“If you had to pick one, what marketing channel is best,” she asked me at an entrepreneur event in Nashville. With limited cash and time, this founder wanted to focus on the most beneficial platform to reach her audience.
“Easy answer,” I replied, “the channel your ideal customer uses the most.”
“And how do I find the channel my customer uses the most,” she asked!
“Easy answer,” I replied again, “ask them.”
Find the best marketing channel, with ease
Face to face discussions are the most effective tool a founder has to understand their audience trust channels—the people and networks that surround individuals to inform them of their world.
The rapid development of social media and new media channels like X, have given founders incredible access to customers. Social media, PR, SEO, ads, sponsorships, white papers, etc are only the beginning. At first—it’s overwhelming, especially when you factor in the noise and competition. But anyone can gain clarity on which channel is best despite your limited resources.
Sadly, most founders don’t want to spend the time, or if they do they blow the opportunity selling. Other founders fall victim to the data trap—overwhelming themselves with reports they don’t truly understand. Others, ask ChatGPT.
If that’s you—you’re overcomplicating this. Just go ask your customers.
Many founders I’ve worked with have found some incredible insight after just 3-5 customer discussions on the ideal channel you should focus on. When you spend time getting to know customers on a deeper level, they’ll shock you nine out of ten times. You’ll see a pattern emerge and when that happens, form a strategy around the channel that comes up most often.
Simple, Precise, Low-Cost.
Asking the right questions
Obviously asking “what channels should I use to market to customers like you” will yield bad results. You’re putting customers into a marketing mindset—you don’t want that. You want to know what channels they use when they’re not in a marketing mindset. Here are some better questions:
- What are your go-to sources to validate news?
- What podcasts are shaping your career right now?
- It’s hard to keep up with the news these days, what publication do you rely on?
- Are there any professional groups breathing life into you right now?
The answers to these questions, when asked to numerous customers, will give you an incredible data-set and fairly precise picture of your customers trust channels. You can download my free Google Sheet of more than 40 of these questions.
In more cases than I can count, the ideal platform a founder thought was the most efficient path to reach their audience, was not only wrong.
There’s a famous saying, “half your marketing dollars are wasted. You just don’t know what half is wasted.” I think this is false. If you spend the time, getting to know your audience—they’ll tell you.
