Nowadays, there are too many channels to promote your startup, and it’s hard to choose which ones to focus on. There’s Reddit, Instagram, SEO, short-form videos, ads, email, LinkedIn, and plenty of other channels competing for your attention.
A founder recently asked this exact question on Reddit.
They were still early in their product and struggling with marketing because they felt there was always another channel they should be using. They asked whether it would be better to get good at one or two channels instead of doing everything badly.
I love this question because I feel the same way. I have ADHD, so it’s hard to focus on one thing. But over the past decade of helping early-stage startup founders, I’ve learned that focusing on one thing is crucial.
You don’t need to be everywhere. You need to:
- Find a channel where your target audience is actually spending time
- Choose a type of content you can consistently produce
- Give yourself enough time to see whether it works (and double down when it does)
Here’s how I’d approach it.
Focus on where your target audience is
First, figure out where your target audience really engages and consumes. Don’t choose a marketing channel just because another founder or competitor is using it. Start by figuring out where your potential customers actually spend time and what types of content they pay attention to.
One way to do this is to interview your existing customers or potential customers. Ask them:
- Where they go to learn about problems like the one you’re solving
- Which platforms they use
- What types of content they actually consume
For example, if you find out your target audience hangs out on Instagram, do they interact with posts, Reels, or Carousels? Instagram has so many content types you could create that you don’t need to start with all of them.
Start with one, and ideally, it’s the one that they are most engaged with. The goal isn’t to find the perfect channel before you start. It’s to make an informed decision about where you’ll spend your limited time and resources.
💡 Pro tip: Hire a fractional content strategist to help you decide which channel to focus on. You can get valuable advice without worrying about a full-time hire.
Choose a realistic type of content that you can consistently produce
Another idea is to start by producing the easiest type of content you can. This doesn’t mean you should always choose the easiest option. It means choosing a format you can realistically produce often enough to learn from it.
For example, I’m a writer first, so it’s very easy for me to write LinkedIn posts with just text. I started there and stuck with it every week, three times a week.
I started getting impressions and questions from potential clients. The questions I got were often about my writing workflows, which also gave me insight into what people wanted to learn from me.
That’s why I would encourage you to choose one channel and one type of content that you can commit to for at least 12 weeks. You need enough time and consistency to see patterns instead of judging the channel based on one or two posts.
There’s no universally correct content format. The right one is the format that makes sense for your audience and that you can realistically produce consistently. B2B content can take many forms, and what works will depend on your audience, channel, and business goals.
Start small but with scaling in mind
When you’re starting out, it’s okay to do the work yourself. In fact, doing it yourself can help you understand what it actually takes to produce content before you start hiring people or investing more money.
But I would still think about scalability from the beginning. If you start with videos that are extremely difficult and time-consuming to produce, you might struggle to maintain that process once you need to publish more frequently.
Scalability can come in different ways. You can scale with:
- Tools: Automate part of the process to increase content production.
- People: Delegate production if you’re doing it initially, or add more people to produce more content.
- Budget: Raise the budget to increase production.
Scalability also means that it can scale without you. That means that the processes are documented, and other people can handle it by themselves.
The important thing is to think about what happens if the channel starts working and you suddenly need to produce more content.
Double down on what works
Once you see the results, you should start doubling down on what works. But when I say “results,” I don’t just mean views, impressions, or followers.
For me, results mean your marketing helps move people toward becoming customers. Depending on your business and goals, you might track:
- Clicks to your product or service page
- Signups
- Paying users
For example, a piece of content that gets 100,000 views might look impressive, but if none of those people are interested in your product, it may be less useful than a piece of content that gets 5,000 views and brings you qualified leads.
This is especially true in SEO. We produce blog posts for clients with hundreds of thousands of views, but they don’t convert to sign-ups. We balance writing about topics that drive page views with writing about topics that drive conversions.
Regularly reviewing your data lets you spot patterns and make small improvements while you’re still running the experiment.
