Every business and organization has multiple marketing channels.

Don’t believe me? How about the most iconic picture of American capitalism — the lemonade stand.

A small child sets up the cardboard and wood stand, writing “Lemonade .50¢” across the top. That’s marketing.

The basket of fresh lemons sitting on the counter at the end of a driveway, to entice people walking by to get a glass. That’s marketing, too. If the child calls out, “Fresh lemonade for sale!”… Marketing.

So, every business markets their goods and services. But it’s finding effective marketing channels that set strong businesses apart.

That’s where this guide comes into play.

There are possibly hundreds of marketing channels. But most modern business is driven through a portion of those (80/20 rule amiright?). In the following words, you’ll find more than 20 marketing channels, separated by category.

In addition to being categorized, I placed a number of “$” and “clocks”.

Why?

You may have heard the adage, “It either takes money or time” to reach success in business. Many things you can do yourself, but you’ll have to learn how. It’ll be cheaper and take more time. While other things will be more expensive, but you can hire out to do it.

The rankings aren’t scientific, but a general look at the needed investment. Enjoy!

But first, a look at some of the definitions.

What is a Marketing Channel?

A marketing channel is any known initiative or venue that an organization uses to boost:

• Brand awareness
• Product awareness
• Draw traffic

Those are broad explanations. At the top of the article, I explained the term with illustration. Many people conflate this with the term “distribution channels”. Channels are distribution are different than channel marketing.

Here’s how in two sentences.

Marketing is how you get potential customers to consider buying what you sell. Distribution channels are how you get your products in front of (or into the hands of) potential buyers.

• Example of channel marketing: Using Facebook ads to get targeted traffic to your ecommerce site.
• Example of channels of distribution: Using a fulfillment center to ship products sold from your ecommerce site.

But since a marketing channel refers to getting people to know and consider an organization, there is some cross over. (e.g. A beautiful display of actual product in a store can be part of the distribution system while also serve as marketing.)

That said, mainly marketing is how you get prospective business, compared to a channel of distribution (a supply chain) that gets your products/services to the customers.

Now that we have that out of the way, it’s time to talk a bit about the design of your marketing.

What Does the Process of Designing Marketing Channels Start With?

Good questions. Assuming that the business already exists, it begins with examining your current marketing landscape. Even if you’re a startup, you’ll have channels already running.

Map Your Current Marketing

It’s likely a good idea to do a customer experience map, which shows you every way the public sees and interacts with your brand. An experience map not only shows your current marketing venues, but can also:

• Highlight issues (like if people are talking about you on Twitter, but you’re not active there)
• Show unknown opportunities (we noticed signups coming from YouTube, leading to potential partnerships)
• A good place to start the design process

Pick Channels and Run Tests

The next step of designing your channels of marketing, would be to run tests. Choose a few channels (like the ones on this list). Then, begin using them, tracking the ROI the best you can. Sometimes ROI isn’t easy to track, but you can track improved traffic and other metrics other than revenue.

Keep and Expand On What’s Working

After your tests are complete, there will be losers and maybe winners. If the results were promising, double your efforts to make sure it’s a viable channel. Then, expand it and fully utilize it.

Repeat the process as long as you can. Over time, you’ll likely see tremendous growth through small changes.

1 Email Marketing

Email marketing is perhaps the most-used form of marketing there is, let alone on the internet.

Having someone’s email address is valuable. Getting those addresses can be pricey, but using them is relatively inexpensive.

What else you’ll have to deal with is the quality of emails to send. You can use different email testing tools to check whether your email is a go, or it requires some additional tune-up.

There is a lot of versatility in marketing emails, too.

• Send drip campaigns to new signups and nurture them towards buying your products.
• Create behavioral emails to trigger based on certain behavior. For instance, send an email to app users who have not logged in over the last two weeks.
• Send newsletters announcing a sale or coupon for your ecommerce store.
• Automatically reach out to clients for referrals instead of having to remember.

There are so many possibilities. Once you’ve built a decent-sized list — there are no shortage of ways to use this channel.

How to Use and Improve Email Marketing

If you don’t have a list started, the answer is simple start one!

Gist has a free-forever version which gives you up to 500 contacts. Our free plan also comes with live chat, opt-in forms and a meeting scheduler. Plus, you get a free trial of everything Gist has to offer for 21 days — no credit card required.

