~ How to select a marketing channel
As a marketer, I always have to face the question of how to select a marketing channel for my brand. Almost every client I have dealt with had made this mistake before they landed up with me or any good agency.
Selecting a marketing channel completely depends on the type of audience you are trying to attract.
But for all the nonmarketers out there, another big question raises i.e. how do I know where my audience is present? And I completely understand that. Rather than spending a ton of money on a platform where you are not so sure about the ROI, it’s always better to do proper research on the platform demographics and then pumping budgets.
My personal take on this is, that anything can be marketed and sold anywhere, being the salesman is a pro, bearing aside some very exceptional conditions. That we shall talk about later in the blog.
But to make things easier and understandable, I have kept this blog less complex.
As a growth hacker, I have some quick tips for you on how to select a marketing channel. Keep reading…
Step 1
~ How to select a marketing channel?
Awareness VS Sales
I am talking about setting up the goal here!
What are you trying to accomplish through that marketing campaign?
Sales/Leads or just Awareness?
According to that, your platform selection would be.
Example 1 | How to Select a Marketing Channel?
For a T-shirt e-commerce brand, the best platform to market to get leads/traffic/sales would be Instagram and Facebook. But you can still go to LinkedIn by creating some organic content or just a brand awareness campaign while having your brand page there. It would help your brand to get more eyeballs. Though, chances are lesser for conversion as no one is coming to LinkedIn to purchase a t-shirt. Rather, a B2B product/service would rock there to garner conversions.
I would even suggest that the T-shirt brands not be available on LinkedIn. They better spend that time and energy on other lesser-known social media platforms which are more visually driven or even audio is driven which is less niche specific.
Example 2 | How to Select a Marketing Channel?
For a Digital Marketing Agency, LinkedIn would be wonderful. As you got the CEOs, Founders, Directors, Chiefs, and Managers there acting like they are the one. Whereas for a Digital Marketing Institute Instagram and Facebook would do more wonders than LinkedIn as the crowd demographics are more teenagers, college-going students, lesser settled down crowds, etc. and they are looking forward to learning.
In case you are thinking that “In that case, the LinkedIn audience is keener to upskill and upgrade”, you got to realize that most of the training requirements of an employee are taken care of by their organization. They do have dedicated partners for that. In the case of companies like Big 4, WITCH, and MAANG, it’s all done, as internally they have enormous training and upskilling opportunities completely for free.
Example 3 | How to Select a Marketing Channel?
For a SAAS Company and PAAS Company, Twitter & LinkedIn and even Quora would be game changers for both lead generation/sales/brand awareness, etc.
Understand the game here, you got the leadership panel there, you got the directors available there, you got a direct reach to their in-mail, etc.
Here, Instagram and Facebook don’t even get a bite of the campaign budget if I plan this. I would rather do some organic marketing here to maintain the hygiene and ORM i.e. Online Reputation Management.
By the way, these SAAS Companies and PAAS Companies also hire a lot of business developers and client servicing professionals to book one on one meetings and sell a subscription.
Step 2
~ How to select a marketing channel?
Account Warmup VS Jumping On Leads
Digital Marketing Channels like Google, Meta, Amazon, or any Web 2.0 needs warm-up.
You cannot just jump tomorrow morning and start generating quality leads.
What is Social Media Account Warm Up?
~ How to select a marketing channel?
Social Media is Web 2.0. Web 2.0 Platforms are completely UGC drive, i.e. User Generated Content, and all such platforms including Google, and Bing has a dedicated algorithm to adhere to.
It has policies and T&C. Not following the process to rank your content well on Web 2.0 or violating the policy will become counterproductive.
First thing first, you cannot start doing ads right after you create your profile on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Most of the mediums will not allow you to do ads or access the ads manager panel right the next day. Even if some of the platforms are allowing so,
- Either the options will be extremely limited
- Your ads won’t get approval to publish
- You will receive junk leads or limited reach
- Your account will be blocked if you try to push it the wrong way
In Google’s case, it’s slightly different. If you do not have a well-done on-page SEO website/landing page, your Google Ads won’t work wonders. The quality score won’t be great and in that case, there can be two scenarios.
