Your Data-Driven Approach to Marketing Channel Selection, Part 1
In today's digital landscape, there's no shortage of platforms where you can post content. With so many options, choosing the right ones can feel overwhelming and exhausting. Marketing decisions can be tough, which is why we need a plan.
It's time we stop leaving marketing channel decisions to chance, gut instinct, or industry trends.
When you reach the right people in the right places, your impact goes further—resulting in more influence and, ultimately, more revenue. Your marketing campaign deserves better than wishing. Your marketing strategy needs to be more...strategic if it's actually going to work at all.
In this article, we're going to go through your data-driven marketing strategy that will help you choose the best marketing channels for your audience.
You need to meet your potential customers where they're at. A successful strategy doesn't expect customers to come to the business; rather, the business goes where the customers already are.
No more small talk! Let's dive right into how to use data to choose the best platforms for your audience.
Part 1: Audience-Channel Alignment
During the research phase for myself and my clients, I gather information from multiple sources:
Website analytics (to see where visitors are coming from)
Competitor channel analysis (to see where their clients are engaging)
Social media insights (to understand engagement patterns)
Industry reports (to identify broader trends and benchmarks)
Next, I map audience segments to channels by:
Breaking down the audience into 2-3 key segments
Researching which platforms they use and how they engage (commenting, saving posts, or connecting with others)
Identifying which content types they prefer
Let's put this into context:
Imagine an upscale eco-conscious brand approached me for this process. After segmenting their audience, I determined three key demographics: value-seekers, eco-minded millennials, and luxury-oriented professionals.
From analyzing channel usage patterns, I discovered that eco-minded millennials spend 4× more time on Instagram than Facebook. Through content preference analysis, I found that value-seekers prefer long-form, comparison content, gravitating toward emails and blogs over TikTok videos.
These steps zero in on who your audience is, where they spend their time, and what content resonates with them.
Part 2: Channel Performance Metrics
Once you've identified which platforms to focus on, it's time for a measurement strategy.
The key to establishing your framework is deciding which metrics to track based on your specific goals.
If you're trying to raise awareness, metrics like impression reach and frequency should be your focus. If your goals involve conversion, prioritize conversion rate and ROI. Without clear goals, you risk getting sidetracked by vanity metrics and wasting precious time on what doesn't matter.
With your goals locked down, it's time to consider the customer's journey across your channels. How will you connect the experience? Where will they start? Where will they end? Create a multi-touch model that would appeal to your ideal customer.
When designing this for clients, I consider starting on the platform where the ideal client is most likely to be found, then moving them to a platform where I can deliver more value or present an offer.
For example, if I were a social media manager, I might choose to meet potential clients on Instagram, then guide them to my email newsletter for in-depth content that showcases my expertise and provides tremendous value.
What matters here is defining metrics according to your business priorities:
A business focused on brand awareness should prioritize reach metrics
If your goal is e-commerce sales, focus on metrics like revenue per visitor
For lead generation, conversion rates and lead quality become critical
Whew, that was a lot—and I'm just getting warmed up! Part two of this post is coming to you soon. In that article, I’ll go over how to make sure you have all you need to be successful on the new channel and will give you a guide on how to test the different platforms and interpret test results.
Stay tuned-this is coming soon!
In your corner always,
Rachael
