521. Channel Menu 2024 📺
All the best marketing channels to choose from, as of right now (and how to choose them)
Hellooo 👋 So happy to have you here. I’m Kevan. I have spent 15+ years as a head of marketing for some cool tech startups. Now I’ve co-founded a brand storytelling business called Bonfire. We do coaching, advisory, and content. If you identify with creativity and marketing, we’d love for you to join us.
A menu of the very best marketing channels for you and your brand
When I counted down my most-read substacks from the past five years, one of the biggest hits was a menu of top marketing channels for 2023.
Well, maybe I should give the people more of what they (you) want!
Here’s a menu of all the best marketing channels to try in 2024.
How to use this channel menu:
Choose from the menu of channels as you’re putting together your marketing strategy. Channels are labeled with characteristics of their impact on the customer journey, their cost, and their measurability.
When you’re evaluating channels, you’ll typically prioritize across a number of variables:
What goal will this channel contribute to? i.e. Awareness, Acquisition, Loyalty
How expensive is this channel? Advertising on the Las Vegas Sphere may be cool, but it won’t be cheap!
Can I measure the results and attribute impact to the channel? Some teams / companies care a lot about ROI
You may also want to think about factors like speed (how long does it take for this channel to ramp to its full impact), scale (how big can this channel get for us), fit (does our target audience hang out here), and effort (how many resources will it take to get this set up and maintained).
One of the most successful ways I’ve found to use this channel menu is to combine channels into different types of programs within my marketing strategy. For instance, here are two popular ones I’ve used to good effect:
Thought leadership program: Includes channels like PR / comms, social media, influencers, spokespeople, and events
Lifecycle program: Includes channels like email marketing, website chat, retargeting, and SMS
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Additional reading
HubSpot’s list of 10 marketing channels in 2024
Spotify’s list of marketing channels and examples
About this newsletter …
Hi, I’m Kevan, a marketing exec based in Boise, Idaho, who specializes in startup marketing and brand-building. I previously built brands at Oyster, Buffer, and Vox. Now I am cofounder at Bonfire, a brand storytelling company.
Each week on this substack, I share playbooks, case studies, stories, and links from inside the startup marketing world. Not yet subscribed? No worries. You can check out the archive, or sign up below:
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