Which marketing channel is best for your startup?
How to prioritize the 6 marketing channels.
If you’re trying to find the best startup growth channels, here’s a set of simple questions to help narrow down the list.
But first, Peter Thiel said it best:
“Most businesses get zero channels to work: poor sales rather than bad product is the most common cause of failure. If you can get just one distribution channel to work, you have a great business. If you try for several but don’t nail one, you’re finished.โ
Thatโs it โ you just need to master one channel. But how do you choose which one?
Good news? This is actually a simple decision.
Bad news? Picking is the easy part. Getting a channel to actually work is hard.
E.g. SEO is โwinner-take-almost-all,” the top 3 results (out of 500,000) get 70%+ of the traffic.
Online ads are sold via auction so the company with the best conversion funnel and the deepest pockets wins.
Organic social and influencersโฆthe top 1% get almost all the followers, likes, and clicks.
So ask yourself: Which of these channels can you be in the top 1% in the world?
That’s down to 2 things:
1. Best alignment with your business (structurally)
2. Best fit for your teamโs talents
Here are some questions to help decide:
๐ฆ๐๐ข & ๐ถ๐ป๐ฏ๐ผ๐๐ป๐ฑ: Is there any search volume, are people even looking for something related to the thing you sell? Can you create great content and build enough domain authority to rank for it?
๐ฃ๐ฎ๐ถ๐ฑ ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐ถ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด: Is the product so easy to show or explain that you can โhookโ someone with a glance? Do you have good direct response copy, design, experimentation and data skills? Can you afford it?
๐ข๐ฟ๐ด๐ฎ๐ป๐ถ๐ฐ ๐๐ผ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ฎ๐น & ๐ถ๐ป๐ณ๐น๐๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐: Do your prospects follow influencers? Do you have a remarkable product (i.e. visually stunning, a great story or cultural cachรฉ)? Can you get deals with top influencers in your space?
๐๐ถ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ ๐ข๐๐๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ต: Is your product expensive enough to be profitable after you pay your sales & sales ops teams? Do you have the ability to attract and develop sales and lead-gen talent?
๐ฉ๐ถ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐น / ๐ฝ๐ฟ๐ผ๐ฑ๐๐ฐ๐-๐น๐ฒ๐ฑ: Is your product naturally multi-player? (meaning, will customers bring more customers as a part of using your product?) Can you do great UX design and rapid product experimentation?
๐ฃ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐๐ป๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ ๐ผ๐ฟ ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐๐ฒ๐น๐น๐ฒ๐ฟ๐: Does your product naturally sit downstream of another product or service to help a partner build their core business? (e.g. Shopify ๐ธ๐ข๐ฏ๐ต๐ด to partner with Stripe and PayPal to help their new sellers get up and running.)
Most importantly, instead of constantly testing channels, pick your best one and experiment to master it. That takes time, so experiment constantly. (And when an experiment doesn’t work, take time to figure out why. I’ll leave a link in the comments to “How to debug a failed marketing experiment”
Helpful? I post each week, follow me so you won’t miss them –> Matt Lerner
