Digital Marketing Channel Strategy for Owners

You probably own most of the pieces already.

That gap is common at your size. A company of 15 to 75 people has money to spend on marketing and staff to spend it, but often nobody senior deciding how the parts fit. So each channel ends up judged alone, by whoever runs it, against its own numbers and nobody else's. It usually surfaces right before a big commitment: a new ad budget, a site rebuild or a marketing hire. That's the moment to settle who owns the whole path.

What is a digital marketing channel strategy?

It's a written decision about which channels you'll work, what job each one does, and how a lead passes from one to the next. The list of possible channels is long. One Day Agency counts websites, SEO, paid search, social media, email, content, video, display ads, affiliate marketing, influencer marketing, mobile and online PR. A strategy is the act of choosing a few from that list and ignoring the rest on purpose.

A usable version fits on one page. It names the customer you want, the three or so channels you'll actually work, the job of each, and one number that shows whether the whole path is working. If it needs ten pages, nobody will open it on a Monday morning.

The plan has to come before the tools. We make that argument at more length in why your marketing tools are not the problem, and it applies to channels the same way it applies to software. Our digital strategy work is where that plan gets written.

Why does judging channels one at a time break the handoff?

Because your customer doesn't experience channels one at a time. Someone talks to you at an event, looks at your website that night, gets an email two days later, reads your reviews, and then calls. That's five channels and one decision.

When every channel has its own owner and its own report, nobody is responsible for the space between them. The event team counts conversations, the web person counts visits, and the email tool counts opens. Each report can look fine on its own. Meanwhile the person who gave you a card at the booth may never have gotten a reply that mentioned the conversation, and no single report shows it.

This is why MOGXP, the experiential agency Sheila Rondeau founded, and MOGDX, the digital side, work as a pair. The handshake at the event and the follow-up email that comes after it are one experience to the customer, so they have to be planned as one.

Handoffs fail quietly. A form that doesn't trigger a reply, a landing page that doesn't match the ad that sent people to it, a review request that never goes out after the job. Each is a small gap, and each is a place where a lead who was already interested can get lost. We cover the follow-up version of this in why leads slip.

How many channels should a growth-stage business run?

Fewer than your tool list suggests. In a report on marketing data sources, Funnel cites The CMO Survey finding that over 60% of companies rely on more than 20 martech tools. It adds that companies use only about 56% of the martech they buy. Those are surveyed companies, not necessarily yours, but the pattern is familiar. A lot of what gets bought isn't in use, and more tools don't fix a missing plan.

Smaller businesses show the same thing from another angle. In a Drip survey of 1,003 U.S. small business owners, reported by MarketingProfs, only 28% were spending on digital advertising. The same survey found 39% weren't sure what return they were getting from their marketing.

Two cautions on that survey. It covers small businesses, usually smaller than yours, and the page we reviewed doesn't state when the survey ran. Read it as a pattern in how owners work, not as a benchmark to hit.

Which channel has the best return?

Email gets named most often, and the published figures don't agree with each other. PGM Solutions reports a median email ROI of 122%. On The Map Marketing reports that businesses earn an average of $44 for every $1 spent on email. One is a median percentage and the other is an average per dollar, so don't set them side by side or drop either into a budget.

Both put email near the top of their lists. Neither tells you what email will return for your business. Your own pipeline numbers will, and that's the reason the plan needs a number for the whole path and not just for each channel.

How do you connect channels into one plan?

Start with what already happened, then assign jobs, then fix the seams.

1. Map the path of your last ten customers. For each one, write down every touch before the first call. Include the conversation, the page they visited, the message they got and the reviews they read. Gaps show up fast.
2. Give each channel one job. A channel with two jobs gets judged on neither.
3. Define each handoff. For every pair of channels, write down what triggers the next step, who or what does it, and how quickly.
4. Pick numbers for the path. We track new leads, pipeline value, deals closed, lead-to-demo rate and cost per lead on one dashboard, so a weak handoff shows up as a number and not a hunch.
5. Review weekly and cut what isn't working. A channel that can't show it feeds the next step is a candidate to drop.

The table below shows what that looks like for a typical growth-stage business. Your channels will differ, so treat the rows as a template.

Channel	The one job	Handoff to check	Number to watch
In-person events and referrals	Start the conversation	Contact captured the same day, and the follow-up refers to what was said	New leads by source
Website and landing pages	Answer the question and capture the contact	Form triggers an instant reply and a booking link	Lead-to-demo rate
Email and text follow-up	Keep the lead warm until they book	Sequence starts without anyone pressing a button	Replies and bookings
Reviews and reputation	Help a stranger trust you	Request goes out after every finished job or sale	Reviews requested versus received
Paid ads	Send attention to a page built to convert	Ad promise matches the landing page	Cost per lead

The third column is the one most channel plans leave out, and it's where leads get lost. If a row has a job but no handoff, that channel is working alone.

The follow-up and review rows are the easiest to automate once the plan exists. Our marketing systems and automation work covers the first, and reputation and review management covers the second. If you want to automate before the strategy is settled, we'd tell you to wait. A system built on no plan just moves the confusion faster.

What mistakes break a channel plan?

Adding a channel because it's available is the usual one. A new platform feels like progress, but it creates one more handoff to maintain. Add a channel only when you can say which job it takes over and what it feeds.

Trusting each platform's own dashboard is the next trap, because every platform reports on its own results and none of them can see the lead who found you at an event and then searched your name. You need one place where the path is counted end to end.

That's also why the seams need an owner. If the event lead, the web vendor and the email vendor each answer only for their piece, nobody answers for the customer who fell between them.

Copying a benchmark causes trouble too. A published ROI figure describes someone else's business, sample and year. Use it to ask a better question, then answer it with your own numbers.

Where does a fractional CMO fit?

The reason this work goes undone at your size is ownership. When three vendors each optimize their own slice, nobody is accountable for marketing as a function. A full-time CMO would solve that, but for many businesses between $2 million and $15 million in revenue it's a lot of salary for a role they may need a couple of days a week.

A fractional CMO owns the plan, the handoffs and the numbers, and holds the vendors to them. You can read what that includes on our fractional CMO leadership page, including who it fits and who it doesn't. If you want someone to execute a plan rather than lead one, a done-for-you engagement fits better. You run the business. We run the engine.

FAQ

What are the different channels used in digital marketing?

The common ones are your website, SEO, paid search, social media, email, content, video, display ads, affiliate and influencer marketing, mobile and online PR. Most businesses work only a few. The right few depend on where your customers already look and what you can follow up on quickly.

How do I know if a channel handoff is broken?

Pick a recent lead and follow them from first contact to first call. If the next step depended on a person remembering to act, or the message ignored what came before, the handoff is broken. A lead who went quiet after one touch is a good place to start.

Should I judge each channel on its own numbers?

Track them, but don't stop there. A channel can look weak alone and still feed the next step well, or look strong and feed nothing. Add one number for the whole path, such as lead-to-demo rate, so you can see how the parts work together.

How many channels should I run at once?

Start with as many as you can connect and measure end to end, usually about three. Add another only when you can name the job it takes over and the step it feeds. A channel that can't pass a lead along is working alone.

What to do today

Pull your last ten customers and, for each, write down every touch they had before the first call, in order. Mark every place where the next step depended on a person remembering to do something. Those marks are your broken handoffs, and they're the first thing to fix. If you'd like a second pair of eyes on the map, book a call and we'll go through it with you.