The following steps help you find the channels with the best balance between your strengths and your ideal customer’s preferences.

1. Understand Your ICP’s Channel Preferences

Use some or all of the options below to understand your ICP’s channel preferences:

• [ ] Conduct surveys or interviews to determine where your ICP spends their time online.
• [ ] Analyze customer data for patterns in channel and content engagement.
• [ ] Use social listening tools to identify preferred content formats within your industry.
• [ ] Monitor industry reports, trends, and competitors for successful content formats.

2. Collect Channel Data and Industry Benchmarks

• [ ] List all your current content channels (e.g., organic, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit), and the follower/subscriber numbers for each one.
• [ ] Gather conversion rates* for each channel.
• [ ] Collect industry benchmarks for each channel’s conversion rates using one or more of the following options:
  • [ ] Online research with Perplexity.
  • [ ] Source benchmark data from industry research firms, marketing data providers, or a content marketing agency like Animalz. 😊
  • [ ] Access white papers and case studies within your industry.
  • [ ] Use analytic tools that provide benchmarking data for different metrics.
  • [ ] Make a well-reasoned estimate or find a meaningful substitute.

** In the absence of conversion data, you can use traffic or engagement metrics as a fallback option. By using traffic or engagement as a proxy for potential interest, you can still make informed decisions about where to allocate resources. However, always aim to eventually collect and analyze conversion data, as it more accurately reflects the success of your channel in contributing to business objectives.*

3. Plot onto the Channel Growth Quadrant

• [ ] Place a channel on the potential axis by considering the alignment of your existing assets for the channel vs. your ICP's preference.
• [ ] Determine a channel’s place on the utilization axis by comparing its performance to the benchmarks you’ve set.
• [ ] Use the place of each channel on the quadrant to inform your content strategy and channel investments (of both effort and budget).