When it comes to marketing, generally more is better. Bear with me here. You want to reach as many people as possible and you want to stay top-of-mind with them. That is the key to marketing.
So, when it comes to building out your marketing, why is it normal to see people turning on and off channels constantly?
Logic and experience show that the key to building a great brand is initially finding that specific channel that works really well to bring in customers. It could be selling out of your trunk, it could be Facebook, it could be Google, it could be direct mail. Whatever it is, you find something that works, and you keep it going.
Here is where people lose their way.
Facebook helps you get from 0 to $10,000 in revenue, and then you take your advertising off of Facebook and put it into Google. Basically, you just started over in your marketing efforts. You have created no stability, predictability, or growth.
Every successful business relies on predictability. You need to be able to anticipate your growth so that you can run your operation and supply chain accordingly. By making that switch from Facebook to Google, you now have no data to tell you what you can expect to sell going forward.
So here is the key.
You start with that first channel, let’s continue saying it is Facebook. Once you get to a point that you see diminishing returns kick in, meaning your returns are lowering a bit, then you take some of the incremental money you have made and put it into the next channel, let’s say Google. Then you keep watching where the opportunity is, at this point, it may be building your email marketing out, then SMS, then influencer marketing, then amazon, then podcasts, then direct mail, then TV and radio and it goes on. The key is though, once you open up that channel and optimize it, you don’t turn it off. You continue to invest and optimize, but continue to add to that war chest of different channels and investing in all of them according to the returns.
Think of it like a stock portfolio. These marketing channels ebb and flow differently, attract different customers, work in different ways, have different costs, and so as you build, you need to diversify.
That diversification also protects you from Facebook having an algorithm change and taking out your entire marketing strategy, because you have so many going simultaneously.
So early on, this is hard advice to take, the idea is to work your way to this and you will be able to rest a lot easier as your brand grows!