Top 18 'Attention-Arbitrage' Growth Hacks to try for Underdog Brands to Steal the Spotlight in 2025 - Goh Ling Yong
Let's be honest. Being the underdog sucks sometimes. You're hustling, creating amazing products, and pouring your heart into your brand, but the Goliaths of your industry seem to soak up all the sunlight, leaving you in the shadows. They have the massive ad budgets, the huge email lists, and the brand recognition that feels a million miles away. How can you possibly compete?
The answer isn't to outspend them—that's a game you'll lose. The answer is to outsmart them. The secret weapon for the scrappy, ambitious brand in 2025 is a concept I live and breathe: Attention-Arbitrage. Think of it like stock trading. You don't buy the hot, overpriced stock everyone is talking about. You find the undervalued gem that nobody sees yet, invest early, and reap massive rewards when the market catches on. In marketing, this means finding platforms, formats, and strategies where user attention is high, but the cost (in time or money) is still incredibly low.
This is your playbook. It’s not about finding a magic bullet; it’s about placing small, smart bets in the overlooked corners of the internet where your competitors aren't looking. Forget throwing money at saturated ad platforms. Here are 18 attention-arbitrage growth hacks designed for underdog brands to steal the spotlight and make 2025 their breakout year.
1. The "Hyper-Niche" Podcast Tour
Forget trying to land a spot on The Diary of a CEO. The competition is fierce, and the audience, while massive, is incredibly broad. The real arbitrage opportunity lies in becoming a "micro-celebrity" within a hyper-specific niche. Identify 20-30 small, dedicated podcasts that cater directly to your ideal customer profile—the ones with 500 to 5,000 passionate listeners per episode.
Getting on these shows is far easier, and the impact is disproportionately high. The hosts are often hungry for quality guests, and the listeners are deeply engaged and trust the host's recommendations implicitly. A warm endorsement on a niche podcast can drive more qualified leads than a fleeting mention on a top-tier show. It’s a game of depth, not breadth.
Action Tip: Use tools like SparkToro or even just targeted Spotify searches to find podcasts in your niche. Pitch the host not on why you're great, but on the specific value you can provide to their audience. Offer to talk about a unique case study or a contrarian point of view that will make their episode unmissable.
2. AI-Powered Personalized Video Outreach
We’ve all become blind to generic text-based outreach emails. They're easy to ignore and delete. But a video message where someone says your name? That’s impossible to ignore. In the past, this was unscalable. Today, AI tools like Synthesia or HeyGen allow you to create personalized videos at scale. You record a template video once, and the AI can clone your voice and likeness to insert names, company names, or other custom details.
Imagine sending a prospect a video that starts with, "Hey [First Name], I was just on the [Company Name] website and loved your recent blog post on [Topic]..." The pattern interrupt is so powerful that your response rates will skyrocket. This is a perfect arbitrage play because the technology is accessible, but most brands are still stuck sending mass emails.
Action Tip: Keep the videos short (under 60 seconds). Focus on one clear value proposition or call to action. Use it for high-value targets in sales, partnership requests, or even recruiting top talent.
3. Strategic "Value-Bombing" in Niche Communities
Where do your ideal customers hang out online to complain, ask questions, and share wins? It's probably not on your corporate blog. It's in niche subreddits, private Discord servers, Slack channels, and Facebook Groups. The mistake most brands make is jumping in and spamming links. The arbitrage is in playing the long game.
Become a genuine, value-adding member of the community. Spend 15-20 minutes a day answering questions, offering expert advice, and celebrating others' successes—with no expectation of immediate return. Over time, you'll build immense social capital and be seen as the go-to expert. When you finally do mention your product or service, it’s not a sales pitch; it’s a trusted recommendation from a fellow member.
Action Tip: Create a list of 5-10 key communities. Use a tool like Feedly or just bookmark them. Never lead with a link to your site. Lead with pure, unadulterated help. Your reputation will become your best marketing asset.
4. The "Data-Driven" PR Stunt
Journalists and content creators are constantly looking for two things: compelling data and a fresh story angle. You can give them both without a massive PR budget. Instead of waiting for news to happen, create it. Commission a small, insightful survey about a trend or pain point in your industry.
Package the findings into a well-designed report or infographic with a killer headline like, "78% of Marketers Secretly Hate Writing SEO Content, New Study Finds." Then, pitch this exclusive data to relevant journalists, bloggers, and influencers. They get a great story, and you get high-authority backlinks and brand mentions, positioning you as a thought leader.
Action Tip: Use tools like Google Surveys or Pollfish to run a survey affordably. Focus on a question that is counter-intuitive or confirms a widely-held suspicion. This is a tactic that Goh Ling Yong has consistently championed for building authority from the ground up.
5. Interactive "Choose Your Own Adventure" Content
Static blog posts are becoming commoditized. To stand out, you need to create experiences, not just articles. Use tools like Typeform, Genially, or Outgrow to build interactive content like quizzes, calculators, or branching "choose your own adventure" scenarios that guide users to a personalized solution.
