How to choose marketing channels for your business
A five-question scorecard, the Bullseye method and a 30-day test plan, so you commit to one or two channels that fit your buyer instead of spreading thin across ten.
Choose marketing channels by starting with the buyer, not the platform. List every channel that could reach them, score each one on five questions (are they there, are they looking to buy, what does a test cost, how fast will you know, and can you do it well), then run small 30-day tests on the top three. Put most of your time and budget into the one that works, and add a second only when the first is running steadily.
- Most small businesses need one core channel and one support channel, not a presence everywhere.
- Separate channels that capture demand (search, maps, reviews) from channels that create it (social, video, events). You usually need one of each.
- The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s 95:5 rule says only about 5% of B2B buyers are in the market at any time, which is why relying on demand capture alone stalls.
- A channel test needs one goal, one number and an end date. Thirty days and a small budget is enough to compare options.
Key terms explained (15)
- SEO
- Search engine optimisation: the work that helps your pages show up in Google’s regular search results.
- AEO
- Answer engine optimisation: helping your content get picked as the single direct answer, such as Google’s answer box or a voice assistant reply.
- GEO
- Generative engine optimisation: helping AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews quote and link to your content.
- UTM
- Short tags added to the end of a link (for example ?utm_source=facebook) so your analytics can tell which campaign, email or post a visitor came from.
- Organic
- Unpaid. Organic search results or social posts are the ones you don’t pay to show.
- Impressions
- The number of times a page, ad or listing was shown to someone.
- Cost per lead
- What you spend to get one enquiry: total spend divided by the number of leads.
- Segment
- A group of contacts who share a behaviour or trait, so they can get messages that fit them.
- Lead magnet
- Something useful you offer in exchange for someone’s contact details, such as a checklist, sample or contest entry.
- Speed-to-lead
- How quickly you respond to a new enquiry. Faster replies win more of them.
- Google Business Profile
- Your free business listing on Google Search and Maps, with your hours, reviews and photos.
- B2B
- Business-to-business: selling to other businesses rather than to consumers.
- CMO
- Chief marketing officer, the most senior marketing leader in a company.
- PR
- Public relations: earning coverage and mentions in the media.
- IPA
- The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, the UK advertising industry body.
Why does channel choice matter so much?
Every channel costs something: money, time, or attention you could spend elsewhere. Spread a small budget across eight channels and none of them gets enough to work. That is the most common pattern I see when I audit a small business’s marketing. There is a Facebook page, an Instagram account, a half-built email list, a boosted post now and then, and no clear answer to the question “where do our customers come from?”
Budgets are not growing to cover that sprawl. Gartner’s 2025 CMO Spend Survey of 402 marketing leaders found budgets flat at 7.7% of company revenue, with paid media taking 30.6% of that budget. Those are mostly large companies. If they have to choose carefully, a small business has to choose more carefully still.
The fix is a method for choosing. This is the one I use.
Step 1: Start with the buyer, not the platform
A channel is only useful if your buyer is on it and open to hearing from you there. So the first job is audience research: who buys, what triggers the purchase, and where they go for answers.
Ask your last ten customers three questions:
- How did you first hear about us?
- Where did you look before you decided?
- What nearly stopped you?
Their answers are worth more than any industry report. Then check them against wider data. In Canada, the State of Social Media in Canada 2025 report from Toronto Metropolitan University’s Social Media Lab found that 73% of online Canadian adults have a YouTube account, 63% have Instagram, 37% have X and 35% have TikTok. Among 18 to 24 year olds the picture changes: 94% use YouTube, 91% Instagram and 65% TikTok. The same platform can be essential for one audience and irrelevant for another.
Step 2: Know whether you are capturing demand or creating it
Channels do two different jobs.
| Demand capture | Demand creation | |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Reaches people already looking | Reaches people before they look |
| Channels | Google Search, Google Maps, review sites, AI answers, marketplaces | Social media, video, email, events, partnerships, PR (public relations) |
| Speed | Faster to convert | Slower, builds over months |
| Limit | Capped by how many people are searching | Harder to measure in the short term |
Most businesses start with demand capture because the results are easy to see. That makes sense, and for a local service business it is the right first move. But it has a ceiling. Professor John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute described the 95:5 rule: only about 5% of B2B (business-to-business) buyers are in the market to buy right now. The other 95% will buy later, and they tend to choose the brand they already remember.
The classic guidance on balancing the two comes from Les Binet and Peter Field’s study for the IPA (the UK advertising industry body), The Long and the Short of It, which found the most effective split was roughly 60% brand building to 40% activation. Their data came from large advertisers, so treat the ratio as a direction and not a rule for a ten-person company. The lesson that transfers is simple: pick at least one channel that captures demand and one that builds it.
Step 3: Score each channel on five questions
List every channel that could plausibly reach your buyer. Then score each from 1 to 5 on these questions.
| Question | What a 5 looks like | What a 1 looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Are my buyers there? | Customers told you they use it to decide | You are guessing |
| Are they in buying mode? | They are searching for the service | They are there to be entertained |
| What does a fair test cost? | Under a few hundred dollars or a few hours a week | Thousands before you learn anything |
| How fast will I know? | Results within 30 days | Six months or more |
| Can we do it well? | You have the skill, or enjoy it | It would be forced and inconsistent |
Add the scores. The total matters less than the conversation it forces. A channel that scores 5 on “buyers are there” and 1 on “can we do it well” is a hiring or outsourcing decision, not a reason to skip it.
