Are You Putting Your Marketing Energy in the Right Place?

Marketing has gotten complicated.

There are more platforms, more tools, more trends and more advice than ever before. Post more. Send more emails. Make more videos. Start a podcast. Improve your SEO. Run ads. Go to networking events. Send direct mail. Build a funnel.

And somewhere along the way, businesses started believing that successful marketing meant doing all of it. It doesn't.

In fact, one of the biggest marketing mistakes I see businesses make isn't that they're not doing enough. It's that they're putting too much time, money and energy into the wrong things.

The better question isn't, "What else should we be doing?"

It's: "Where should we be putting our energy?"

The Three Places Marketing Happens

After decades of working in marketing, I've found that almost everything we call "marketing" fits into three basic channels:

Online. In Print. In Person.

I call it The Marketing Triangle.

• ONLINE includes your website, social media, email marketing, digital advertising, SEO, online reviews, video and all the ways people encounter your business digitally.

• IN PRINT includes brochures, direct mail, signage, print advertising, promotional materials, leave-behinds and other tangible ways your brand shows up in someone's hands or physical environment.

• IN PERSON includes networking, events, speaking, community involvement, sales conversations, referrals, customer experiences and face-to-face relationships.

Most businesses use some combination of all three. But here's where things get interesting: They aren't necessarily equal.

Your Triangle Doesn't Have to Be Balanced

We tend to assume good marketing means spreading our resources evenly across everything. Twenty social posts this month. A newsletter. A brochure. A networking event. Some advertising. Maybe a sponsorship. Check. Check. Check.

But marketing isn't successful because you checked enough boxes. It's successful because it creates connection and moves people toward your business.

For one company, that might happen primarily online. Customers find them through Google, visit their website and make a purchase without ever speaking to anyone.

For another business, referrals and relationships might drive nearly every new opportunity. Their website matters, but mostly because someone who met them at an event or received a referral goes online afterward to check them out.

Another organization might discover that direct mail or print materials consistently outperform its social media efforts.

None of those businesses is doing marketing "wrong." They simply have different triangles. And understanding your triangle can completely change the way you think about marketing.

Find Your Primary Channel

Start by looking backward instead of forward. Think about your last five great customers, clients, donors, members or opportunities.

How did they actually find you?

Not where you wish they found you. Not which platform gets the most likes. Not what the latest marketing expert says you should be doing. Where did they actually come from?

Maybe you'll notice that four of the five came through referrals. Maybe people consistently discover you through Google. Maybe your biggest contracts happen because someone meets you at an event. Maybe a postcard, catalog or print campaign continues to generate sales.

That pattern matters. Because chances are, you've just identified the strongest point of your Marketing Triangle.

Strengthen What's Already Working

Once you identify your strongest channel, your instinct might be to say, "Great! Then we'll stop doing everything else."

Not quite. The other two points of the triangle still matter. Their job is to support your strongest channel.

Imagine you're a professional service business and most of your customers come through referrals and networking. In Person is your primary channel.

That doesn't mean you don't need a strong website. In fact, your website becomes incredibly important because it's often where someone goes after they've heard about you.

Your social media can reinforce your credibility. Your printed materials can help someone remember you after a conversation. Your online and print marketing support the place where your business is actually being generated: relationships.

That's a much different strategy than trying to make social media your primary lead generator simply because everyone tells you that you need to post more.

Stop Measuring Marketing by Activity

This is where businesses can get trapped. We measure how many posts we published.

How many emails we sent. How many events we attended. How many brochures we distributed. Those numbers tell us what we did. They don't necessarily tell us what worked.

Instead, start asking better questions.

• Where are our best customers coming from?

• Which marketing activities consistently lead to conversations?

• What creates referrals?

• What builds trust?

• What makes someone take the next step?

And perhaps most importantly:

What are we spending a lot of time doing that isn't actually producing anything?

That last question can be uncomfortable. But it can also be incredibly freeing.

You Don't Need More Marketing. You Need More Clarity.

There will always be another platform. Another tactic. Another trend. Another person telling you what your business absolutely must be doing. But successful marketing isn't about chasing everything. It's about understanding how people connect with your business and intentionally building around that.

Online. In Print. In Person. All three matter. But they don't have to matter equally. So before you add another marketing tactic to your list, take a look at your own Marketing Triangle.

Ask yourself:

Where are our best opportunities really coming from?

Then stop feeling guilty about everything you're not doing, and start putting more energy into what actually works. Sometimes the smartest marketing strategy isn't doing more.

It's finally getting clear about what deserves more.