Choosing Your Marketing Channels
Don't be on every channel. Be on the right 2-3 channels — and dominate them. Here's how to choose, and when to expand.
Choosing Your Marketing Channels
The biggest channel mistake isn't picking the wrong channel — it's being on seven channels badly instead of two channels well. Companies spread themselves across LinkedIn, Meta, TikTok, YouTube, email, events, PR, and a podcast, then wonder why nothing works. None of them work, because none of them get enough attention to work. Pick two. Maybe three. Dominate them.
The 4 questions
Before choosing a channel, answer four questions in order:
- Where does your audience spend time? Not where you'd like them to be — where they actually are.
- Where do they make buying decisions? Attention and decision happen in different places. LinkedIn gets attention; a sales call gets the decision.
- What can you sustain? A channel you can't feed with content or budget for six months is worse than no channel.
- What fits your budget? TikTok looks free; it isn't — production, talent, and testing cost real money.
Answer all four. If a channel fails any one of them, drop it.
Channel options
For MENA B2B, the realistic channel set is small:
- LinkedIn — organic and paid, the default for B2B reach in the Gulf and Egypt
- Events and conferences — still the highest-trust B2B channel in this region
- Content marketing — SEO-driven articles, gated reports, newsletters
- Partnerships — channel partners, integrations, co-marketing
- Email — only works if you've earned the list, not bought it
For B2C in MENA:
- Meta (Facebook + Instagram) — the workhorse for most consumer brands
- TikTok — fastest-growing, younger skew, lower production expectations
- WhatsApp — direct, personal, underused for B2C marketing in this region
- Influencers — micro-influencers convert better than celebrities, almost always
Pick from this list. Resist the urge to add channels not on it unless you have a specific reason.
How to choose
Start with one acquisition channel and one engagement channel.
Acquisition = where new prospects discover you. Engagement = where you nurture them toward a decision.
For a B2B SaaS company in Egypt: acquisition = LinkedIn; engagement = email + sales calls. For a B2C fashion brand: acquisition = Instagram ads; engagement = WhatsApp + SMS.
Run each channel for 90 days before judging. Channels need time to compound — judging at 30 days is the most common reason companies abandon channels that would have worked.
Kill a channel only when you have clear evidence it doesn't work for your audience — not because it didn't work in week two.
When to expand
Expand your channel mix when your current channels are saturated. The signal is rising CAC — the same campaign that delivered leads at 50 EGP last quarter now costs 120 EGP. That's saturation.
Don't expand because you're bored. Don't expand because a competitor launched on TikTok. Expand when the data tells you the existing channel has peaked.
When you add a channel, fund it properly — pull budget from a saturated channel rather than diluting the working ones. Two strong channels beat five mediocre ones every time. And before adding a new channel, get your budget right.
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