A big part of sales is getting people to even know your product exists. How are people on HN reaching out to customers? Advertisements don't quite work for tech

A big part of sales is getting people to even know your product exists. How are people on HN reaching out to customers? Advertisements don't quite work for tech geeks and people that would use SaaS (Adblock, general detest against ads, etc). I am curious what are good marketing strategies that reach potential customers in ways that they are not annoyed by it, but the opposite - they are thankful for discovering your product or service?