How to choose the right marketing channels

Decide what you want to achieve

Starting up a marketing channel without a clear purpose is like playing football without a goal: it just becomes a lot of meaningless activity that does not lead anywhere.

Even so, people quickly lose interest when you advise them to "define purpose" and "set goals". Maybe because it feels abstract? So let us skip the fluff and go straight to a few concrete purposes a marketing channel can serve:

• Provide reach.
• Drive traffic.
• Create engagement.
• Generate sales.

What you need to do is think about which challenges you have, and then pick marketing channels that can help. Let us take a couple of examples:

Challenge 1: Reach

You have been running a web shop for a few months. The store converts well, but few people know about it and you struggle to get the word out (without it costing the shirt off your back). You decide to start an Instagram account, where you use hashtags and like/comment on others' posts to help new people find your store.

Challenge 2: Generate sales

You just launched a niche web shop and got good PR plus a lot of followers on your Facebook page. There is a lot of interest and you can tell people know about your business, but since you sell rare-purchase items few buy right now. To capture that engagement and generate future sales you start a newsletter for those who want the latest news and "reminders" once a quarter.

Remember: it is NOT an end in itself to be present in a particular channel. Dare to opt out of marketing channels that do not give you anything!

Find out where your audiences are

"Go where your audiences are" is a common piece of marketing advice. But how do you know where they actually are? Here are some methods:

• Look at your "allies". You are not the only one wanting to reach your audience, your competitors want the same. But do not let them drive your channel choice (then everyone does the same thing). Instead, look at companies in other industries that also target your audience. If you sell premium men's shirts you might look at companies selling luxury razors or upscale shoes. Besides giving you channel ideas, you may find potential partners.
• Read industry research. Many countries publish annual reports on internet behavior (Ofcom in the UK, Pew Research in the US, the Internet Foundation in Sweden). You can see which social media are popular and in which age groups, great data if you target a specific age and want to know which channels they use.
• Ask your customers. You can learn a lot about your audience by doing "sampling" or asking existing customers. Have them describe which media they use on a normal day, how much and how, and how they want to receive marketing. Dare to ask what they think you could do to reach more people! Most customers are happy to share what they think and contribute feedback. Beyond getting important insights, you also strengthen the relationship with your customers. So dare to ask, it is not unprofessional, it just shows that you care.

Match the channels to your business

Every marketing channel has its own "thing" and is suited to different content. Partly because of the media at the center (text, image, video or audio), partly because of users and their expectations. So consider how well your business fits different channels, does the format match?

Above all, it is your industry and the channel's "culture" that need to align. Beauty and home decor companies fit very well on image-driven channels like Instagram and Pinterest, where users often "explore" and interact to find inspiration. Companies in IT, communications or finance fit better on LinkedIn, where those industries dominate among users.

That said, nothing is impossible. A lack of images does not mean your business has to stay off Instagram or Pinterest, just that you need to fix that going forward. You can create content for most channels if you prioritize it and get creative.

*Tip! There are loads of free images you can use, for example on pexels.com or unsplash.com. And tools like Canva make it super easy to create graphics on your own!

What does each channel cost?

Cost obviously plays a role when choosing channels, especially for paid advertising. Some important costs to keep an eye on:

• Cost to reach a person (cost / number of people reached)
• Cost per click (cost / number of clicks on your ad or sponsored link)
• Cost per new customer (cost / number of new customers)

What counts as reasonable depends on what you sell, but a general rule of thumb is that the cost per new customer should be roughly a third of what a customer is worth to you. The cost is usually called customer acquisition cost (CAC), and the customer value customer lifetime value (CLV). The ratio between them should ideally be 1:3, meaning CLV is three times CAC.

Also keep in mind that a channel is not free just because you do not run ads in it: creating content and/or engaging usually takes time, which indirectly costs money. So prioritize marketing channels that require little effort from your business, if you can! Example: Your business has a Facebook page and a Twitter/X account.

You spend roughly the same time on each channel, but Facebook generates more orders. So you reprioritize and take a few hours from Twitter and put them on Facebook, which produces more orders overall (without raising the cost).

Test, test, test, and commit

So there are four factors you can weigh against each other to find the right marketing channels: 1) what you want to achieve, 2) where your audiences are, 3) how well different channels match your business, and 4) what they cost.

But it is not until you have tested different channels that you really know whether they work. Especially if you have "conflicting" needs (your audience may be on Instagram, but you sell unphotogenic products?) it is test, test and test that applies.

