Chapter 13: The Channels

Imagine you’ve been hired by a major hospital with thousands of staff. Your mission is simple: you have six months to improve the staff members’ health by encouraging them to drink more water.

What do you do?

When I started to think about the problem, I thought about activities like:

• Running a hospital-wide challenge where everyone competes against each other

• Sending a series of 10 emails about the health benefits of water versus soda

• Organizing a seminar with world-renowned dietitians

• Setting up a free health clinic to check on their health

• In short, I was probably going to try to convince the nurses, doctors, technicians, and therapists to change their minds and habits. If you had similar ideas, I have some bad news for you. Your tenure as a consultant is going to be short-lived.

• That’s because communicating about the benefits of water is unlikely to make a sizable impact—because people have this weird tendency to do the opposite of what someone wants them to do.

• So, what’s the solution?

• It comes from a real story mentioned in the book Atomic Habits by James Clear: Anne Thorndike, a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, was tasked with this exact challenge.

• She did something super simple and … the impact?

• Soda sales declined by 11 percent, while water sales increased by 26 percent.

The Problem: Marketing Isn’t Communications

Here’s the only thing Anne did: she increased the number of places where water was available in the cafeteria, without communicating about it.

That’s it. C’est tout!

You see, marketing has become synonymous with communications. Communicating that our product is the best. Communicating that customers should pick us and not the competition. Communicating that we can be trusted.

Marketing bad boy Mark Ritson calls it “communification.” In his words, it’s marketers who “focus on one small, relatively unimportant subset of marketing tactics—communications—for all their efforts.”

Since Anne did not communicate about this change, something else must be at play.

The Solution: You Don’t Always Need to Convince People

People often choose products not because of what they are, but because of where they are.

James Clear

This experiment shows that we don’t always need to obsess over what we’re going to say to convince people to give us a go; we just need to be in the right place.

This “right place” is the channel. It’s a means of meeting potential customers in the context where they experience their triggers, compare alternatives, and can easily find/buy the category. While your competitors are busy blasting generic messages into the void (aka “communificating”), you’ve got a golden opportunity.

Just by showing up in those places—being present and accessible—you can become a familiar face long before they even think about opening their wallets.

Let’s debunk some misconceptions I often come across.

A channel is:

• Not always “on the internet.” We’re not stuck living in an ergonomic pod, hooked by a neural implant as our only link to civilization (yet); we do get out in the real world sometimes.

• Not the same thing as an “influencer.” For example, if your customers buy your goat yoga classes because they saw a post on Instagram about it, the author of the post is the influencer (the who) and the Instagram post would be the specific channel (the where).

• Meant to be specific. For example, “social media” is not a channel. In fact, it’s so wide, you can almost see it from space. That’s because it’s not information you can take and act on. Like, which social network? Twitter or FeetFinder? How are you going to get in front of them? Using ads or organically?

• There might be more than this, but not that many. I’m also blending traditional “communication” versus distribution channels because the line is blurred—you can buy directly from email, for example. I’ve added the most common ones in Table 13.1.

Table 13.1. Types of Channels

Channel Type	Description	Example
Direct distribution	Selling directly to people	Toilet packet: Selling on company website
Direct mail	Sending letters to mailboxes	First marketing job: posted a mini-magazine about mobile marketing
Email	Sending messages to inboxes	STFO: I send emails every weekday (Mon-Fri)
Event	Being present at in-person gatherings	East Forged: Large makers markets (10,000+ attendees)
Indirect distribution	Selling through someone else	LatinUs: Selling through Amazon Marketplace
Outdoor	Appearing in public places	Demo Diva: Signs in empty lots that just got demolished
Partnership	Partnering with people who have an audience	EHM podcast: Inviting guests for their wisdom and clout
Podcast	Reaching people through audio shows	PTDC: Jonathan Goodman guesting on other podcasts
Print	Appearing in newspapers and magazines	Toilet packet: Featured in in-flight magazines
Radio	Reaching people through radio	Getting interviewed on local radio
Search	Appearing in online search results	PDF tool: Appearing for ‘compress PDF’ or ‘PDF to Excel’
Social	Using social media platforms	Shanty Biscuits: Parody videos on Instagram during Covid
TV	Appearing on television	Brands sponsoring the weather
Video	Appearing in online videos	LatinUs: Producing a telenovela on YouTube

You can reach the people in your audience through owned channels (they’ve opted in), paid channels (you’re paying for access), or earned channels (you’re getting attention organically).

How to Structure Channels

To make sure you have the best chance of identifying places where potential customers experience their triggers, compare alternatives, and buy the category, use the structure in Table 13.2.

Table 13.2. Channel Structure

Element	Question to Answer
Name: The specific channel you’ll use	What should we call it?
Type: See Table 13.1 for the full list	What type of channel is it?
Objective: The primary focus	Sales activation (generating sales) or brand-building (becoming top-of-mind)?
Reach: How you’ll reach your segment	Paid, organic, or a combination?
Context: Additional details	What additional information makes it actionable?

By carefully considering these elements, you can create a channel strategy that puts you in front of the right people at the right time, maximizing your chances of standing the f*ck out.

Example:

When the founders of LatinUs Beauty planned their launch, they identified a medium that Latinas in particular liked: telenovelas. They cast big-name Spanish-speaking actors—Sofia Castro, Victoria Ruffo, and Marlene Favela—with a story following three generations of women as they live between Mexico and the United States while building a hair care business. See Table 13.3.

Table 13.3. LatinUs Beauty Trailer

Element	Lu: The Power of Us Telenovela Trailer
Type	Video
Objective	Brand-building (becoming top-of-mind)
Reach	Paid
Context	Trailer shared on YouTube via paid ads

Going back to my failed marketing agency, I spent €6,000 to speak at four conferences in one year. Nobody knew me, so I used a shortcut. I contacted every marketing conference organizer in Ireland, hoping to get invited. When I realized that I wouldn’t be able to speak with my current profile, I chose the most accessible option: paying for it. See Table 13.4.

Table 13.4. Paying to Speak as a Channel

Element	Paying to Speak at Irish Conferences
Type	Event
Objective	Sales activation (generating sales)
Reach	Paid
Context	Getting a speaking spot when sponsoring local, marketing-centric conferences

Remember the field notes I shared from East Forged cold brew tea in Chapter 3? The East Forged people set up shop at massive makers markets (three-day events with over 10,000 attendees). In total, they attended over 36 markets and interacted with over 5,000 customers. See Table 13.5.

Table 13.5. Setting Up Shop at Markets

Element	Setting Up Shop at Markets
Type	Event
Objective	Sales activation (generating sales)
Reach	Paid
Context	Securing an exhibition stand to sell directly to visitors