- Your ad won’t be published. It won’t get approved.
- Your ad will be published, but won’t perform well, or it will reflect in the wrong positions.
Account warm is a process to let the platform know about your business, content, and type of audiences you would interact with, enhancing organic engagement and spending a good amount of time with its organic algorithm before jumping on ads.
Many can argue as it is not necessary, but it works well in the long run. Especially if you do not have big budgets to burn for ads.
It’s better, to build some awareness campaigns both organic / paid before you jump to lead generation. Here are some organic campaigns which have gone viral.
- Social media Challenges #1 – Doodle Challenge
- Social media Challenges # 2 – Don’t Rush Challenge
- Social media Challenges #3 – Don’t Leave Me Challenge
- Social media Challenges #4 – Drop Challenge
- Social media Challenges #5 – Dalgona Coffee Challenge
- Social media Challenges #6 – Pillow Challenge
- Social media Challenges #7 – Patience Challenge
- Social media Challenges #8 – The Savage Challenge
- Social media Challenges #9 – The Super Bowl Challenge
- Social media Challenges #10 – Bin Isolation Outing Challenge
- Social media Challenges #11 – Between Art and Quarantine Challenge
- Social media Challenges #12 – Beauty Mode Challenge
- Social media Challenges #13 – Wipe it Down Challenge
- Social media Challenges #14 – Gesture Challenge
- Social media Challenges #15 – Flip the Switch Challenge
- Social media Challenges #16 – Until Tomorrow Challenge
- Social media Challenges #17 – Vogue Challenge
- Social media Challenges #18 – OhNaNa Challenge
- Social media Challenges #19 – ‘Who is More’ Challenge
- Social media Challenges #20 – Your First Move Is Their Last Move Challenge
- Social media Challenges #21 – Trick Shot Challenge
- Social media Challenges #22 – Kiki Challange
- Social media Challenges #23 – Ice Bucket Challange
These are campaigns some of which are related to brands some of which are not.
My POV here is to educate you that organic campaigns can go extremely viral.
Now we shall also take a look at the brand side of things where campaigns have viral organically and have gotten amazing marketing bites.
- Apple: Shot on iPhone
- Dove: Project #ShowUs
- MoonPie: Super Bowl Commercial
- Friskies and BuzzFeed: Dear Kitten
- Casper: Sleep Channel
- PwC: Ballot Briefcase
- Procter & Gamble: DistanceDance
- American Eagle and Snapchat
- Vienna Tourist Board on OnlyFans
- YouTube’s Shorter Side of YouTube Campaign
- NatGeo’s #ThinkBeforeYouLike
- TikTok’s Re: Make Campaign
- McDonald’s #McSpicy Debate
- Spotify Only You Campaign
- Dove’s #NoDigitalDistortion
- Cadbury’s Worldwide Hide
- Gillette #TheBestMenCanBe
- Popeyes vs Chick-Fil-A
- Spotify Wrapped
- Dove #ShowUs
- Chipotle TikTok Challenges
- The Egg
- Oreo #GameOfCookies
- Nike #DreamCrazier
- She Breaks Barriers – Adidas
- Greggs’ Vegan Sausage Roll
Now, does the above make sense?
~ How to select a marketing channel?
You see, all these have worked, so you get that I wasn’t blabbering. Hence you can do that too.
The above examples also define the platforms they have taken. This itself gives a lot of learning about how you select a marketing channel for your campaign.
Read my complete article about What is Social Media Account Warm-Up? (not yet published)
Step 3
~ How to select a marketing channel?
Audience Demographics VS Going Heywire
Example 1 | How to Select a Marketing Channel?
