3. Who are the power users who post similar content? Could I ask one to post?
4. What's on the front page right now? Is it a good time or is competition fierce?
5. What angle would HN appreciate vs. reject as self-promotional?
6. Draft 5 title options, ranked by likely performance
7. What comment should I leave on my own post to seed discussion?
8. What objections might come up in comments, and how should I respond?
Also: monitor HN for when competitors post so I can engage in those discussions.
Social
Research
Content
âś“ Totally legal. HN has rules about self-promotion, but posting your own content is explicitly allowed. You're just being smart about it.
Phase 3: Direct Outreach
These tactics put you directly in front of decision-makers and potential customers. Personalization at scale is the game.
Cold email works when it doesn't feel cold. This tactic researches prospects individually and creates genuinely personalized outreach—not "I noticed you like breathing air" fake personalization.
I need to reach out to [PROSPECT_TYPE] at companies like [COMPANY_EXAMPLES].
I'm selling: [PRODUCT/SERVICE]
Value prop: [WHY THEY SHOULD CARE]
For each prospect on my list [OR: help me build a list of 50 prospects]:
1. Find their LinkedIn, Twitter, recent blog posts, podcast appearances
2. Identify something specific and recent they've said/done that relates to my offer
3. Find a mutual connection or shared interest
4. Note their likely pain points based on their role and company
5. Check if their company uses competitor products
Then draft a personalized email that:
- Opens with a genuine, specific hook (not "I loved your post on leadership")
- Connects their situation to my value prop naturally
- Keeps it under 100 words
- Has a low-friction CTA (not "Let me show you a demo")
- Sounds like a human, not a template
Create 3 follow-up emails (Day 3, Day 7, Day 14) that add value, not just "bumping this up".
Email
Outreach
Research
âś“ Totally legal. Cold email is legal when you follow CAN-SPAM (US) or GDPR (EU). Include unsubscribe, be honest about who you are.
Dropping links in communities gets you banned. Building reputation first gets you customers. This tactic helps you become a valued community member before ever mentioning your product.
I want to build presence in [COMMUNITY] (Reddit/Discord/Slack/Forum).
My expertise: [WHAT I KNOW]
My product: [WHAT I'M EVENTUALLY GOING TO MENTION]
Create a 30-day infiltration plan:
Week 1-2: Pure value, no mention of product
- Find 10 questions I can answer helpfully each day
- Identify the community power users I should engage with
- Learn the inside jokes, norms, and taboos
- Draft helpful responses to common questions (ready to deploy)
Week 3: Soft mentions
- Find threads where my product is genuinely relevant
- Draft responses that mention it naturally as one option among many
- Identify threads asking for recommendations where I could be suggested
Week 4: Establish authority
- Propose helpful content I could share (guide, tool, analysis)
- Build relationships with moderators
- Get others to recommend me organically
Track: karma/reputation score, connections made, mentions of product by others.
Social
Outreach
Content
âś“ Totally legal. Engaging authentically in communities while having a business interest is normal. Just don't pretend to be someone you're not.
Partnerships can 10x your reach overnight, but finding the right ones is hard. This tactic systematically identifies companies whose audience overlaps yours but who aren't competitors.
My product: [PRODUCT]
My audience: [DESCRIPTION]
My stage: [startup / growth / enterprise]
Find potential partners:
1. Companies with overlapping audiences but complementary products
2. Agencies/consultants who serve my target customers
3. Tools that would integrate well with mine
4. Content creators with my audience who accept sponsors
5. Communities/newsletters that reach my customers
6. Companies whose customers typically also buy products like mine
For each potential partner:
- What's the partnership angle? (integration, affiliate, co-marketing, bundle)
- What do they get out of it?
- Who's the right person to contact?
- What have they partnered on before?
- Draft an outreach message
Prioritize by: audience overlap Ă— ease of partnership Ă— potential impact.
Research
Outreach
âś“ Totally legal. Business development is how companies grow. You're just being systematic about it.
Email lists are the most valuable asset in marketing. This tactic finds growth opportunities—cross-promotions, sponsorships, and organic channels—to grow your list fast.
My newsletter: [NAME/TOPIC]
Current size: [X subscribers]
Target audience: [DESCRIPTION]
Find newsletter growth opportunities:
1. Newsletters in my space I could cross-promote with (similar size, complementary)
2. Newsletters where I could sponsor (include pricing if findable)
3. Referral program examples from similar newsletters
4. Lead magnets that have worked in my niche
5. Landing page examples with high conversion rates
6. Organic channels: which Substacks, Revue accounts, etc. are growing fast? Why?
7. Product Hunt, Hacker News, and Reddit threads about newsletters in my space
For cross-promo opportunities:
- Draft outreach proposing a swap
- Suggest what I could offer their audience
For sponsorships:
- List newsletters, audience size, pricing, contact info
- Recommend which 5 to test first based on audience fit
Also: audit my current signup flow and suggest improvements.
