Marketing & Brand Growth
The right channel is the one your customer actually uses, not the one everyone is talking about
Every month a new channel is declared essential. A small business has limited time and money, so the useful question is narrower: where does my kind of customer look when they need what I sell, and what can I do well there? This session gives owners a simple way to answer it and to test the answer cheaply.
Explore this page6 sections
Spreading thin across five channels usually means doing none of them well.
Advice about marketing is often about a channel: everyone should be on this platform, everyone should run that kind of ad. But a customer buying a wedding service, a spare part, a tuition class and a factory component behaves very differently, and so should the marketing.
Choosing a channel is a decision about where to put scarce time and money. It is better made from how customers behave and what the business can sustain than from what is fashionable.
What the session covers
38 topics across 7 areas. Seven steps from customer behaviour to a stop rule.
Start With How Customers BehaveBefore any channel, the customer.5
- How the last ten customers found you, as far as you know
- What they did before contacting you: searched, asked someone, compared
- How long they took to decide
- How much they spend and how often
- What made them trust you enough to buy
If you cannot answer these, your first job is to find out. The customer research session helps with that.
The Main Families of ChannelsA map, not a recommendation.7
- Search and local listings, for people already looking
- Social media, for being seen and remembered
- Messaging and email, for people who already know you
- Paid advertising, for buying attention quickly
- Referrals, partnerships and word of mouth
- Offline presence: signage, events, printed material, local networks
- Marketplaces and directories
Match the Channel to the Kind of SaleDifferent purchases, different routes.5
A plumber and a consultancy may both want enquiries, but the same channel will not serve both.
- Urgent, local needs and search
- Considered, higher-value purchases and trust-building over time
- Repeat purchases and staying in touch
- Sales to other businesses, where relationships matter
- Impulse or low-price purchases and visibility
Scoring the OptionsA simple table, filled in honestly.6
- Score each channel from 1 to 5 on whether your customers are there
- On whether you can produce what it needs, week after week
- On the cost to test it properly
- On how well you can see results
- On how well it fits what you sell
- Adding up, then checking against your instinct and asking why they differ
The scores are not science. They make the reasoning visible so it can be questioned.
Doing One or Two WellDepth before breadth.5
- What “doing it properly” takes in hours per week
- Who in the business will actually do it
- What you will stop doing to make room
- Why a quiet but consistent channel often beats a loud, intermittent one
- When it is sensible to add a second channel
Testing SmallA cheap experiment before a commitment.5
- Writing the question: “If this works, we will see…”
- Setting a time limit, usually weeks rather than days
- Capping the spend before starting
- Deciding in advance what result would count as success
- Recording what you did, so you can repeat or avoid it
Stop Rules and What to Leave AloneAs important as choosing.5
- Agreeing when a test ends and what happens then
- Not extending a test only because you have already spent on it
- A deliberate “not now” list
- Revisiting the list every quarter
- Resisting channels you cannot maintain
Exercises owners can do the same week
- List the last ten customers and how each found you
- Fill in the channel scoring table for five channels
- Choose one channel to test and write its question, time limit and spend cap
- Write a “not now” list of three channels
- Put the test end date in the calendar
What this session is not
- A training in any one platform
- A verdict that a particular channel works or does not work for every business
- A guarantee of results from any channel
- A substitute for knowing your customer
How the session runs
A workshop of about two hours. Each owner works on their own business with a one-page template: customer behaviour at the top, a channel scoring table in the middle and a test plan at the bottom. A marketing practitioner circulates, challenges the scores and helps owners narrow to one or two choices. Participants leave with the test plan filled in.
What your students leave with
- A short description of how their customers find and choose a business like theirs
- A scored comparison of the channels they might use
- One or two channels chosen to do properly, with reasons
- A small, time-limited test written down before it begins
- A list of channels to deliberately leave alone for now
- Stop rules agreed in advance
Scheduled sessions
Nothing scheduled yet
Sessions are arranged with a college once a date is agreed. Ask us and we will find the right person for it.
A student rather than a college? See what is coming up, or ask your placement team to host this.
Pick fewer channels, and do them properly.
Tell us who your students are and what stage they are at. Sessions are free for participants.