This trial includes drip campaigns, behavioral emails and much more.

Now, if you do have a list but aren’t using things like drip campaigns or personalized email, it’s time to start.

Here’s a great guide to get you started from the Digital Marketing Institute.

2 Cold Email

Cold email is reaching out to leads without them knowing about it.

You find or purchase the email address and send them an email. It’s a great way for startups to generate income in the early stages. It’s also fantastic for freelancers, consultants and marketing agencies to get some nice-sized clients.

How to Use and Improve Cold Email

The number one tip I can give you about cold email? Your offer shouldn’t be your offer.

If you sell a paid-ad service, you probably shouldn’t sell your paid ad services. Instead, try to peak their interest in some other way.

• Offer free advice
• Point out a mistake in their current ad campaign
• Invite them to a webinar

If you want to start a conversation, send a conversation starter. Don’t begin with a sales pitch.

3 Transactional Email

A transactional email is when you’re emailing a new (or soon to be) customer.

How is this marketing?

Simple, you want repeat business. A few examples of this marketing channel include:

• Post-sale coupons (e.g. 15% off your next order)
• Pre-sale upsells (Add x for $$ more, today only!)
• Referral requests (send your clients an email asking them to refer you)

How to Use and Improve Transactional Emails

The best idea here is to automate the process. It’s a pain to send out emails like this on a regular basis. And it’s impossible to do for those with lots of transactions.

With Gist, you can use either behavioral emails or our new Workflow builder to craft the perfect post-sale transactional email.

4 Email Signatures

An email signature is like marketing espionage.

It’s always there, people interact with it. But they don’t know it’s got an ulterior motive. That motive is based on what you want.

• It can drive traffic to your latest piece of content
• A signature can help you book meetings by providing your Gist meeting link
• It can lead people to your LinkedIn account to see your social proof

How to Use and Improve Email Signatures

Make sure it looks good.

It’s the only thing that is on EVERY email and it has to be stylish. Check out this guide from Canva on email signature design.

5 Live Chat

Live chat is one of the best ways to find and have conversations with highly-interested leads. Most everyone knows the first one to respond usually wins.

So, why wouldn’t you have live chat on your site.

There are some instances where it may not be an option. For instance, if you’re an author, speaker or another form of publisher, live chat may not be the best use of your time.

That said, most businesses can use this as a viable marketing channel.

How to Use and Improve Live Chat

Use a chat prompt.

Having the live chat icon is awesome, but having a prompt pop up and welcome guests can start a lot more conversations without being intrusive. A while back, I wrote an extensive look at what a chat prompt should include.

You can also get Gist’s Live Chat on your site in about 2 minutes. And it’s free.

6 Opt-in Forms & Lead Magnets 

Ok, this one kind of goes with the email section. But it also goes here. Opt-in forms are part of your site, though. So, I put it here.

And lead magnets (offering some sort of valuable resource in exchange for a name and an email) are the best way to attract attention and get the contact data.

How to Use and Improve Opt-Ins

Tailor your lead magnet to the type of content. For instance, we write about marketing, sales, content, and social media.

We have several different lead magnets based on the type of content we release. If we write something about content, we have a guide about re-releasing content to gain traffic.

Social media? We have one to keep your reach with your audience.

7 Blog

Not going to spend a lot of time here, but couldn’t leave blogging out of the list.

It’s still a massive channel. In fact, it’s one of Gist’s biggest channels for driving traffic to our website. And even though I’ve been a content creator for closer to 10 years now, I’m still learning a ton about running an effective blog.

How to Use and Improve a Blog

Number one thing I’ve learned — intent matters.

It’s still about keywords, but it’s more about the entire subject and answering the question at hand. You have to dig deeper.

This post is a perfect example. It was riding high in like position 2-3 for “marketing channels”. Getting loads of traffic.

But it wasn’t answering the question of potential marketing channels for a business and rankings dropped (for that and other reasons). What you’re reading now is a complete rewrite of the original post.

Don’t be afraid to do the research. It’s going to take time or money.

8 Other Websites (Not Your Main Site)

This one is exciting and something that Gist has used to our advantage.

As with a few other channels on the list, there are a number of ways to do this one. Other companies buy popular domain names and “power” them. And many times, that domain and content is redirected.

We’ve done that with a great deal of success.