Once you find a channel and content format that drives meaningful business results, you can invest more in it. You might publish more frequently, improve the content, test different formats, or bring in other people to help you produce it.
The goal isn’t to keep experimenting forever. Once you find something that works, put more resources into it.
Create a process for testing new channels
Once you’ve learned what works with one channel, you can start testing another one. But don’t just jump from channel to channel every few weeks because you saw someone else getting results there.
Create a process for testing new channels, so you make decisions based on your own data. Here’s the process I’d use.
1. Create a process for content production.
Before you start testing, figure out how you’ll actually produce the content. Define the steps, tools, people, and resources you’ll need so you can consistently create and publish it.
2. Consistently produce and publish content.
Give the channel enough time to generate useful data. In my case, I recommend committing to at least 12 weeks before making a major decision.
3. Check the results weekly.
Look at the metrics that matter to your business, such as clicks, signups, leads, or paying users. Look for patterns that show whether your content is moving people closer to becoming customers.
4. Run A/B tests and change one thing at a time.
If you change everything at once, you won’t know what caused the result. Instead, change one variable while keeping the other parts of the experiment consistent.
For example, you could change the type of content while keeping the same publishing schedule. Or you could publish the same type of content but test different publishing times.
I’m currently testing this with long-form video that I’m repurposing into short-form content. For one version, I adjusted the video specifically for portrait format, while the other stayed landscape but was resized for shorts.
I’m testing the difference instead of assuming that one format will work better. The point isn’t to prove that one format is always better. It’s to collect enough data to make a better decision about what I should do next.
I also don’t want to invest more effort without data to back it up. Resizing each scene to portrait mode takes more effort and time.
But it takes just a few minutes to convert a long video into portrait mode without adjusting each scene.
This approach also keeps you from making big changes based on one piece of content. You can test, learn, adjust, and then run another experiment.
You don’t need to be everywhere
There will always be another marketing channel you could try. Another social network, another content format, another trend, or another tactic someone says you absolutely need to be using. Believe me, I’ve been there. And it was exhausting.
You don’t have to do all of them. Start by finding where your target audience actually spends time, choose a content format you can consistently produce, and give yourself enough time to collect useful data.
Then double down on what works and create a process for testing what comes next. This lets you grow your marketing without constantly feeling like you’re falling behind on every other channel.
The goal isn’t to become good at every marketing channel. It’s to find the channels that work for your business and build a system that lets you keep improving them.
Need help building a content system?
You don’t need to hire a full-time content team just to start experimenting with content. But once you’ve found a channel that works, you may need more people, processes, and resources to scale it.
That’s where a fractional content team can help. Our Fractional Content Team helps early-stage startups build and scale their content production without the commitment of building a full-time team from scratch.
Here are other questions from founders:
- How Do You Manage Everything When You’re Building a Startup Alone?
- The Fastest Way to Validate Your Startup Idea
- What is Founder-Led Content in Marketing?
- How to Build an AI-Assisted Content Team in the Philippines
FAQs: Choosing A Marketing Channel As A Solo Founder
How do I choose the right marketing channel for my startup?
Start by finding out where your target audience already spends time and what type of content they consume. Interview customers or potential customers and research their online behavior before deciding where to invest your time.
How long should I test a marketing channel?
I recommend committing to at least 12 weeks of consistent publishing before making a major decision about a channel. Still check your results every week during that period so you can spot patterns and adjust along the way.
Should I focus on one marketing channel or multiple channels?
If you’re an early-stage founder with limited time and resources, focusing on one channel can make it easier to build consistency and understand what’s working. Once you have a repeatable process and meaningful results, you can start testing additional channels.
What should I measure when testing a marketing channel?
Look at metrics that connect your marketing activity to the business. Depending on your business, this can include clicks, signups, leads, and paying users.
How do I scale content production after finding a channel that works?
Start by documenting the content production process so you understand what needs to happen each time you create and publish content. Then identify which parts you can improve with tools, delegate to others, or support with additional budget.
