Marketing Channels

Marketing channels make customers aware of your products or services, provide information to evaluate/consider the products, and try to build loyalty for the product for repeat sales or influence other customers.

Now that you know the purpose of your marketing channels, let’s take a look at some of the options you can use to create those channels.

Personal/Face-to-Face – Allows your company to build the strongest relationship with the customer. The customer can quickly have questions answered, work through any concerns, and be pampered if the product is being branded as a luxury item. A store, farmer’s market, trade shows, or speaking engagements provide avenues to reach your customers directly.

Internet/Social Media – Creating your own website, business Facebook page, YouTube channel, or Instagram presence provides your customer with 24/7 product information, and in some cases, self-service. You can provide articles, videos, reviews, email signups for additional information or questions, “Buy Now” buttons, and contact information for inquiries or issues. Additionally, you can monitor customer behaviour through analytics tools. You can also fine-tune your online presence via search engine optimization (SEO) with tags and keywords, and you can reduce bounce rate with easy-to-navigate web pages. Creating a presence on Yelp is also an effective way to get exposure online.

Email/Mail – Email or mail can be an efficient way to reach your customer segments directly. Customers can be made aware of your product and provided with opportunities to take advantage of sales, special offers, or loyalty discounts.

Advertising – Newspapers, magazines, TV, Google Ads, and Facebook Ads are just a few of the options for actively gaining awareness for your product. Signage is an option if you can display your products where passersby might see them. If you have a compelling story that a newspaper or magazine would accept, you may be able to get free advertising through a featured story.

Affiliate marketing – Another business may advertise your product and you advertise theirs. Obviously, businesses should have similar customers and not compete with each other.

Let’s take the example of an art supply store. What customer channels might they use?

Choosing the Right Channels for Your Business

Based on what you’ve learned about channels, how should you reach, nurture, and support your customers, based on your business’s value proposition?

Fill in the Channels section of the business model canvas:

1. A review of your customer segments and customer niches will provide you insight as to which channels to select.

2. You want to select the channels that will reach the maximum number of customers for the lowest cost. Consider how you will measure the effectiveness of your chosen channels so that you can assess whether you’re getting your money’s worth.

3. You should not select more channels than you can effectively manage. In particular, social media channels and blogs must be managed with consistency and quality.

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