This type of content has a much higher engagement rate and time-on-page than a standard blog post, which sends positive signals to Google. More importantly, it feels personal and provides immediate, tangible value to the user. An interactive "What's Your Marketing Bottleneck?" quiz is far more memorable and shareable than a 2,000-word post on the same topic.
Action Tip: Map out a common problem your customer faces. Create a quiz or calculator that helps them diagnose the problem and offers your product as part of the solution. Gate the full results behind an email signup for a powerful lead generation tool.
6. Master X (Twitter) Long-Form Posts
For years, Twitter was the king of brevity. Now, with the push for long-form posts, there's a massive opportunity for brands to stand out. While everyone else is still firing off 280-character quips, you can publish detailed tutorials, insightful essays, or compelling brand stories directly on the platform.
These posts get preferential treatment from the algorithm, holding a user's attention for much longer. It's like publishing a mini-blog post where your audience already is, without asking them to click a link and leave the app. It’s an underutilized format for deep-level storytelling and value delivery.
Action Tip: Take one of your best-performing blog posts and distill its core message into a compelling, well-formatted long-form post on X. Use bolding, bullet points, and emojis to make it skimmable.
7. Leverage Instagram Broadcast Channels
Imagine having a direct, push-notification-powered line to your most loyal followers on Instagram. That's a Broadcast Channel. It's more intimate than a Story and more immediate than a post. This feature is still new enough that most brands aren't using it effectively, creating a huge arbitrage opportunity.
Use your Broadcast Channel to share behind-the-scenes content, ask for feedback, run polls, and give your "insiders" first access to new products or content. It builds a powerful sense of community and exclusivity, turning casual followers into die-hard fans. The open rates here are insane compared to email marketing.
Action Tip: Start a Broadcast Channel and promote it heavily in your Stories and bio. Commit to posting 3-5 times a week with exclusive, valuable, or entertaining content you don't share anywhere else.
8. The "Reverse" Influencer Strategy
Instead of paying influencers to hold up your product for a fee, create something so remarkable, useful, or exclusive that they want to talk about it for free. This could be a beautifully designed physical product, an incredibly useful free tool, or an exclusive experience.
This approach flips the script. You're not buying reach; you're earning it through creativity and value. The resulting promotion is far more authentic and powerful because it’s not a paid ad; it’s a genuine endorsement. Think about the brand Liquid Death—they built a cult following not by paying influencers, but by creating a brand and product so outrageous that people couldn't help but talk about it.
Action Tip: Brainstorm a "Trojan Horse" for your brand. What could you create that provides so much value or is so unique that influencers in your space would feel compelled to share it with their audience?
9. Creative Guerrilla Marketing IRL (In Real Life)
In a world saturated with digital ads, a clever, low-cost offline stunt can generate massive online buzz. Attention is cheap in the real world if you’re creative. This could be anything from clever sidewalk chalk art and "post-it note" campaigns on community boards to a well-organized flash mob.
The goal isn't to reach the people who walk by; it's to create a spectacle that people will photograph and share online. A single viral photo or video of your offline stunt can generate more reach and engagement than a $10,000 ad spend. It’s about being memorable in a sea of digital monotony.
Action Tip: Think about a physical space where your target audience congregates. Brainstorm a low-cost, non-destructive, and highly "Instagrammable" idea that communicates your brand's value or personality.
10. The HARO Authority Play
HARO (Help a Reporter Out) is a free service that connects journalists with expert sources. Three times a day, you get an email full of queries from reporters at outlets ranging from local blogs to The New York Times. By consistently providing high-quality, insightful answers, you can get your brand quoted in major publications.
This is a pure arbitrage of time for authority. Most brands don't have the patience to respond consistently. If you do, you can rack up dozens of high-quality backlinks and "as seen in" logos for your website, dramatically boosting your SEO and credibility—all for the cost of your time.
Action Tip: Dedicate 15 minutes every morning to scanning the HARO emails for relevant queries. Write a templated intro but always provide a unique, non-promotional, and genuinely helpful answer to the journalist's question.
11. Host LinkedIn Audio Events
Everyone is tired of staring at a screen for yet another webinar. LinkedIn Audio Events offer a lower-friction, more intimate alternative. Think of it as a live, interactive podcast or a Clubhouse-style chat happening within the world's largest professional network.
The barrier to entry for attendees is low—they can listen in while multitasking—and the format encourages real conversation rather than a one-way presentation. Because it’s less saturated than video events, you can attract high-level guests and attendees, making it a fantastic platform for B2B networking and thought leadership.
Action Tip: Partner with another expert in your niche to co-host a 30-minute audio event on a timely and specific topic. Promote it to both of your networks for maximum reach.
12. Create a "Niche" Custom GPT
With the launch of OpenAI's GPT Store, there's a land-grab opportunity for brands to create useful, niche-specific custom GPTs. These are AI chatbots you can train on your own data and expertise to solve a very specific problem for your target audience.