How to Use and Improve Other Websites

If you’re going to do this one, it’s both time-consuming and (potentially) costly. Find a blog covering topics close to your industry and see if they’re interested in offloading it.

9 Guest Posting

Guest posting gets a bad wrap, but it’s truly one of the best ways to get fantastic links for the price of a good piece of content. Guest posting should be a part of anyone’s marketing strategy who has a web presence.

Writing for others is also a great way to start a conversation with potential partners.

How to Use and Improve Guest Posting

Have a decent looking site with good content on it and write good content for those who allow you to write for them.

Do this, and you’ll have as much opportunity as you need.

10 Cross-Promotion (Joint Ventures) 

Cross-promotion can be a number of different things.

• You have a webinar with their audience and then one with yours
• Trade guest posts
• Send out newsletters to each others’ audience
• Put on an event together

That’s not an extensive list.

How to Use and Improve Cross-Promotion

Start small. If you email someone, even a comparable company, asking for full access to their audience, it may not go well.

Start with a link exchange. Or something small. Get to know them and let it grow organically.

11 SEO

Good old search engine optimization is still alive and kicking.

It’s a lot more complex, too. The fundamentals are still very much the same.

How to Use and Improve SEO

I can’t sum it up any better than this tweet from Cyrus Shepard:

12 Social Profiles

Not your social posting, but the profile or main business page for your organization. There are a number of guides talking about what to post on Twitter. But serious inquiries can involve your profile pages.

Making your stand alone page look good is crucial here.

How to Use and Improve Social Profiles

Do something others aren’t. How about putting a video on your Facebook profile page? That’s not something even big companies are doing.

13 Paid Social Ads

Advertising on social media is still highly profitable. And, for the near future it is still quite affordable.

How to Use and Improve Paid Ads

Start small, if you’re inexperienced. You can have a few bucks a day for every ad you run. Should get your acclimated quickly.

Hire an expert if and when you’re ready to take your paid ad game to the next level.

14 Take-Overs

This one is little-used, but could be cool for a brand. It’s a form of influencer marketing where someone who has a big following “takes over” your social account (a lot of times it’s instagram).

Their followers will see what they’re up to on your account — giving you a new audience. And since the person posting is someone the audience is familiar with, you don’t have to worry about posting the wrong thing.

How to Use and Improve Take-Overs

Don’t just hand your social account over. Pre-plan, see what the influencer’s ideas are and work together to impress their audience.

15 Social Groups

Groups are available in Facebook, LinkedIn and even Twitter. But there’s an art for companies to use them.

Don’t just go in there with your logo on your profile. It’s better for a Founder to be active within the group. Or, an associate with the company. Like a few of us are active in Gist’s private community.

I’m also active in a few other marketing groups.

How to Use and Improve Social Groups

Don’t directly market here. Selling could get you kicked out.

The subject will naturally come up. Share a guest post you wrote, instead of EVERY single blog you write. Share exciting news when you’re excited, but don’t share a blink pitch.

16 Social Content

Again, not going to talk about regular posting.

Social platforms are much more robust than posts. Video (live or otherwise), full on blog posts with decent reach, polls and more are available. And they should be used.

How to Use and Improve Social Content

Promote and be regular. Don’t just use social content as a way to draw, but send traffic there.

Send an email to your list, letting them know you’ll be on Facebook Live answering questions.

It’ll help it grow faster.

17 Print Advertising 

Source

Am I the only weirdo who did the scratch and sniff cologne page in a magazine?

You would scratch it and bring the whole thing right up to your nostrils just to get a whiff of a scent that you’ll likely never buy.

According to WebFX, a magazine ad could cost $250,000.

That’s just the cost of the media publishing. You also have to hire someone to look good for the pictures and someone to smear your product on that cologne ad. The same source estimates the cost to produce the ad ranges from around $400 all the way to nearly $400,000.

Newspapers can be a bit cheaper, depending on the circumstances. That said, ROI is nearly impossible to track.

How to Use and Improve Print Ads

Don’t be boring.

Visually impactful ads have a twofold benefit. They’re way more likely to grab a reader’s attention and they could be picked up by other venues (for free) — simply because they’re so awesome.

Here’s a great example. BoredPanda going over 33 great print ads.