You are deployed in a marketing project for a product company. The product is selling a SAAP product that can help develop any type of Web 2.0 portal. You are allotted $10,000 and given a duration of 3 months. For an obvious reason, you got to build awareness and then garner leads out of the campaigns. But how you do it is completely under your control.
Well, you see there is $10,000 so you decide to distribute it 30% on IG, 20% on FB, 40% on Google Ads, and 10% on influencer marketing.
The distribution that you have come up with, does that make any sense? Mostly NO. The crux is you haven’t researched enough where is your audience. If there is no audience for the same product on Instagram or with any Influencer, then why do you spend 40% of your marketing budget out of the blue?
Research first is always the way to start your marketing strategy.
Did you ever think of Outbound? Cant, you approach B2B clients directly and get an appointment to present your product and get a subscription closed there? The solution is not only through digital media or offline mediums. It’s always where your audiences are. Awareness can be built through any platform, as I don’t own a Lamborghini today, but I know what it is. But not the sales funnel, the MQL, and SQL funnel will only be built on efficient platforms.
Some audience demographic tools may help you in this case. This regards each platform or a/c basis. Statista data is a huge help as well. Above all the kind of filters, you get while setting your ad interest on Ad managers like Google, Facebook, etc. says a lot about it.
Here are some quick data from Statista on Instagram, and content by Omnicore Agency for a good read.
By the way, don’t rely on generic data. As in, the above marketing campaign we were discussing has nothing to do with what percentage of males and females is there on Instagram. It has to deal with, what percentage of entrepreneurs and employees are there. Data can be further specified with the category of a product/service company, location, etc. and that needs to be researched and tested.
Step 4
~ How to select a marketing channel?
ORM VS Awareness
Be it a Product Company or Service Company, Brand awareness has always been the top-notch demand in any competitive organization.
Whereas, ORM is needed for those organizations that have already achieved a significant amount of brand recognition, word of mouth, and brand awareness. While creating plans for any of the two, you got to be specific about what is your objective.
ORM – Online Reputation Management.
ORM is about maintaining a good reputation among your audience.
Example 1 | How to Select a Marketing Channel?
You know OYO as a hotel chain brand. From 2017 to 2020 early or mid this brand was getting a lot of backlashes due to its online reputation gone wrong.
In the most popular reputation/review forums like Quora and even Reddit, Instagram, and Facebook, this brand was facing a ton of bad reviews that were concerned about privacy and security.
Not only that, even as OYO is the pioneer in India or probably in Pan Asia which made unmarried couple-friendly rooms legal and a trend, the youth were also objectifying women and even men who are users of this brand.
There were two things that were primarily getting worse day by day.
- Users started questioning the privacy policies and security aspects of OYO by claiming they have found CCTV cameras in the rooms and how the personal moments between couples, friends, or any such are getting secretly recorded. It tends to make OYO’s reputation screw down with vulgarity and obscene comments and claims.
- Some Social Media User’s started shooting derogatory comments on OYO’s social media posts, status, and whatnot.
To tackle both situations, OYO started focusing on its ORM i.e. Online Reputation Management.
Scenario 1
The brand made a team to battle the first scenario where the primary objective was to represent OYO as a “safe couple-friendly hotel rooms” image. It was done with the tactic of SEO over Quora, Google, etc. platforms and it was more location driven i.e. “Safe couple friendly rooms in Mumbai”. So anyone checking out online for the question – “Are OYO Rooms safe for unmarried couples?”, that web 2.0 platform will shoot the Yes answer to it.
It was obviously a project that went on for a long duration but it was a success.
Scenario 2
The brand started replying back to derogatory comments on their posts. Here are some quick examples to check out.
I won’t talk about the amount of success with data that this ORM Campaign fetched but will attach a quick like to look into it. Here.
Reviews and Comments are the pillars of measuring, and managing a great ORM. It even helps in product/service development in the long run and understands customer mindset to offer them better.
