Finding Your Ideal Marketing Mix

When entering any new endeavor, it pays to first understand what the leaders in your field are doing. Marketing is no exception. When coming up with a marketing strategy or plan for a client, I generally start with landscape research. I allocate time to identify the list of competitors or companies in the space to understand who could be offering a similar product or service.

To do that, tools like SimilarWeb allow you to analyze the channel mix that’s driving a competitor’s web traffic and engagement. Depending on the channels you’re using - e.g. Meta, TikTok, Youtube etc. - you can utilize the relevant tools to have more transparency on those channels. Always study beyond direct competitors to also learn from adjacent brands targeting similar demographics.

From this research, you want to understand what channels dominate their strategy. Is one channel driving more traffic than another? Some tools you could use for competitor research include Meta ads transparency, or Milled.com for email marketing, for example.This landscape research should inform your own channel priorities and budget allocation. Of course, you should continue optimizing based on your performance data, but let leaders in the space also point you in a promising direction.

1  Define Your Customer To Inform Your Channels

With an understanding of what’s working across your competitive landscape, the next step is all about zooming in on your specific customer. Define your customer persona and ideal customer profile. For this, you can refer to your customers’ demographics and psychographics to understand who you are targeting.

Now, using this data, you can create a marketing funnel. A marketing funnel is just one of the ways to structure and plan for your marketing efforts. It is also known as a sales funnel which is a roadmap created by businesses to guide potential customers from their first interaction with the brand to purchasing a product or service. 

Essentially, a funnel allows us to strategize our marketing efforts to target potential customers at each stage. It's also known as the A.I.D.A. model. With A.I.D.A, we have four steps based on these four letters.

2  Utilize The A.I.D.A. Model 

Firstly, Awareness. Here, the potential customer is recognizing the need for the product or service. Secondly, Interest. This is where potential customers are looking for more information. Third, Desire. This is where a potential customer is comparing alternatives. The fourth is Action. This is where the client is making a purchasing decision. Depending on the business and industry, each final step can contain certain channels based on your customers, personas, and your goals - channels which can be prioritized if needed.

For example, here are some typical channels according to each stage:

• Awareness Stage: PR  partnerships, affiliate marketing, influencer marketing 

• Interest Stage: Search engine optimization, search engine ads, social media retargeting

• Desire stage: Search engine optimization and search paid ads just with a different type of content that’s appropriate for the stage

• Action stage: Social media retargeting, email marketing 

With those channels in mind, you can also select relevant channels based on the following questions and factors:

• What is your objective? Are you trying to get more sales? Are you trying to get more leads? Are you looking for funding? This will inform the type of channels you select.

• Which growth stage are you at? This impacts how many resources you have and which channels you’ve already tapped on.

• What type of industry and business are you focused on? For certain industries, certain channels work better than the others. For example, for fashion, social media could work better, but for a SaaS platform, LinkedIn could be a better channel.

• What is your customer persona? Depending on its demographics and interests, your decisions might differ.

3 Decide on Content Types

In general, to guide your decisions on what type of content to use at each stage of the funnel, I recommend referring to the A.I.D.A. model again. Let’s look at a few examples across the various stages.

Awareness Stage

• Use lifestyle imagery and brand videos to draw attention to the problem you solve
• You want to attract potential customers who recognize a pain point but haven't identified the specific problem

Interest Stage

• Provide informative educational content that answers customer questions
• You want to guide them to the next stage by addressing their needs with useful information

Desire Stage

• Convince customers that your solution is the best with testimonials and product demo videos
• You want to show how your offering specifically helps solve the established problem

Action Stage

• Create compelling time-limited offers and discounts
• Offer strong call-to-action to convert and build purchase urgency
• You want to provide an easy path to complete the sale

Next, this is where I'm going a little bit beyond the A.I.D.A. model.

Onboarding Stage

• Welcome new customers with personalized purchase confirmation emails
• You want to share order status updates, delivery details, and necessary instructions

Here, in retention, this is where customers come back.

Retention Stage

• Offer exclusive discounts and seasonal promotions for repeat customers
• You want to curate special collections to encourage return visits

Lastly, in advocacy, this is where customers become your influencers where they spread the word about your company or brand. This is also very important.

Advocacy Stage

• Create a customer community via social media and online events
• Incentivize new referrals through referral marketing programs
• You want to encourage organic reviews by asking happy customers to share feedback

4  Avoid Cannibalization

When adopting a multi-channel marketing approach, an inevitable challenge arises - the risk of spending double to capture the same customer or what is referred to as cannibalization. 

With shoppers now engaging across search, social, video, referral links and more, attribution gets complex. You may end up allocating budgets to channels that are only receiving credit due to an earlier interaction. While some level of cannibalization is impossible to fully prevent, I apply several best practices:

First, carefully set up your analytics so as to ensure your measurement tools provide visibility into the true impact of each channel on your goals. Second, you need to select the right attribution model for your business and apply it, but also apply it with a pinch of salt. For instance, you should understand if your attribution model is perhaps prioritizing certain channels above the others. Therefore, apply Attribution Models Thoughtfully.

Another way, which is probably the best way so far to address potential cannibalization, is to perform incrementality studies. This will help you to understand which channel is really driving impact towards your objective.

In addition, avoid taking reported metrics at face value.You should really understand what these numbers might mean and challenge any assumptions. In one of my previous companies, I performed an incrementality study across three markets. Based on the study, it appeared that the incremental return on branded search ad spend across the markets - which means how many dollars of revenue you get based on the dollar invested - was three to five times lower than the return on ad spend that we saw in our reporting!

Therefore, just by being critical of our own data helped us discover that the real return on ad spend was much lower than what seemed to be reported initially. As such, it helped us invest our marketing budget in a better and more effective way later on. So, always challenge your results with a critical attitude to prevent a skewed approach.

1 Research Competitor Channel Strategies

Study channel mix and engagement for competitors and adjacent brands targeting similar users. This landscape view informs your own channel priorities. You can use tools like SimilarWeb for this.

2 Define Your Target Customer PersonaBuild an intimate understanding of your ideal user's demographics, interests, and pain points to determine which platforms will effectively reach them.

3 Map Channels to Your Marketing Funnel Framework

Use a structured funnel like the A.I.D.A. model to plot channels to match each stage, from initial awareness to ultimate advocacy. Tailor a channel mix that’s relevant to your business goals, resources and customer insights. When doing so, always keep a critical attitude towards results and challenge any assumptions.