In Marketing, When Is It Time to Change the Channel?

As a business owner, do you ever really feel completely settled with your marketing investment decisions? 

Even if you’re an established company with consistent growth, there’s always a chance your world could turn upside down. (We didn’t need the pandemic to teach us that, but it served as a good reminder.)

So, how do you know it’s time to distribute your marketing dollars across additional outlets (we marketers call them “channels”) in order to deliver on your growth goals? 

Well, if you’re doing one thing very, very well, you could invest even more in that space–own it by competing heavily, to acquire greater share. Or alternatively, you may decide to layer on another channel to expand reach and engagement. 

These shifts don’t have to be big swings of the bat; they can in fact be subtle shifts that tackle a new audience, or broaden beyond your biggest service offering. 

Most recently, one of my clients decided to walk away from a high-performing Google paid shopping campaign in a business that has grown over 50% in three years. Why? Because the growth strategy is based on integrating more intensively into the B2B space to grow their community of repeat purchasers, rather than investing in one-time buyers with direct-to-consumer spending. 

In this situation, return on ad spend isn’t their core KPI—it’s increasing average order value among repeat customers.

That’s how this shift in investment was determined: as a profitable company, we determined that now is the time to nurture longer term repeat customers, even if net revenue growth is flat for a year or two. So courageous and strategically sound. They're laser-focused on the brand's core values and long term vision.

Playing By the Rules

There are a few “rules” to service line, channel, or platform expansion:

Consider these questions, if you will:

• Are you  in a space where you’re the only one, or are you pursuing  the shoe-store-market-share battlefield where a lot of companies do what you do? 
• How much noise can you make in the space, given your current size, position against your competitors, and budget parameters?
• Can you enhance your presence in a channel with dollars – or will you need to rely on organic engagement to move along?
• Do you have enough collateral from past marketing initiatives to move quickly, or are you in build-mode that will take time and resources? 
• Have you explored your options for resource allocation so you’re completely sure that one channel is the best place to start? Does past performance confirm that tomorrow’s goals can be achieved by yesterday’s distribution channel?
• How much time does your plan allow for moving from high intent purchasers to newcomers to your “consideration” set?

Here are some parameters I like my clients to think about as they’re considering a channel change:

1. I typically advise that you do one thing well before branching out, otherwise you’ll spread yourself too thin. Marketing should be running like a well-oiled machine so you know you’ll have the bandwidth to put resources towards the next opportunity.  
2.  Give your content—and your capacity to create new content—a good, hard look. It will be important to map your content style and approach, based on the tone and even audience of the new channel/platform. 
3. Determine if this expansion objective will serve your business today OR if you’re best positioned to start seeding something for the future. You might have a brilliant idea that’s not ready for launch, but still needs some investment love so that you lay the groundwork for launch day. 

Timing Is Everything

Growth is good. Period. But not every business is ready for it. It’s imperative to honestly assess growth opportunities to determine if the time is right to invest. I borrow a term from educational development called "sequencing." Can you connect the actions you want marketing to deliver to the investment you're making today? Some elements should wait 'til others are fully optimized.

I've seen this struggle with companies who are driving toward ambitious revenue objectives, but decide to revamp a website or invest in PR -- before they've rounded out the edges in their sales processes and marketing performance data.

I know everyone's looking for the silver marketing bullet, but the reality is: testing is your friend. If you can take a deep breath and learn more about your prospects, and how they interact with your channels today, you'll be ready to test additional channels intelligently tomorrow.

And, be super clear (read: honest) about which channels inherently take more time to deliver the goods. No sense in wishing for an immediate outcome for certain goals such as awareness and engagement. When time is on your side, you’ll have the ability to adapt what my sales pals say: nurture slow, close fast.

Up Next: Battling Content Fatigue By Killing the Click

About Ilene Rosenthal

As a fractional CMO, I help ambitious leadership teams say bye-bye to the waste and risk inherent in most marketing plans.

My clients are ambitious B2B CEOs who have marketing and sales teams in place, but are still frustrated with the return on their marketing investment.

I also run the Marketing Strategy Lab for small businesses.  

After 16 years in leadership roles on enterprise brands at Y&R, I’m the CEO of White Space Marketing Group, a marketing strategy consultancy established in 2012.

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White Space Marketing Group