For example, a content marketing agency could create a "Viral Headline Generator GPT." A fitness brand could create a "Personalized Workout Planner GPT." This positions your brand as a helpful innovator and acts as a powerful, interactive lead magnet. You're not just telling them you're an expert; you're giving them a tool that proves it.
Action Tip: Identify a repetitive, formulaic task your audience struggles with. Build a simple custom GPT that automates or simplifies that task and list it on the GPT Store. Promote it as a free tool to your audience.
13. Gamify Your Customer Experience
Humans are wired to love games. Why should the customer journey be a boring, linear path? Inject elements of gamification—points, badges, leaderboards, progress bars—into your onboarding, loyalty programs, or even your content consumption.
This turns passive users into active participants. It creates powerful psychological hooks that increase engagement, retention, and word-of-mouth referrals. A simple progress bar showing a user they are "80% of the way to becoming a 'Super User'" is far more motivating than a simple checklist.
Action Tip: Look at your customer journey from first touch to loyal advocate. Where could you add a small element of fun or competition? Start with something simple, like a points system for completing onboarding tasks.
14. Build a "UGC-First" Content Engine
Why bear the entire burden of content creation when your happiest customers can be your best marketers? User-Generated Content (UGC) is more authentic, trustworthy, and scalable than brand-created content. The arbitrage is in building a system to encourage, collect, and repurpose it.
Run contests, create branded hashtags, or simply feature the best customer content on your social media channels. Actively reach out to customers who post positively about you and ask for permission to use their content. This not only fills your content calendar but also builds a strong community and provides powerful social proof.
Action Tip: Create a clear and simple call-to-action, like "#[YourBrand]InTheWild," and promote it everywhere. Offer a small incentive (a discount, a feature) for the best submissions each month to kickstart the flywheel.
15. Host Niche "Micro-Summits"
Large-scale virtual summits are expensive and time-consuming to produce. A "micro-summit" is a focused, 2-3 hour virtual event on a very specific topic, featuring 3-4 other non-competing experts in your space.
The value proposition is high for attendees (concentrated expertise without the fluff) and the overhead is low for you. By co-hosting, you get to cross-promote to all your partners' audiences, generating a flood of qualified leads for a fraction of the cost and effort of a traditional summit.
Action Tip: Identify a hyper-specific problem. Invite 3 complementary experts to each speak for 20 minutes on their unique angle. Market it as a "can't-miss power-hour" for your target audience.
16. The "Value-First" Commenting Strategy
Don't just scroll past posts from major influencers in your niche. See them as a stage. The comment section is an opportunity to post "mini-articles" that provide immense value and showcase your expertise. Don't just write "Great post!"—that's invisible.
Instead, write a thoughtful, multi-sentence comment that adds to the conversation, offers a different perspective, or provides a detailed, actionable tip related to the original post. This positions you as a peer to the influencer and captures the attention of their highly engaged audience. People will start to recognize your name and even click through to your profile.
Action Tip: Identify 10-15 key influencers in your industry. Set aside 15 minutes a day to leave at least one high-value comment. Track how many profile clicks and followers you get from this simple, free activity.
17. Revamp Old Content with Generative AI
You likely have a goldmine of content sitting in your blog archives. The arbitrage is in using Generative AI to multiply its value with minimal effort. That one high-performing blog post can become a dozen new assets.
Use AI tools to summarize the post into a compelling Twitter thread. Ask it to generate a script for a 60-second TikTok or Reel. Have it create a 5-slide outline for a LinkedIn carousel. Prompt it to write a short email newsletter based on the key takeaways. You can 10x your content output by focusing on repurposing, not just net-new creation.
Action Tip: Take your top-performing blog post from the last year. Use a tool like ChatGPT or Claude to transform it into at least 3 different content formats for 3 different social platforms this week.
18. The "Hyper-Local" Digital Strategy
Even if you're a global or national digital brand, there's a powerful arbitrage in targeting customers on a local level. Competition for keywords like "best marketing software" is insane. But competition for "best marketing software for startups in Austin" is far lower.
Create location-specific landing pages, blog posts, or case studies. Run small, highly-targeted ad campaigns aimed at specific cities or regions. In a sea of generic, global messaging, a local touch feels relevant and personal, allowing you to get a foothold in key markets before expanding.
Action Tip: Use keyword research tools to identify cities where there is search demand but low competition for your core offerings. Create a dedicated landing page for that city, featuring local testimonials or case studies if possible.
It's Time to Outsmart, Not Outspend
The digital landscape of 2025 won't be won by the brands with the biggest wallets. It will be won by the ones who are the most clever, creative, and courageous. Attention-arbitrage is your unfair advantage. It's the mindset of looking where others aren't, doing what others won't, and finding value in the overlooked corners of the market.
Don't try to implement all 18 of these at once. That's a recipe for burnout. Instead, pick the one or two that resonate most with you and your brand's strengths. Commit to experimenting with them for the next 90 days. Measure the results, double down on what works, and never stop hunting for the next undervalued opportunity.
Now I want to hear from you. Which of these hacks are you most excited to try? Or do you have an attention-arbitrage play of your own that's been working? Drop a comment below and let's share our strategies.
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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