The Ceiling Dilemma

Note: This is a message I shared internally with the Buffer marketing team. I’m excited to make it transparent here (with a few edits for clarity). You can check out more transparent articles here.

Do ceilings exist?

I mean, obviously, in the real world, ceilings exist. But how about in marketing? Specifically, is it possible to max out a channel?

I tend to waffle between both sides of this one. My deeply-held idealism wants me to believe that there is never a limit to what we can achieve on a channel. My practical realism understands there’s got to be an upper bound somewhere. (We likely won’t reach more than 7.5 billion people per month.)

What if we ask this specific question of the channels that we run at Buffer?

Have we maxed out blog traffic?

Have we maxed out community engagement?

Have we maxed out word-of-mouth?

Jeff Allen, a marketing manager at Adobe Analytics, uses a farming metaphor to talk about this idea of ceilings and boundaries. (His metaphor speaks specifically to demand gen.)

As you scale demand gen, you eventually max out channels. I like to think of them as farm fields — you can only get so much corn off of an acre of dirt. You can certainly optimize the yield from a channel (just like you can the corn field), but eventually, you need more channels.

I’ve often wondered if some of our biggest channels are at or near their maximum yield. But then I’m quickly proven wrong! Take the Social blog for instance. I remember back when our team was setting ambitious goals of 1 million uniques per month, thinking it almost impossible. But now the team has blown past that goal. Clearly the “corn field” had more to yield than I thought.

I’m also reminded of this story about fleas.

To train a flea, begin with a jar and a lid.

Place the flea in the jar, twist the lid on top, and the flea jumps all the way to the top, hitting the lid again and again. Over time, you’ll notice that the flea continues to jump but no longer high enough to hit the top.

At this point, you can take the lid off the jar. The flea will never again jump high enough to jump out of the jar. They can’t. They have trained themselves to jump only so high, and once trained, that’s all they’re able to do.

Not that I’m calling us fleas or anything, but I think the story has a lot of merit for how we set ambitious goals, which is something I’ve always loved about Buffer.

So with all that said, this is how I see it (for today at least :) ):

Have a healthy skepticism for ceilings.

Know that they exist, but know that they are likely to be taller than you think.

And if you do ever find yourself stuck for ideas or treading water, then you can ask the ceiling question … and then go about finding new rooms with new ceilings to reach!