Example | How to Select a Marketing Channel?
Nike Support has a standalone segment of the sports apparel behemoth. It even has its own, separate Twitter account, entirely dedicated to handling customer inquiries.
The purpose of this account is to keep customer comments and queries in one place, and as such, it increases the chances of a customer representative getting back to consumers in a timely fashion.
Nike replies to negative customer comments, concerns, and queries to assist the original commenter, demonstrating respect towards the opinions of their consumers – thus raising their brand reputation and profile.
Here are some more cases on ORM in case you want to read on this further.
Creating a Brand
~ How to select a marketing channel?
Creating a brand is building an impression/image in your audience’s mind. Awareness is an activity by which you pull it off.
You stick to a message, a slogan, an essence of what your brand does, why it exists, what its USP is (Unique Selling Proposition), what it offers, and what it stands for. From the very first day your start, probably with a single social media post, you start telling people about the brand message.
Bowling down to the point of selecting a marketing channel – When it comes to awareness, being available is the best catch.
Step 5
~ How to select a marketing channel?
Being on the Top of All
After an excellent social media warm-up, probably within 1 year, you would understand you don’t need to be on top of all the platforms out there.
There would be a certain platform on which the audience will connect with your brand and engage. If it’s a B2C brand
Step 6
~ How to select a marketing channel?
Campaign Development VS Being a Vanilla
Campaigns VS just running an ad for the sake of it!
There are creative campaigns that are dedicated to delivering a message about the brand and then calling out to buy their products/services to their customers. Also, there are campaigns, which are just there with no clue and just to get some traffic.
Example 1 | How to Select a Marketing Channel?
Look at the campaigns below –
- Nike: “Just Do It” Campaign
- Apple: “Get a Mac” Campaign
- Pepsi: “Is Pepsi OK?” Campaign
- IHOP: “IHOb” Campaign
- Absolut Vodka: “The Bottle” Campaign
- Red Bull: “Stratos” Campaign
- Marlboro: “The Marlboro Man” Campaign
- Dos Equis: “The Most Interesting Man in the World” Campaign
- Progressive Insurance: “Flo” Campaign
- California Milk Processor Board: “Got Milk?” Campaign
- Kay Jewelers: “Every Kiss Begins with Kay” Campaign
- Dove: “Real Beauty” Campaign
- Chipotle: “Back to the Start” Campaign
- Budweiser: “Wassup?” Campaign
- American Legacy: “Truth” Campaign
- Old Spice: “The Man Your Man Can Smell Like” Campaign
- Apple: “1984 Super Bowl ad” Campaign
- Avis: “We Try Harder” Campaign
- BMW: “The Hire” Campaign
- Aerie: “Aerie Real” Campaign
- Wendy’s: “Where’s the Beef?” Campaign
- Coca-Cola: “Share a Coke” Campaign
- Bud Light: “Dilly Dilly” Campaign
- Allstate: “Mayhem” Campaign
- Twix: “It’s Time to Deside” Campaign
- Budweiser’s “Wassup” Campaign
- LikeAGirl Campaign
- KFC’s FCK campaign
- De Beers: A Diamond is Forever (1999)
- Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign
- It’s Sugar-Free: Chupa Chups
- Volkswagen: Think Small
- California Milk Processor Board: Got Milk?
