Demand Curve - The Growth Newsletter #188

The Growth Newsletter #188

The best marketing channel for your business

"My friend said to try SEO... can you recommend a good SEO person?"

^ something I've heard from many founders looking for their growth channel. But, what works for one business doesn't always work for another.

Today, we dive into the data on which channels work for different company types.

– Neal

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The best marketing channel for your business

Insight from Right Percent.

There are only so many fundamental ways to grow a company. And not all ways work for all businesses.

Place your product on this chart to get a general idea of what will likely work:

Large bubbles = more money spent. But it generally also means that it works at scale for many companies. Smaller bubbles mean it either has a smaller impact, works less often, or people don’t give it enough credit.

Here's the data used for this chart.

If you haven’t seen the Racecar Growth Framework, it breaks down the “growth engines” and the “boosts/accelerants” that drive true growth and recommends the order of operations.

Let’s dive into the 4 quadrants (and edge cases):

Top-left – Random people would want it + they’re looking for it:

• Very broadly appealing stuff people actively search out when needed, like kitchen scissors, a plunger, a marketing agency, or a software tool. Usually, that’s done by searching on Amazon or Google.
• You can’t control who searches for what on Google, so the broader the user, the better.

Top-right – Specific people + looking for it

• You can control which trade shows you go to. And people typically go to them to find things to use/buy.

• You can also do your best to get onto review sites by contacting the creator or incentivizing past customers to post reviews.

Bottom-left – Random people + not looking for it

• Very broad things people don’t really need or are likely already using, like kids' toys, Tide, Dove, Colgate, etc. 
• And dumb new products people didn’t know existed in infomercials like the Slap-Chop, Shamwow, and dumb fitness doo-dad.

Bottom-right – Specific people + not looking for it

• If they’re not looking for it, you must go to them. You create lists of people that might be interested and contact them via email or mail.
• Or you use LinkedIn’s great but expensive targeting.
• To be honest, you can use social ads to do pretty specific targeting by uploading your lists of prospects to the ad channels.
• One acquisition channel missing here is communities. Whether they’re on Facebook, Circle, Skool, Slack, Mighty, Meetup, or Twitter/X.

Things that fall in the middle generally mean that “it depends.”

For example:

• Reddit: Sure, it has a very broad user base, but the people in subreddits often have niche interests so it could be a viable way to find your audience.
• Facebook: Posting organically is broad. Groups are similar to subreddits, you can find or create niche ones. And for ads, you can get pretty niche if you do clever things like uploading custom audiences of people you’ve prospected.
• Social Channels: All the social channels are broader if you post organically and can be a lot more niche if you run ads.
• Affiliate: This depends because affiliates can have very niche audiences.
• Magazines: Some are industry-specific, but newspapers, not so much.

Find where your product/audience fits on this chart, and focus your efforts on the proven channels. Check out:

• Our Growth Vault for tactics for each of these,
• Our guides on making/running ads and content marketing.
• And the Racecar Growth Framework for more granular recommendations:

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Something fun

I love no B.S. brands like RXBAR that break the fourth wall in their ads:

How we can help you grow

• Read our free playbooks, articles, growth guide, and teardowns—we break down the strategies & tactics used by fast-growing startups.
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Thanks, everyone! You're cool.

Neal O'Grady

Justin Setzer

Nick Costelloe