A residential cleaning company scores Google Business Profile 23 out of 25, Meta ads 18, a referral programme 20, TikTok 9 and LinkedIn 6. The top three go into testing. TikTok and LinkedIn are dropped without guilt.
Channel scorecard
Name a channel, then drag each slider from 1 (weakest) to 5 (strongest).
The total matters less than the conversation it starts. Score your top three channels and compare.
Step 4: Use the Bullseye method to narrow to three
The Bullseye method comes from the book Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares, which describes nineteen channels a business can use to get customers and a way to test them. Picture a target with three rings.
The discipline is in the middle ring. You are not allowed to test everything. Three channels, tested at the same time, give you a comparison. One channel tested alone gives you an anecdote.
Step 5: Run a 30-day test on each
A test is small on purpose. It answers one question: is this channel worth more investment?
- Set one goal. Usually a qualified lead or a booked call, not followers or impressions.
- Set one number. Cost per lead for paid channels. Leads per hour of effort for unpaid ones.
- Tag every link. Use UTM parameters so each channel shows up separately in Google Analytics. The setup is in my guide to monthly marketing reports.
- Fix the follow-up first. A channel looks bad if leads wait two days for a reply. Put speed-to-lead automation in place before you judge it.
- Stop on the end date. Compare the three on the same number.
Step 6: Commit to one core channel and one support channel
The winner becomes your core channel. It gets most of the budget and a weekly routine. Then choose one support channel that does the other job. If your core channel captures demand, the support channel should create it, and the reverse.
| Business type | Likely core channel | Sensible support channel |
|---|---|---|
| Local service business | Google Business Profile and local search | Reviews and referral follow-up by text and email |
| E-commerce brand | Paid social with strong creative | Email flows for welcome, cart and repeat purchase |
| Coach or consultant | LinkedIn or short video content | An email list with a lead magnet |
| B2B or SaaS | Search content that answers buyer questions | LinkedIn and webinars for the 95% not yet buying |
| Festival or event | Paid and organic social | Email to past attendees and partner promotion |
These are starting points from the work I have done, not rules. Your scorecard and your test results outrank this table.
If search is your core channel, start with SEO, AEO and GEO. If paid social is, read Meta ads for local service businesses. For email as a support channel, see email segmentation.
What about AI search as a channel?
Treat it as part of search, and take it seriously. BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 of 1,002 US adults found that 45% now use ChatGPT or other generative AI tools for local business recommendations, up from 6% a year earlier, while Google fell from 83% to 71%. Google is still first. But the answer your buyer reads may now be written by an AI model that pulled from your reviews, your website and other sites that mention you.
You do not need a separate AI channel. You need the same foundations to be solid: a clear website, consistent business details and real reviews.
When should you add or drop a channel?
- Add when your core channel has run steadily for three months, you can describe the routine in a paragraph, and someone other than you could follow it.
- Drop when a channel has had a fair test, the follow-up was working, and the cost per lead is still more than twice your best channel.
- Keep but shrink when a channel does not produce leads but customers say they checked it before buying. A tidy, up-to-date profile is enough.
Google's research on the messy middle of the purchase journey is a useful reminder here. Buyers loop between exploring options and evaluating them, and things like social proof and authority tip the decision. A channel you have shrunk can still be doing that quiet work.
Tools for the job
| Tool | Use it for | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics 4 | Seeing which channel each lead came from | Free |
| Campaign URL Builder | Tagging links so each channel is tracked separately | Free |
| Google Search Console | Checking whether people already search for what you sell | Free |
| SparkToro | Finding the sites, accounts and podcasts your audience follows | Free plan |
| Meta Ad Library | Seeing which channels and creative competitors keep paying for | Free |
| Looker Studio | One page comparing your test channels | Free |
Plans and pricing change. Check each tool's site for current details.
Frequently asked questions
How many marketing channels should a small business use?
Usually two: one core channel that gets most of the time and budget, and one support channel that does the opposite job. If the core channel captures existing demand, such as local search, the support channel should build demand or loyalty, such as email or social content.
What is the best marketing channel for a small business?
There is no single best channel. For a local service business it is usually Google Business Profile and local search, because buyers are already looking. For other businesses, score each option on whether buyers are there, whether they are in buying mode, the cost of a test, the speed of feedback and your ability to do it well.
How long should I test a marketing channel?
Thirty days is enough to compare channels on leads and cost per lead, as long as the follow-up is working. Search content and brand building take longer to show results, so judge those on early signals such as impressions and enquiries, and review again at three months.
How much should I spend to test a channel?
Enough to get a result you can read. As a rule of thumb, for paid channels that means enough budget for at least 20 to 30 leads or clicks at your expected cost. For unpaid channels, commit a fixed number of hours a week and count the leads per hour.
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Sources
- Gartner 2025 CMO Spend SurveyGartner
- The 95:5 rule is the new 60:40 ruleEhrenberg-Bass Institute
- The next chapter for The Long and the Short of ItIPA
- The State of Social Media in Canada 2025Social Media Lab, Toronto Metropolitan University
- Local Consumer Review Survey 2026BrightLocal
- How people decide what to buy lies in the messy middleThink with Google
- Traction, by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin MaresPenguin
Remar Catapang is a full-funnel marketing strategist based in Ontario, Canada. He has worked in marketing since 2020 and continues to lead search, CRM automation, web, paid media and experiential campaigns for businesses in Canada, the United States, Australia, Egypt and the Philippines. His playbooks are based on that ongoing work. Questions about this playbook: remarcatapangjr@gmail.com