Outreach
Research
Email
âś“ Totally legal. Newsletter growth strategies are standard marketing. Cross-promos are win-win.
Phase 4: Intelligence & Optimization
The best marketers obsess over data. These tactics give you intelligence that would normally require expensive tools and dedicated analysts.
Pricing is the biggest lever in your business, but most founders set it once and forget it. This tactic monitors competitor pricing and market positioning continuously.
Track pricing for competitors: [COMPETITOR_1], [COMPETITOR_2], [COMPETITOR_3]
Monitor and report on:
1. Current pricing tiers and what's included in each
2. Any pricing changes (alert immediately when detected)
3. Hidden pricing (enterprise "contact us" - find ranges from reviews, forums)
4. Discounting patterns (Black Friday, startup programs, annual deals)
5. How they position tiers (who is each tier for?)
6. Billing model differences (per seat, usage-based, flat rate)
7. Free tier limits and trial lengths
Also analyze:
- Am I priced correctly relative to competitors?
- What features justify premium pricing?
- Where could I undercut profitably?
- What pricing experiments should I run?
Store historical data. Send monthly report with recommendations.
Research
Monitoring
Analytics
âś“ Totally legal. Pricing is public information. Companies have entire teams that do this analysis.
Your support tickets are a goldmine of content ideas. Customers literally tell you what they don't understand and what they want to do. This tactic turns support patterns into content that ranks.
Analyze my support patterns and create content:
Input: [SUPPORT_CHANNEL - email, Intercom, Discord, etc.]
1. Categorize the top 20 questions/issues people have
2. For each category:
- How often does it come up?
- What's the current answer?
- Could a help doc/video prevent these tickets?
- Is this a keyword opportunity? (Search "[your product] + [question]")
3. Create content plan:
- FAQ page entries
- Help docs / Knowledge base articles
- Blog posts (for SEO-worthy topics)
- YouTube tutorial scripts
- In-app tooltip copy
4. Draft the top 5 pieces of content right now
Also: find questions people ask about competitors that I could answer (and rank for).
Content
SEO
Research
âś“ Totally legal. Creating helpful content based on real user questions is the best kind of marketing.
Affiliates sell for you while you sleep. But finding good ones—and giving them the tools to succeed—takes work. This tactic systematically builds and supports your affiliate program.
Build my affiliate program for [PRODUCT]:
Phase 1: Find potential affiliates
- Bloggers who write about [MY_NICHE]
- YouTubers who review similar products
- Newsletter writers with relevant audiences
- Course creators who could recommend me
- Consultants who advise my target customers
- Existing customers with audiences
For each prospect:
- Their audience size and engagement
- What they've promoted before
- Contact info
- Custom pitch based on their content
Phase 2: Create affiliate assets
- Comparison pages vs. competitors (for SEO affiliates)
- Banner ads in standard sizes
- Email swipe copy
- Social media post templates
- Video review guidelines
- Case study data they can cite
Phase 3: Outreach campaign
- Personalized recruitment emails
- Follow-up sequence
- Onboarding materials once they join
Draft all materials. Suggest commission structure based on industry norms.
Outreach
Content
Research
âś“ Totally legal. Affiliate marketing is a massive industry. You're just building your own program.
Getting press is hard. But jumping on existing news stories with relevant commentary? Much easier. This tactic monitors news for opportunities and helps you respond fast.
Monitor news for PR opportunities related to [MY_INDUSTRY/PRODUCT]:
Watch for:
1. Competitor news (launches, funding, scandals) - I can comment
2. Industry trends being reported on - I can provide expert quotes
3. Regulatory/policy changes affecting my space
4. New research/studies I can cite or counter
5. Big company moves (Google, Apple, etc.) that affect my market
6. Problems in the news that my product solves
When you find an opportunity:
- Summarize the story
- Explain why it's relevant to me
- Draft a pitch to journalists covering it
- Create a Twitter thread I could post as commentary
- Suggest journalists who've covered similar stories (with contact info if public)
For breaking news: alert within 2 hours. Speed is everything.
Also: maintain a list of journalists who cover my space and their recent articles.
Research
Monitoring
Outreach
âś“ Totally legal. Newsjacking is standard PR practice. Journalists want relevant commentary on breaking stories.
Most people know they should A/B test. Few actually do it systematically. This tactic creates a continuous testing program across your marketing surfaces.