When you have tested a marketing channel, it is time to evaluate:

• Is it helping you reach your goals?
• Are you reaching the right audiences?
• Can you create relevant content for the channel?
• Is the cost reasonable?

If the answer is YES to all four, full steam ahead!

Shortcuts: 7 concrete tips to start from

Only you (or someone who knows your business very well) can know which marketing channels work best for your shop, but there are some general tips you can start from:

1. Register your business on Google Business Profile. It is free, takes barely any time, and makes your business show up in Google's right-hand panel and Google Maps. And no, you do not need a physical address!

2. Create a Google Ads account. Nearly everyone running a web shop advertises via Google Ads, appearing when someone searches for a specific product or category you sell is probably one of the best ways to advertise today. The exception is if you sell products that lack obvious names, so new or unusual that people do not know they exist and/or cannot name them.

3. Have a presence on Facebook / Meta. Facebook is still one of the social platforms with the most users in most Western markets and is still considered "a must" for many companies. But younger users are abandoning it, so if you target that group other channels are probably better.

4. Work on SEO. Thinking about which words your audiences search for and then optimizing your shop accordingly is one of the best and most long-term marketing investments you can make. The goal (which is more or less tough depending on what you sell) is to climb to the top so you do not have to spend as much on Google Ads in the future.

5. Choose Instagram and/or Pinterest if you sell "feel good" products. More and more people use Instagram and it is therefore a common marketing channel today. And if you sell "feel good" products (beauty, clothing, home decor) aimed at women, it is a particularly fitting channel, as is Pinterest.

6. Skip LinkedIn at the start. LinkedIn usage is relatively stable but few use the platform daily. That suggests many see LinkedIn as a place to publish static info about themselves, not a place for social exchange. It can be hard to get a response. LinkedIn is, however, a great platform for employer branding, but for most startups that is not top priority.

7. Use Reddit if you target young men. It may not look like much at first glance, but Reddit is genuinely big. At least among young men, a significant share of men aged 16–25 use the platform regularly.

List of marketing channels

The number of marketing channels (and in some cases methods) keeps growing and changing. So a complete list is impossible, but to give you a foundation we have pulled out some of the most common.

Let us start with the digital channels:

• Search engines. You can show up in search results in several ways: Google Business Profile, Google Ads, and/or working on SEO.
• Blogs. You can market your business with your own blog and content marketing, or pay to be visible on others' blogs (through influencer collabs or banner ads).
• News sites. To be visible on news sites you can work on PR and/or pay for banner advertising.
• Facebook. You appear by making posts (which have low reach due to algorithms) and/or running ads.
• Instagram. Like Facebook, you can show up via your own posts, in the feed or stories, and/or via ads (run via Facebook). You can also like/comment on others' posts for exposure.
• TikTok. With a business profile you can publish short videos, ride trends and/or run ads. Especially strong among younger audiences.
• Snapchat. As a brand on Snapchat you reach out by posting stories. You can also buy video ads and/or sponsor geofilters/lenses.
• LinkedIn. With a company page you can post content, "network" and/or run ads.
• Pinterest. You create a page and then post your own boards and/or pins for users to discover. You can also promote pins.
• YouTube. With your own channel you can post videos, and with a Google Ads account you can advertise in others' videos or via banners.
• Reddit. With an account you can create a "subreddit" for your business and share content in other subreddits. You can also advertise directly on the site.
• Digital magazine. You can publish your own, or show up in others' through advertising or PR.
• Podcast. Produce your own and/or partner with others who run podcasts.
• Web TV/series. Make your own and/or partner with others.

Beyond digital channels there are of course several traditional media that can still be relevant in many cases:

• Direct mail. Pay to land directly in people's mailboxes, either unaddressed or addressed.
• TV. Pay for a traditional commercial, sponsor a program and/or do PR work to try to appear on morning TV etc.
• Out-of-home. You can pay to be visible on city poles, billboards or a blimp. Another option is posters.
• Radio. Pay for traditional radio ads and/or do PR work to try to appear on programs.
• Printed catalog. Create your own catalog with products and order forms, if some of your audience prefer it over the web shop.
• Printed magazine. Produce your own magazine, do PR work to try to get published in others', and/or advertise.

That was just a selection of the marketing channels out there. Do not be afraid to explore new ones and try things out!

Choosing marketing channels is not something you do once: you need to question things and try new ones periodically. And by keeping purpose, audience, "fit" and cost in mind it becomes much easier to hit the mark.