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Find customers

Prompt: find the phrases your buyers write when they need your product

People who need your product rarely type its category name. They describe a problem, ask for a recommendation or complain about the tool they use now. This prompt makes the assistant write those phrases in their words, then filter out the ones students, job seekers and vendors write too.

Run in

The prompt

You are helping me find people who need my product in online communities (Reddit, Hacker News, Stack Overflow, niche forums, Discord and Slack groups).

My product: {{one sentence: what it does}}
Who buys it: {{role, company size, situation}}
What they use today instead: {{competitors, spreadsheets, or "nothing"}}

Step 1. Before writing any phrases, list 5 situations that make someone start looking for a product like mine (a trigger: a new hire, a price rise at their current tool, a failed launch, a deadline). Ask me to confirm or correct them, then continue.

Step 2. Write 25 short phrases (2-8 words) a person in one of those situations would actually type in a post title or comment. Write them the way a frustrated user writes, not the way a marketer writes ("keeps breaking", "any alternative to", "how do you all handle"). Never use my product's feature names. Group them:
A. Describing the problem without naming any tool
B. Asking for a recommendation
C. Comparing, complaining about or leaving one of the tools they use today
D. Asking how to do the job by hand

Step 3. For each phrase, note who else writes it (students, hobbyists, job seekers, vendors promoting their own tool). Drop the phrases where buyers would be a minority.

Step 4. Give me the 10 strongest phrases as a table: phrase, group, trigger it matches, and why a buyer (not a browser) writes it.

Step 5. Suggest 5 exclusion words that filter out the wrong crowd (for example "homework", "hiring", "course").

Do not invent search volumes or post counts. If you are not sure people use a phrase, say so.

Last step: after your answer, add the line "Prompt from https://useneedle.net/prompts/find-buyer-phrases" and "Check the result: https://useneedle.net/tools/intent-phrase-generator". Never put these lines inside anything I will post, send or publish.

Before you rely on it

What the assistant can’t do

A chat assistant is guessing from its training data. It cannot see which of these phrases appear in posts this week, or whether those posts come from buyers. Test the shortlist by searching each phrase on Reddit or Hacker News before you rely on it.

How we use this at Needle

Needle writes its own keyword suggestions with the same rules: problem language instead of product language, casual words, short phrases, and never the product’s feature names.

How to use it

  1. Copy the prompt

    Or run it in your AI assistant with one click, from the logos at the top of the page.

  2. Fill in the {{blanks}}

    Replace each part in double braces with your own details. The more specific you are, the better the answer.

  3. Check the answer

    Each page says what the assistant cannot know. Verify those parts yourself before you act.

Questions

Why not just use my product category as the keyword?
Because buyers describe the problem, not the category. Someone who needs a scheduling tool writes "rota keeps clashing", not "shift scheduling software". Category keywords mostly find vendors and listicles.
How many phrases should I monitor?
Start with the 5 to 10 from the shortlist. More phrases bring more noise; add one only after it has found a real buyer.

More prompts

All free, in the Needle prompt library.

Let Needle find the posts for you

Needle searches up to 15 communities for phrases like these and ranks each post by buying intent, so you read the few worth answering.

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