Playbook / Lessons / Partners and paid growth
StartupsCompare channels on cost and setup time first
Balfour describes a channel matrix in which you score channels on targeting, cost, input time, output time, control and scale. He notes that costs differ widely, with a blog sponsorship costing about a thousand dollars upfront while Facebook ads can begin with very little. A search channel like AdWords needs little setup time.
“A channel like Google Adwords has a really low input time.”— Brian Balfour, 5 Steps To Choose Your Customer Acquisition Channel, May 2013
Do this
Build a one-page table this week with your five candidate channels, mark the upfront cost and days to first result for each, and pick the cheapest one to test first with a small spending cap.