Channels and flow

Homer: Change the channel, Marge.

Man [chuckling]: That’s our Homer.

[Everyone laughing]

• The Simpsons - Homer’s Enemy

A channel is where customers flow.

• Email is a channel.
• A website can be a channel.
• Forums and Facebook Groups can also be channels.

Once you start looking for them, there are far more than you realise.

When finding customers and channels the more the merrier.

You will always need more than one.

If you rely on just one you’re at a risk of dying if anything happens to a Google or Facebook.

Which does happen.

So look for multiple channels from the ground up.

Never rely on one source of customers.

It also gives you more information. You will notice behaviours of customers from one channel over another.

A customer that’s gone out of their way to search for you after reading a long article is going to be very different to a customer that signed up because you offered a 50% discount on a promotion site.

You will notice more about this over time.

Another way to think of channels and flow is traffic.

Traffic is a term for visits to your website.

Having a lot of channels that perform well creates a lot of traffic. Traffic is almost always good. The more visitors you have seeing your site or sales page the better right?

The two big exceptions are low-quality traffic and spam.

Low-quality might incur a cost a direct one if you’re paying for the traffic, or an indirect one if its flooding your site. Spam is obviously crap. It floods your site with no-value traffic, and can even fill your forms and sign-ups with nonsense if not managed well.

There’s more on this in Traffic - a major milestone.

So where are the channels?

Below is a non-exhaustive list of potential customer channels. Most of these are pure online for simplification purposes, but think about low-tech and offline ways you can appear in front of customers too.

Paid clicks.

These are ads across Facebook, Google, Instagram, YouTube, banner networks, and many, many more.

Organic clicks.

These are clicks derived from “organic” activity. This is usually from search and where the term SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is derived. It’s not always search though if you have a memorable or easy to remember website you will also get these clicks by people directly entering it in to their browser. That’s obviously a good spot to be in, but very hard to achieve.

Communities.

Facebook Groups, forums, Slack groups, private membership communities all fall under this umbrella. As the web has evolved, so has the power of online communities. The reason is they create tribes. Tribes of loyal followers and contributors in a community is unbeatable. They self-sustain and grow based on the quality and values of the people in them. The sharp rise in crypto, NFT projects, and Web3 owes it growth to community power. Influencers and platforms like Patreon also owe a lot of their value to community. As a marketer you can be an active contributor to a community or create one yourself.

Email.

It’s been around for over 20 years. You might be surprised to know it’s still the most effective way to regularly generate traffic for your website. Email marketing is massive. You can capture emails and create your own email marketing list, or appear in other emails with offers, collaborations, or joint ventures. I often hear “yeah but I don’t read my subscriptions”. Trust me I’ve seen the numbers and trends for over a decade and a half invest in, and do email well and the traffic comes.

Your website.

Your website is a channel. People browsing and interacting with your hosted content is a big focus area.

Landing pages.

These are typically one page websites that can be hosted on your own website, or someone else’s. They are usually hidden, and have a specific offer with a singular ask. These are often deployed in conjunction with other channels such as paid clicks, or podcasts (below).

Podcasts.

A huge business and with good reason. As a channel, podcasts have exploded in popularity over the last decade and there’s one for just about anything. This is good news for you as chances are there are hundreds, if not thousands and tens of thousands of them that are relevant to your product.

Video sites.

The gorilla in the room is YouTube, and then all others follow in its wake. The reality is YouTube is the second-largest search engine (Google being the first in most countries). The power of sight, sound, and motion are second-to-none for building trust and brand love. Its also a lot of work to refine, practice, and do well. 1-10-100 is exceedingly true here.

Online press and media.

The web has created an insatiable appetite for content. News in all its forms dominates and spike traffic or interest in your product to unfathomable levels. Its incredibly difficult to “stay fresh” and someone hawking a product, but as a channel it’s worth being aware of and learning.

Influencers.

Like it or not if Kaitlin Jenner mentions your product on her Instagram, the incoming traffic will break your website. The right mention, placement, or collaboration can be extraordinarily effective for marketing your product but there are many things to keep in mind, negotiate, and pay heed to in order to make it work. There are also many ways to think of influencers. Asking 20 of your peers to share an offer on their socials is also an ”influencer” channel.

Other People’s Audiences.

Any of the above channel’s can be owned by anyone else. If they’re established already, they’re likely going to have access to orders of magnitudes more traffic than you have access to. We’re going to focus a lot here as it’s one of the most effective ways to get started and get seen.

You might have noticed channels can overlap. A video can appear on YouTube as well as an online news site. Someone can get to your website from a mention in your community or paid click. Don’t get too caught on the definitions of what is and what isn’t. Continue to think of channels as a way to generate flow towards your product.

Channels have a lot of depth. You could spend the next year working on just social media or email marketing and still have far more to know than you could ever learn.

I want to teach you to think iteratively. Picking up what you need, iterating past your first messy attempts, and then noticing if if works for you.

Always be open to new channels and finding a better way to market your business.

By remaining curious about what works better you continue growing your skills as a marketer.