Create an A/B testing program for [MY_PRODUCT]:
Prioritize tests by impact potential:
1. Landing page headlines (5 variations based on different value props)
2. CTA button text (10 options to test)
3. Pricing page layout and copy
4. Email subject lines (for each campaign type)
5. Ad copy variations (for each platform)
6. Social media post formats
7. Onboarding email sequence
For each test area:
- What's the current version?
- What's the hypothesis for each variant?
- What's the minimum sample size needed?
- What's the success metric?
- How long should the test run?
Draft the actual variants I can copy-paste.
Also: set up a testing calendar—what to test each month.
Track results over time and compound learnings.
Analytics
Content
âś“ Totally legal. Testing your own marketing is just good practice.
Where do your customers actually come from? Most analytics lies to you. This tactic combines multiple data sources to figure out what's actually working—and what's wasting money.
Help me understand my true marketing attribution:
Data sources:
- [Google Analytics, Mixpanel, etc.]
- [CRM data]
- [Survey responses: "how did you hear about us?"]
- [Referral codes]
- [UTM parameters]
Analyze:
1. What channels do customers say they came from vs. what analytics says?
2. What's the typical multi-touch journey? (First touch → Last touch)
3. Which channels have the best LTV:CAC ratio?
4. Which content pieces appear most often in conversion paths?
5. What's the time lag between first visit and purchase?
6. Are there segments that convert differently?
Compare to my current marketing spend:
- Am I over-investing in any channel?
- Am I under-investing anywhere?
- What should I test scaling up?
- What should I consider cutting?
Create a monthly attribution report template I can rerun.
Include a "dark social" estimate (word of mouth, untracked shares).
Analytics
Research
âś“ Totally legal. This is just good analytics practice using your own data.
Security: Don't Be Stupid
Before you go wild with these tactics, let's talk about not getting yourself (or your accounts) burned.
Start conservative. Give OpenClaw minimal permissions at first. Watch what it does. Expand access gradually as you build trust.
API Key Safety
- Use separate keys for OpenClaw — Don't share your main API keys. Create dedicated ones you can revoke independently.
- Set spending limits — Most APIs let you cap monthly spend. Do it. A runaway loop can drain an account fast.
- Read-only when possible — If a tactic only needs to read data (monitoring, research), don't give write access.
Rate Limits & Bans
- Respect platform limits — Hitting APIs too fast gets you blocked. OpenClaw should throttle, but verify.
- Use multiple accounts carefully — Some platforms aggressively ban for this. Know the rules before you automate.
- Don't automate first contact on LinkedIn — LinkedIn specifically prohibits automation. Use it for research, do outreach manually.
Content & Reputation
- Review before publishing — OpenClaw writes drafts, you publish. Always review outreach and public content.
- Don't fake reviews or testimonials — That's fraud. Don't do it.
- Disclose AI involvement where required — Some platforms now require AI content disclosure. Stay updated on rules.
Data Privacy
- Don't store personal data you don't need — Collect what's necessary for your tactic, no more.
- Respect GDPR/CCPA — If you're reaching out to EU/California residents, know the rules.
- Secure your VPS — Use SSH keys, firewall rules, keep software updated. Your marketing intelligence is valuable.
The Advantage Most People Won't Take
Here's the reality: most of your competitors will not do any of this.
They'll read this post, think "that's a lot of work to set up," and go back to posting sporadically on LinkedIn and wondering why growth is slow.
That's your advantage.
The gap between "I could automate this" and "I actually automated this" is where startups die. It's where market share is lost. It's where bigger, slower competitors win by default—not because they're better, but because everyone else gave up.
You don't need to implement all 20 tactics. Pick three that match your current growth bottleneck:
- No traffic? Start with #2 (Backlink Hunter), #5 (Content Syndication), and #8 (SEO Gap Assassin)
- Traffic but no conversions? Focus on #9 (Social Proof), #16 (Support-to-Content), and #19 (A/B Testing)
- Need more leads? Try #11 (Cold Email), #6 (Micro-Influencer), and #13 (Partnership Scout)
- Want competitive edge? Deploy #3 (Competitor Shadow), #15 (Pricing Intelligence), and #18 (PR Newsjacking)
Get those working. Then add more.
In six months, you'll have a marketing operation that matches what funded startups build with teams. And you'll have spent maybe $200 on infrastructure instead of $200,000 on salaries.
That's not a hack. That's not cheating. That's just using the tools that are now available to everyone—while everyone else sleeps.
Ready to Start?
If you haven't set up OpenClaw yet, here's the quickest path:
- Grab a VPS from ScalaHosting ($19.95/mo, Build #1)
- SSH in on port 6543:
ssh root@IP -p 6543
- Run:
curl -fsSL https://molty.bot/install.sh | bash
- Pick your first three tactics from above and set them up
Get Started Now →
Questions? Want to share a tactic that worked for you? Join the Discord community — people share their best prompts there.