18 Swag Bag

You may have some swag. Apple gives out their logo stickers. Banks give out pens. SaaS companies usually do coffee mugs or t-shirts.

Swag.

It’s a great way to impress clients and customers while spreading your brand. Instead of word-of-mouth, it’s like view-of-mug. You’ll want to calculate your cost on this one. If each client is worth $20, you don’t want to spend $2 per item.

On the other end, you don’t want to seem too cheap. Not sure how Apple gets away with a few pennies on a sticker when you drop thousands.

How to Use and Improve Swag

Make it different. I recently received a huge swag box from The Hoth that really impressed me. It was a decent-sized box with a t-shirt, mug, stress ball, sticker pen and mousepad. It also had a custom hot sauce (Hoth Sauce)!

(Shoutout)

19 Receipts (and Other Inserts)

Catalinas have been in use since the 90’s. If you’re a Step Brothers fan, not that kind of Catalina.

Anyway, here’s a breakdown of this and a couple more ways to use receipts.

• Catalinas are coupons that print out at the same time as your receipt. If you bought fresh fruit, it may be $2 off your next produce purchase of $20+.
• Kroger also uses the back of receipts as a revenue source. Local shops will pay them to advertise on the back of the receipts (usually coupons as well).
• Surveys are huge now and a great way to get email signups from people looking for a deal.

How to Use and Improve Receipts

I know more about the Catalina Wine Mixer than I do receipt marketing. So, here’s a great post (with visual examples) to give you some ideas.

20 Loyalty Programs

I don’t use many loyalty programs. But the ones, scratch that, the one I use — I’m all in.

(Shoutout to Coffee Crossing. The latest member in the full loyalty card club.)

Essentially, you offer discounts or free products/services in exchange for a consistent customer.

These programs are great for brick and mortar shops (like coffee houses and restaurants) and for consumer services (hair stylists, personal trainers, etc.)

How to Use and Improve Loyalty Programs

Do the math and be consistent.

Ensure it’s profitable to offer a loyalty program and then make sure it’s valuable enough to entice customers to become regulars. Don’t aim for your current regulars, but those who are inconsistent.

What’s an offer that will get them in another time or two every week/month/etc..

21 Signs Out Front

I wish I would have recorded a video. But the other day, I was driving and a furniture store was having a “moving sale”.

They paid a guy to walk up and down a busy intersection with a sign.

He. Was. Earning. His money.

Sign spinners, sandwich boards, a marquis or just a menu of the day, are all types of signs businesses use to draw traffic inside.

How to Use and Improve Signage

I’d be a terrible sign spinner. But here are some tips to make your physical signs more compelling from Small Business Trends.

22 Cold Calling

Many people still sing the merits of picking up a phone and making calls to potential leads.

That said, it’s almost never completely cold. Picking up the phone book and calling is as archaic as…well, phone books.

Most reps do research on their leads, or at least the type of lead. For example, a realtor will look up FSBO homes that have been on the marketing for 90 days.

The pitch will be similar — “Hey, I can sell your home faster and for more than your asking. If not, you don’t pay anything.”

• Make a few hundred phone calls
• Get a few in-person meetings
• Sell a house or two, make thousands per deal

How to Use and Improve Cold Calls

Use the call as a follow up to something else. Send them a piece of direct mail or an email and reference it on your voicemail.

It could just entice them to take some sort of action and gives leads more ways to respond (like email you instead of calling back).

23 Direct Mail 

Snail mail. The post. Postcards. Mailers. You get the idea.

Sending things in the mail is a longstanding marketing channel. When the internet really took off, people thought physical letters were a thing of the past.

Turns out, that was the time to get into it.

How to Use and Improve Direct Mail

Don’t just use direct mail.

One of the most effective ways I’ve heard this used, is to send something in the mail. Average delivery time for sending local is like 2 days. So, the sales rep sent a bunch of mailers out on Monday and made calls on Wednesday.

He paired it up by doing “straight to voicemail” calls. Doing this drove the prospect to sift through the mail a bit closer and really look at what was sent. Brilliant.

24 Relationship Marketing

You get someone to buy something. Is it over?

Of course not. But how do you get them to keep coming back for more. To be honest, there are a number of ways. One is to be cheap. (e.g. McDonalds will catch you on the flip side of your health kick.)

The other way is to continue the relationship with customers and get them to keep coming back. This is essentially the relationship marketing channel.

