Why I Choose to Focus on One Marketing Channel at a Time

I feel like there’s an overarching maximalist mindset in marketing these days.

And it’s easy to see why.

Brands have never had more strategies to choose from.

There’s content marketing, social media, SEO, email, PPC, and influencer marketing, just to name a few.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, and this doesn’t even take into account more traditional offline techniques that many companies still utilize.

In turn, I think many brands are suffering from exhaustion and fatigue.

They’re experiencing marketing overload.

I also think marketers don’t always extract the full potential from their strategies.

Before they can see one channel through to completion, they’ve already started working on three more channels.

If I’ve learned anything during my years as a marketer, it’s that simplicity is usually the key to success.

Because of that, I choose to focus on only one marketing channel at a time.

Here’s why.

I don’t spread myself too thin

You know that old saying that if you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one?

I think this applies to marketing as well.

Jumping in head first and attempting to manage, say, four or five different channels can be overwhelming, and you’re unlikely to kill it at any strategy.

Even if you’re a savvy marketer who knows the ins and outs of the process, you simply can’t devote the necessary time to extract the full potential of any single channel.

Just look at the amount of time most marketers spend each week performing routine tasks:

But when you concentrate wholeheartedly on one channel, you can give it a 100% effort.

This helps you not only run your marketing campaign at a high level but also achieve the desired results faster.

Working on too many marketing channels at once is kind of like being a jack of all trades and master of none.

Placing your attention on a single channel allows you to master that channel before moving on to the next strategy.

Managing multiple channels can quickly become chaotic and stressful

Did you know that the average B2B content marketer creates 13 types of content?

You heard it right—13!

That, in and of itself, is a lot of work.

And just imagine combining that with multiple other channels at the same time.

Things would get hectic in a hurry.

Social media can be pretty intense as well. The average B2B content marketer is active on six different networks:

Even if you’re posting the same content on each network, it’s still going to be time-consuming.

I can almost guarantee you’ll feel burned out and the overall effectiveness of each channel will be marginal.

And this is going to be even worse if you’re new to marketing and/or have a small marketing team.

Or what if you’ve got a mountain of other business-related tasks on your plate?

There are just not enough hours in the day to devote to your marketing to ensure everything is operating at full capacity.

As a result, certain areas of your marketing campaign are bound to suffer.

Focusing on one marketing channel allows me to continually chip away at it and be highly effective.

I’m far less likely to become overwhelmed, and I can ensure that the specific channel I’m working on is reaching my target audience, generating leads, and leading to conversions.

In other words, it allows me to maximize my ROI without losing my mind along the way.

I ensure I get it right

Would you rather be a virtuoso at playing one musical instrument or a sub-par musician playing four or five?

I personally would prefer to be an expert at a single instrument.

I apply the same approach to marketing.

I would much rather devote the majority of my time to a single channel and completely crush it instead of working on a handful of channels and being painfully mediocre.

After all, what’s the point of spending any time whatsoever on a tactic if it’s not giving you any tangible results?

To me, it makes way more sense to give maximum effort to a single channel and make it incredibly successful rather than working on multiple channels half-heartedly.

Multitasking minimizes my impact

Working on multiple marketing channels simultaneously is a lot like multitasking because you’re constantly bouncing from one technique to another.

But numerous studies have found that multitasking isn’t as good as it may seem.

In fact, it can be quite detrimental to your efficiency and overall productivity.

A study from the University of London even “revealed that subjects who multitasked while performing brain-intensive tasks demonstrated IQ drops similar to people who are sleep-deprived or smoked marijuana.”

If you’re looking for a scientific explanation of this phenomenon, neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin offers one.

According to him,

Multitasking has been found to increase the production of the stress hormone cortisol as well as the fight-or-flight hormone adrenaline, which can overstimulate your brain and cause mental fog or scrambled thinking.

The founder and chief technology officer of Wordstream, Larry Kim, even stated in an article for Observer that…

…you’re actually hurting your brain by juggling several undertakings at once.

The bottom line is that trying to focus on too many marketing channels at the same time is usually counterproductive and is only going to reduce the impact of your overall campaign.

But focusing on just one at a time allows you to be as effective and efficient as possible.

It costs less

There’s also the topic of money.

It’s been found that 89% of marketers are maintaining or increasing their inbound budgets.

Implementing only one marketing channel at a time will cost you considerably less than pursuing a multi-channel approach.

According to an article on LinkedIn,

…it has even been estimated that a single-channel marketing strategy can cost as much as one-third less than multiple-channel strategies.

If you’re dealing with a fairly small budget, utilizing several techniques may simply not be in the cards for you from a financial standpoint.

Things can get especially ugly if more than one of those techniques tank, and it’s obviously going to hurt your ROI.

When I was starting out, the financial resources were often scarce.

Focusing on one marketing channel at a time enabled me to maximize the money I funneled into my campaign.

It allows me to outperform my competitors

When it’s all said and done, the absolute most important part of any marketing campaign is its ability to target the right demographic.

And let’s be honest. Using a smorgasbord of techniques typically means that each individual technique is less likely to hit its target.

When I divvy up my time across multiple channels, I minimize the effectiveness of any single one.

For this reason, it makes it really difficult to truly stand out from the competition and thrive within my industry.

I’m not really doing anything special or excelling at any particular strategy.

But concentrating on only one channel puts me in a position for success.

Because I eat, sleep, and breathe that one channel for a period of time, it’s more likely to flourish and grow.

In some cases, I can even dominate.

That’s because most of the competition has a maximalist mindset, trying to have their hand in everything rather than focusing on—and succeeding—in one area.

A final note

Just to be clear, I’m not saying you should limit yourself to just one marketing channel.

That’s not what I’m saying at all.

In fact, I would never recommend putting all your eggs in one basket.

What I am saying is that you’re likely to reduce your marketing impact if you go overboard and spread yourself too thin—especially during the initial stages of a campaign.

For me, it makes way more sense to focus on a single channel, bring it to full capacity, and maximize its impact.

Once it’s established and stabilized, you can move on to the next channel.

In other words, simplify your efforts by working on one channel, and get it running like a well-oiled machine before moving on.

Over time, this approach should help you develop a strong marketing campaign, with no weak links but with techniques that carry their weight.

Conclusion

I know it may seem tempting to experiment with a plethora of marketing channels.

After all, you’ll want to see what sticks.

But I know this mentality has gotten me into trouble in the past, and I know it can curtail the progress of each individual channel.

For me, a more effective and practical approach is to focus on one marketing channel at a time.

Doing so allows me to:

• Manage each channel at a high level
• Minimize my stress
• Maximize my impact
• Save money
• Better reach my core audience
• Outperform primary competitors

Only once I’ve gotten a channel to where it needs to be, I move on to the next.

That way I know I’m never shortchanging a marketing channel, giving it the best possible chance to prosper.

How many marketing channels are you currently implementing?

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