Not Sure How to Choose Marketing Channels? Start Here.
So you don’t know which marketing channel to choose? You’re not alone. Marketing can feel like a black box. There’s Google Ads, Meta Ads, SEO, email, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, on and on and now ChatGPT. Every direction has an experts, contradicting advice, and someone telling you this should be your focus.
And you’re sorting through all of it while running your business.
Every owner and marketer wishes for the same two things: unlimited budget and unlimited time. Nobody gets either. The real skill is choosing where to focus what you do have.
I built the Marketing Vortex workbook to help you make an informed decision connected to your business results. It’s a free PDF that shows you where to focus your attention so you can build more momentum around your circle.
It’s a starting point for your marketing strategy, not an in-depth plan. Every tactic on the Vortex wheel has specialists behind it, and the workbook doesn’t replace a full strategy, rebrand, or campaign. When you’re ready for help with a quadrant, see the marketing services I offer.
Keep reading to learn more about channel selection, and why the heck it's called a vortex. Spoiler: it looks like this ⤵︎
Who built the Marketing Vortex?
I’m Frances Hoffman, founder of Frantastic Marketing. Agency trained, operator run. I spent 5 years at an agency, and I’ve co-owned a tourism company for 8 years, so I know what it’s like to market a business while you run it. Learn more about how I work with business owners.
Why does choosing a marketing channel feel so hard?
Because everyone has an opinion, and most of them have something to sell you.
A Google rep calls and says you need more ad spend. A friend swears by Instagram. A competitor starts a podcast, and suddenly you wonder if you should too. Each piece of advice might be right for someone.
None of it starts with your business, your budget, or your week.
It also gets harder because results take time to show. You try a channel for a month, see little change, and move on to the next one. You never find out if the first one would have worked.
And if you can’t track where your leads come from, you’re guessing either way.
What does each marketing channel really cost you?
Every channel costs you money, time, or both. Before you pick one, know which you’re spending.
Channel | Mostly costs you | Typical time to results | Quadrant it helps |
Google Business Profile | Time | 1-3 months | Get found |
Organic social media | Time | Ongoing | Get known, get remembered |
Google Ads | Money | Days to weeks | Get found |
Meta Ads | Money | Days to weeks | Get known |
ChatGPT Ads | Money | Days to weeks | Get found |
Website rebuild | Both | 1-3 months to build | Get chosen |
Review requests | Low once set up | Weeks | Get chosen |
Email newsletter | Low once set up | 1-3 months | Get remembered |
Referral asks | Low once set up | Weeks to months | Get remembered, get known |
Paid channels bring results faster, and the results stop when the spend stops. Time-heavy channels cost little cash but need steady effort, and they build slowly.
If you have more time than money, start with a time-heavy channel. Setting up your Google Business Profile and asking every happy customer for a review costs nothing but a few hours, and both help people find and choose you.
If you have more money than time, a paid channel makes more sense. Make sure the page it sends people to is ready to convert, and that you can track the leads, before you spend.
Either way, consistency matters most. Choose a channel you can keep up with week after week.
What is the Marketing Vortex?
Marketing has four jobs. I call them quadrants. Here’s what each one does, and the signs it might be your weak spot.
Get known: people learn you exist. Signs it’s weak: most of your business comes from the same small circle, and new people rarely hear about you.
Get found: people find you when they search. Signs it’s weak: you Google your service and your city, and your competitors show up before you do.
Get chosen: people pick you over other options. Signs it’s weak: people visit your site or call, then don’t book. You have few reviews, or your newest one is months old.
Get remembered: people come back and send others your way. Signs it’s weak: you don’t have an email list, you rarely hear from past customers, and referrals happen by luck.
A marketing funnel ends at the sale. A vortex keeps going. Get remembered feeds straight back into get known, because happy customers bring in new ones.
I built the Vortex after more than 2,000 sales pitches in 2 years. In every one, I explained the funnel, then drew an arrow by hand from the bottom back to the top. The Vortex corrects this, bringing focus and attention to customer retention as well.
What marketing business owners neglect most
Get remembered. Most owners put their budget into finding new customers and have no email, review, or referral system to bring past customers back. Without it, every sale starts from zero.
Warm and past customers are your best source of future business. They already trust you. When they refer you, they pass that trust to someone new, and business development gets easier.
Get remembered channels also cost little to run once they’re set up. For an owner short on money and time, that often makes it the best place to start.
Where does your marketing budget leak out?
Money and effort spent in one quadrant leak out when another quadrant is broken. Two common examples:
Ads that send traffic to a page that doesn’t convert. You pay for every click to get found, then lose the lead at get chosen. More ad spend won’t fix a page that doesn’t persuade.
Emails with no tracking, or no links at all. You send a newsletter, and readers who click through show up in Google Analytics as “Direct” traffic, mixed in with everyone who typed your web address. You can’t tell if your emails bring people to your site, let alone bring in leads. Worse, some newsletters have no links at all, so readers enjoy the email and have nowhere to go next.
The fix for muddled tracking: add UTM tags to your links.
A UTM tag is a short code on the end of a link that tells Google Analytics where the visit came from.
Open Google’s free Campaign URL Builder.
Paste in the page you’re linking to.
Fill in the source (like email), the medium (like newsletter), and a campaign name (like october-giveaway).
Use the link it creates in your post.
In Google Analytics, go to Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition, to see those visits and what they did.
It takes a half a minute per link and shows you which content brings in interest.
How do you choose the most effective marketing channel for your business?
Answer three questions:
Which quadrant is weakest? The workbook helps you answer this one.
Do you have more money or more time right now?
Which channel fits both answers? Use the table above.
Pick one channel and commit. Then give it a fair test before you judge it:
Paid ads: 60-90 days
SEO and content: 6 months or more
Email and review systems: about 90 days
Switching channels every few weeks resets your results each time. One channel done well beats four done half.
What the workbook does, and what it doesn’t
Disclaimer alert: The workbook shows you where to focus your attention so you can build more momentum around your circle. It’s a starting point, not an in-depth plan. Every tactic on the wheel has specialities behind it, and the workbook doesn’t replace a true marketing strategy, rebrand, or campaign.
But I do hope it can guide you to what you should be focusing on next.
Here's the download link again! I sincerely hope it helps. And if you still need help with your weakest quadrant, ask for marketing help here.
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