How to Use and Improve Relationships

Don’t stop talking to customers.

No, don’t inundate their inboxes, but set up a continuous flow of content to them. You can use Gist to setup a post-sale funnel to continue the conversation and that can be the start of your relationship marketing campaign.

25 SMS (Texting) 

Warning. There are a lot of wrong ways to do this one.

Robo calls and strange texts are a great way to turn off potential leads. You send a bunch of texts to people who didn’t agree to get them and you’ll be out of a customer (permanently) and potentially on the wrong side of legislation, eventually.

How to Use and Improve SMS

First, use common sense. Then, check out these tips from the experts at Convince and Convert.

26 Direct-to-Voicemail 

If you call someone, wouldn’t you want them to answer? Not necessarily.

For sales reps making the first call, voicemail can be the preferred method for delivering an introduction. Far more people will listen (or read) voicemails than listen “live” to someone trying to pitch something.

There are a number of tools that ensure every call you make with immediately go to voicemail, making it faster and more effective.

How to Use and Improve Direct Voicemail

Be good at delivering voicemail. Doesn’t do you any good to be able to dial more numbers if no one calls you back.  Here’s a great read on improving your skills.

27 App Advertisements 

Apps. Everyone uses them and almost no one likes to pay for them. And that creates an opportunity for ads.

Costs are going up in this space, but app ads is still an affordable marketing channel. And not just for games and other apps.

The other day, I was playing a game and watched 3-4 ads for Cracker Barrel and fried chicken still sounds good.

How to Use and Improve App Ads

I’m not experienced with in-app ads (aside from seeing them as much as the next app-user). That said, I was really impressed with this in-depth guide.

28 Instagram Influencers 

Instagram is great, especially for visual products. And the organic reach is really easy to achieve (right now). This has created thousands of influencers with an incredible number of engaged followers.

The best way to use this channel is via paid mentions, reviews, etc.

How to Use and Improve Instagram Influencers

Make sure you know the true cost. It’s a bit difficult to accurately track ROI here, so be careful out there.

29 YouTube Influencers 

YouTube is another platform that is shoving eyeballs to good content (for now). If someone has been regularly making watchable content, they’re likely getting substantial views.

Partnerships range from quick mentions to charity work.

How to Use and Improve YouTube Influencers

Pick a channel. For instance, send your product(s) to 10 YouTubers in a similar (related) niche.

If 3 of them mention you for the swag, there are likely to be crossovers in their audiences. All of those viewers will see you mentioned multiple times.

30 Blogger Influencers 

Bloggers are still incredibly influential. The lines have blurred somewhat. A great blogger will also be a podcaster or YouTuber. But it still works.

Family and home bloggers are great for certain products and services. For instance, if you have a 30-minute Vegan meals cookbook — there are no shortage of bloggers you can get to help you.

How to Use and Improve Blog Influeners

Like I mentioned, don’t go for the direct mention. Ask them if you can write a guest post, link exchange.

Build the relationship until you can ask for a spot in front of their audience.

31 Streaming Ads 

Most businesses are never going to advertise on network TV. However, it could make sense to do so on a streaming service.

Imagine the customization of, say, Facebook ads (being able to narrow down to age, geography, income, etc.) with the captive eyes of commercials.

Well, that’s streaming.

(Source: Hulu)

How to Use and Improve Streaming Ads

Here’s a great Hulu advertising guide to get you started.

32 Sponsored Spots 

Streaming ads don’t have to go in the shows. Roku especially has a few great ways to advertise that are less intrusive. The entire theme can be changed. Or, you can advertise on a custom banner they have on all their themes.

(Source: Roku)

Other streaming services are taking ads similar to this now, too.

How to Use and Improve Sponsor Spots

Straight from Roku themselves, here is there pitch for putting ads on their platform.

34 Podcasting

I didn’t know exactly where to put podcasting. It’s hitting its stride and is newish, but also online. Anyhow, here it is.

Podcasting is growing and powerful. The audience is growing faster than the number of shows (but that is likely to change eventually). Plus, you can use this marketing channel multiple ways.

• Start your own show to gather leads
• Get on other shows to get in front of their audience
• Advertise on podcasts that make sense for your business.

How to Use and Improve

There really are no other resources quite as in-depth as this one from the folks at Entrepreneur on Fire.