- Dove: Real Beauty
- Apple: Get A Mac
- Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
- Absolut Vodka: The Absolut Bottle
- Coke: Share a Coke
- Anheuser-Busch: Whassup (1999)
- Miller Lite: Great Taste, Less Filling (1974)
- Always: #LikeaGirl (2015)
- Google: Year in Search (2017)
- Dos Equis: The Most Interesting Man in the World (2006)
- Metro Trains: Dumb Ways to Die (2012)
- Clairol: Does She or Doesn’t She? (1957)
- De Beers: A Diamond is Forever (1999)
- Wendy’s: Where’s the Beef? (1984)
- Procter & Gamble: Thank You, Mom (2012)
- KFC: “FCK” (2018)
- Tea snorers. BRAND: Jaago Re
- EyeamIndian. BRAND: Northeast Today
- Nike Presents Da Da Ding. BRAND: Nike
- A message for all parents. BRAND: Jaago Re
- No Ullu Banaoing. BRAND: Idea Cellular
- PatOnTheBack. BRAND: Volini
- It’s not football, it’s war. BRAND: Sony Six
- There’s beat in its blood. BRAND: MTV Beats
- Ariel Matic – # TheLoadShare
- Meri Maggi-Meri Maggi and Me
- Surfing Excel- Daag acche hain
- Idea cellular: What an Idea
- ‘ZooZoos’ by Vodafone
- Fevikwik- TodoNahi Jodo
- Fortune Oil- GharKaKhana
- Coca Cola – Small world
- Center Fresh- Zubaan pe rakhe lagaam
- Happydent White
- Amul Macho | Female gaze is OK | Leo Burnett
- Dove | #StopTheBeautyTest | Oglivy
- Facebook | Pooja Didi | Taproot Dentsu
- Bhima Jewellery| ‘Pure as Love’| Animal
- Tata Tea Premium | Kadak Insaniyat of Mumbai| Mullen Lintas
- Tanishq| #WhenItRingsTrue| Lowe Lintas
- Thums up| #PalatDe campaign for Olympics |Ogilvy
- PepsiCo | Salaam Namaste| Mindshare
- Truecaller| Shabd | Wirality Media
- Unacademy| #TeachThemYoung| Lowe Lintas
- upGrad|The Office Canteen
- Baat Ghar ki-UltraTech
If you go through the above list, just by reading those lines you will remember most of the campaigns. To validate what I said, here I am interlinking some sources here for reference.
Also, if you see the latest campaigns from Swiggy Instamart – “Instant grocery delivered at your doorsteps”, Zomato – “Man Kiya Zomato Kiya”, “Har Customer Star hai” you will understand how they are trying to deliver a message, and try to make a point. Here are the references.
Did you get it?
~ How to select a marketing channel?
Deliver a message that sticks to your audience’s mind!
Random display image ads / sponsored content will only deliver the effort that you are putting in, minimum. A potential campaign will deliver potential results.
Step 7
~ How to select a marketing channel?
Building a Funnel
Customer Journey…
I meant the customer journey.
Having the idea that tomorrow morning you will spend some money on ads, and straight away the first day you will start getting leads and sales, then you are leaving under a rock. Building a brand demands a customer journey funnel, a marketing funnel that goes through layers and finally closes with a purchase/subscription.
Well, I don’t mean that all products and services have to go through a longer funnel, for many items it can be way shorter, but the moral of the story is, it should be there.
This is the basic frame of marketing to the sales funnel.
Above, in each stage, you have to plan how to strategize the activities ex. if it’s “attract”, how are you going to attract your audiences/customers/clients?
There is a concepts of TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU, take a look.
TOFU – Top of the Funnel, MOFU – Middle of the Funnel, BOFU – Bottom of the Funnel
Here is a resource to read some amazing customer journey examples with marketing funnels of big brands. Click here.
Considering What?
~ How to select a marketing channel?
While doing all of the above you got to consider,
- Niche
- B2B or B2C or C2C or what
- Ticket of the product
- Competition (Red Ocean or Blue Ocean)
Keeping these in mind will always give you better direction and more clarity about the strategy. Hope now you have enough insight about how to select a marketing channel to sell your product or service.
All the best.
Thanks for reading my blog.
I am Soumendra, an Online Marketing professional and Content Pro, Business Analyst, and Data Visualization expert, helping businesses to grow online with digital marketing.
To let you know, I train people in Online Marketing, Digital Advertising, Content Creation, Digital Marketing Analytics courses, SEO, and the entire arena of Digital Marketing and Data Analytics.
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