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5 months ago
18
In this post we look at distribution channels and marketing tactics for B2B companies. Specifically, how to create a shortlist of marketing methods you can test which give you the highest chance of success.
“Most businesses get zero distribution channels to work: poor sales rather than bad product is the most common cause of failure. If you can get just one distribution channel to work, you have a great business. If you try for several but don’t nail one, you’re finished.”
— Peter Thiel
Before we begin, what do we mean by a distribution channel?
A channel (the WHERE) is any place you can reliably get eyeballs or ears on something. For example, potential channels might include search engines, social media, or online forums.
The tactic (the HOW) is the method used for leveraging the channel itself. This could be running paid ads, doing SEO, writing posts, DM’ing people, etc.
To give an example let’s use LinkedIn as a social media channel. You can apply several channel-specific tactics to get in front of people:
Visit profiles (which notifies them)
Add and connect with people
Write posts and articles
Comment on other people's content
Direct message people
Participate in groups and communities
Run paid ads (sponsored posts)
Run paid DMs
Create an event / webinar
Sponsor an influencer for a plug
Partner with affiliates who do all of the above
With the distinction between a distribution channel and a marketing tactic out of the way, let’s look at the most common ones.
The following is a list of common distribution channels and tactics you can use in order to leverage them.
Create content and do search engine optimisation (SEO)
Run search engine ads
Partner with affiliates who do the above
Create your own website and/or blog
Run ads on other websites and/or blogs
Guest write on other people's blogs
Partner with affiliates who do the above
Do cold outreach
Build an email list and do email marketing
Start your own newsletter
Sponsor a newsletter
Partner with affiliates who do the above
Run display ads on email providers
Post content
Participate in groups and communities
Direct message people
Engage with other people's content
Run paid ads
Partner with affiliates who do the above
Sponsor an influencer for a plug
Create your own videos
Sponsor a video
Run paid ads
Partner with affiliates who do the above
Create your own community or forum
Participate in existing communities or forums
Run paid ads on existing communities or forums
Partner with affiliates who do the above
Host a podcast
Be a guest on a podcast
Sponsor a podcast
Attend a trade show or conference
Exhibit at a trade show or conference
Sponsor a trade show or conference
Respond to Q&As
Run paid ads
Submit a press release
Ping journalists
Run paid ads
Submit your business listing
Run paid ads
As you can see, there’s TONS of potential ways to reach your customers… But how do you figure out the best ones?
Imagine you are going fishing.
You’ve got the following variables at play:
The fish you are going after (tuna, salmon, trout, seabass, etc)
The spot you are fishing in (lake, river, sea, etc)
The method you are going to use (spear, rod, net, harpoon gun, dynamite, etc)
The bait you are using (corn, worms, small fish, etc)
Think of different species of fish as different customer segments. They exhibit similar traits and behaviours to one another.
Fishing spots are like distribution channels and represent different congregation points for customers.
Your fishing methods are the marketing tactics you use to engage customers. Different methods work better depending on the species of fish.
And finally the bait represents the actual content your customer consumes via your chosen method. It is the copy in an ad you’re running, the words in an email you wrote, or the message in a post you made.
The most important thing in any marketing strategy is to have clarity on the customer segment you are going after and how you can reach them effectively.
If you’re fishing for a saltwater fish, don’t go fishing in a freshwater lake…
Unless you’re fishing for salmon of course, which can live in both freshwater and saltwater apparently. Who knew?
The same concept applies for customers. Find the channels they are already using, then leverage those. It might seem obvious, but it’s a very easy mistake for founders and marketers to make (myself included).
So how do we reverse-engineer this?
Use the following questions to get inside your customers head. If you find this exercise hard, you either don’t know enough about your target customer or you are targeting too broad of a customer segment (e.g. “small businesses“).
Ask yourself these questions about your target customers:
Do they use search engines? What are they searching for? What keywords/phrases?
What websites and blogs do they visit?
Which communities and groups do they hang out in?
What videos do they watch? Who do they subscribe to?
What social media platforms do they use? Which influencers do they follow?
What email newsletters do they subscribe to?
What podcasts do they listen to?
Do they have a work email address? Do they use LinkedIn?
Do they have any specific job qualifications or certificates? Do they do any job-specific training or courses? Are they part of any professional membership bodies?
Do they attend events and conferences?
Do they subscribe to any trade publications or industry news?
What books do they read?
Having this level of insight should start to uncover potential channels and viable tactics you can use for reaching your target customers.
With this information, you can build a laser targeted marketing strategy.
Let’s run through an example. Say we have a SaaS productivity app which which organises your calendar, to-do list, and notes. We’ve decided that our target customer segment is “productivity geeks”.
Running through the questionnaire we learn that our target customer:
Hangs out on the productivity subreddit
Follows Ali Abdaal on YouTube and X/Twitter
Searches for productivity methods like ‘Pomodoro‘, ‘Getting Things Done‘, and ‘Eat the Frog‘
Based on this information, we might decide to:
Fix the channel: based on observation, we think that YouTube might have the largest concentration of our target customers. We decide to produce video content and run ads to try and reach our target customers.
Fix the method: we decide to use ads. We run ad campaigns on Reddit (targeting the productivity sub), YouTube and X (targeting followers of Ali Abdaal), and on Google (targeting people who search for productivity-related keywords and phrases).
In running one of these strategies, we might learn that a certain channel or method works better than others. Or that a certain strategy is too expensive for the return. Or that we can further segment our target customer base. It’s only in doing that we learn.
If you’re looking to uncover viable distribution channels and marketing tactics, do the following:
Get inside your customers head. Run through the questions above for each of the customer segments you are targeting.
Make a bet. Pick a mix of channels and tactics to experiment with based on analysis or gut-feel.
Iterate and learn. Don’t forget, if you can get just one distribution channel to work, you have a great business.
Remember, you’re likely going to experiment A LOT with the different variables — customer segment, channel, tactic, content, and your product offer. Over time you’ll learn more about your customer, how to reach them, and what works to attract them.
Good luck.
PS: My three favourite tactics for attracting early customers are engaging in online communities, running paid ads, and doing cold outreach. At least two of these normally apply for most customer segments.
