Thoughts
Working notes from twenty-five years in the room — channel by channel, stage by stage. Not hot takes for the sake of it: just what actually moves a commercial number, and what quietly wastes budget.
Editors or event organisers: if you want a senior marketing operator to write or talk straight about this stuff, get in touch.
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The 121: highest trust, lowest volume
The lowest volume on the map and the highest trust. The 121 doesn’t scale — and that’s the entire point. For the moments too important to automate.
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Podcasts: patience as a channel
Six episodes, no leads, channel cancelled — abandoned right before the compounding starts. Podcasts are a long-trust channel: depth, not reach.
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Affiliate: paying for the close
The channel that only charges when it works — in theory. The hardest question in affiliate isn’t how many sales it made. It’s how many would’ve happened anyway.
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What sponsorship actually buys
Bought with the heart, judged with the wrong spreadsheet. Sponsorship doesn’t generate leads — it buys association and presence. How to judge it honestly.
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Events: expensive, and worth it when staged right
The priciest channel per person reached, and the worst-measured. The value of an event isn’t the room — it’s what you do in the three weeks after it.
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PR is a Notices lever you don’t control
Paid media you control and pay for. Earned media you influence and pray for. PR buys association and authority a paid placement can never quite manufacture.
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Content positions; it rarely converts
Everyone agrees they need content; almost nobody can say what it’s for. It rarely converts — and was never meant to. Its job is positioning, not closing.
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LinkedIn organic: the consideration-set channel
When a buyer hears your name, they look you up on LinkedIn before your website. That check happens whether you post or not. The only question is what they find.
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Email nurture runs the long game
Most “email marketing” is a newsletter wearing a lanyard. Nurture is the owned channel that walks a known contact from interested to convinced to renewed.
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Paid search is bought intent — spend it like cash
The most honest channel on the map: the meter never stops. You rent the buyer’s attention by the click, and the landlord raises the rent every quarter.
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Organic search catches the intent you’ve earned
Paid search rents intent by the click. Organic earns it once, then stops charging — the durable answer to the questions buyers ask on the way to a decision.
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Your website is the orchestration layer
Every other channel sends; your website receives. It’s the orchestration layer where each click gets identified, moved a stage — or quietly wasted.
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Being the answer: search’s new front door
There’s no page two of a chat answer. If the assistant names three options in your category and you’re not one of them, you were never in the room.
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Remarketing closes loops. It does not open them
I bought one toilet seat. The ads chased me for weeks. Remarketing’s real job isn’t congratulating buyers — it’s finishing the comparisons that stalled.
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Paid social owns cold reach
The only channel that buys cold reach on purpose — and the one most marketers reduce to a £50 “Boost post.” One platform, three different briefs.
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Organic social is not an awareness channel
Your awareness plan is built on a channel that reaches 2–6% of the people who already follow you. Here’s the job organic social is actually for.