131: Your Customers Already Wrote Your Best Ad. You Just Haven't Found It Yet

Hey everyone, Chase here.

Quick one today - we are joined by Sebastian Valiente, Founder of Growth Pod, he’s been sharing incredible content on LinkedIn recently and after a few calls I was really impressed and wanted him to share his knowledge with all of you. Without further ado…Workflow Sunday.

What you'll learn:

• Why the exact language your customer uses converts better than polished copy

• A free workflow that gives you dozens of real customer quotes in one prompt

• A real example where stolen Reddit language outperformed our original hook by 3x

The hooks that actually stop the scroll aren't clever. They're stolen.

Stolen from the exact words your customer used when they were lying awake at 2am, frustrated with a problem they couldn't solve. Stolen from the rant they typed into Reddit when nothing else was working.

The best copy doesn't sound like copy. It sounds like recognition.

"Wait, how did they know that's exactly how I feel?"

That's the reaction you want. And you don't get there by brainstorming hooks in a conference room. You get there by finding the language that already exists.

Why This Actually Works

When your ad uses the exact language your customer uses, something clicks.

You're addressing the very specific, very niche version of that problem that they experience. The version they thought only they dealt with. The version they've never seen acknowledged in an ad before.

That specificity is what makes them stop and think: "How could you possibly know I'm going through this?"

And that recognition does two things.

First, it makes them feel genuinely understood in a way that proves you actually know what they're dealing with.

Second, that understanding builds trust. If you clearly understand their problem at this level of detail, you might actually understand the solution too.

Where That Language Lives

Your customers are talking about their problems right now. Not to you. To each other. On Reddit, in Amazon reviews, in TikTok comments, in niche Facebook groups.

And they're not using marketing language. They're using real language. Specific. Unpolished.

That's the gold.

When someone posts in a subreddit asking "Has anyone else tried literally everything for [problem] and nothing works?" — that's a hook. When someone leaves a three-paragraph Amazon review explaining exactly why they finally switched from a competitor — that's a positioning angle.

The work isn't writing. The work is finding.

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How I Actually Do This

I used to use a tool called GigaBrain for this. It was an AI layer on top of Reddit data. You could search something like "why do people hate [product category]" and it would pull comprehensive results across subreddits. It was forgiving. It did the search diversity for you.

Then Reddit killed their APIs. Now we have Reddit Answers, which is fine but limited. Four to five results per search. You have to do the work of thinking up the right queries yourself.

So I built a workflow that gets back to what made GigaBrain useful: one prompt, tons of output, and an AI that handles search diversity.

Here's the setup:

• I use Claude Code with this Apify Reddit scraper

• Apify is a marketplace of scrapers. This one costs fractions of a cent per search

• I packaged the scraper as a "skill" in Claude Code so I can query it in natural language

• To research, I just say: "Find me how people describe the frustrations they have with [category]"

• Claude Code searches multiple subreddits, phrases searches differently, returns real quotes with citations

One prompt. Dozens of relevant posts. Actual customer language I can use.

Turning Research into Creative

Once you have this language, the creative work shifts.

Instead of: "What hook should we write?"

It becomes: "Which of these customer phrases is the strongest hook?"

Here's a real example from a pet supplement brand we work with.

The headline our team wrote: "Give your dog the joint support they deserve."

Fine. Clear. Says what the product does. Also sounds like every other pet supplement ad on the internet.

Then we ran a search: "find me how people describe their dog's joint problems. focus on the emotional moments, not the symptoms."

One comment from r/dogs: "the worst part isn't the limp. it's watching him stare at the stairs he used to sprint up and just... sit there."

We turned that into: "He used to sprint up the stairs. Now he just sits at the bottom and stares."

That ad outperformed the original hook by 3x. Not because the copywriting was better. Because it described a moment the customer had already lived. They didn't read an ad. They read their own experience.

The Principle Behind the Tactic

This is a specific workflow, but the principle is broader:

Stop writing from your perspective. Start writing from theirs.

Most brands fail at messaging because they describe themselves. The product features. The company story. The founder's vision.

Customers don't care about any of that. They care about themselves. Their problems.

The closer your copy sounds to the voice in their head, the better it performs.

Reddit research is one way to get there. Customer interviews are another. Review mining is another. The tactic matters less than the principle: go find the language that already exists, then use it.

Your customers already wrote your best ad. You just haven't found it yet.

What We Learned

1. Recognition beats persuasion. When your copy sounds like something your customer already thought, you skip the convincing.

2. The best hooks are found, not written. Your job isn't to be clever. It's to listen better than your competitors.

3. Specificity creates trust. "Sits at the bottom and stares" beats "joint support they deserve" because it proves you've actually been there.

How to Apply This Week

1. Pick one product you're running ads for right now

2. Find where your customers talk unfiltered — Reddit, Amazon reviews, Facebook groups, TikTok comments

3. Spend 20 minutes collecting exact phrases (copy/paste, don't paraphrase)

4. Look for emotional moments, not features

5. Turn one phrase into a hook and test it against your current best performer

You don't need the Claude Code workflow. It just makes it faster. The principle works with manual research too.

Keep Creating,

Chase

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