Sprint Square Three

Square 3 — My Marketing Channels

The message is defined. Now we find where to deliver it.

Purpose: Produce a prioritized Channel Map — a rank-ordered, budgeted list of channels where the target persona can be reached, tied directly to the marketing budget established in Zero Square.

Tone: Strategic and grounded. Comprehensive first, then opinionated. Rule: Research before recommending. The Watering Hole Analysis drives the channel list — don't default to obvious channels without running the research.

The guarantee: When Customer, Offer, Message, and Channel are all validated, marketing works 100% of the time. Squares 1 and 2 validated the Customer and the Message. Square 3 validates the Channel.

Sub-skill this square uses:

• watering-hole-analysis — research workflow, narrative report, Channel Map

Segue from Square 2

Bridge from messaging before starting channel work:

"We know who [Persona Name] is, what pain they carry, and what we want them to believe. The question now is: where do we find them — before they find us?"

Introduce the Three Components of Campaign Success:

• Market — defined in Square 1 ✓
• Message — defined in Square 2 ✓
• Media — what we're solving in Square 3

"Failing on any one of these three kills the campaign. We've done the hard work on Market and Message. Now we get the Media right."

Key principle to set upfront:

"'Getting your name out there' is not a marketing strategy. Every channel we choose will be measurable and tied to our acquisition cost target."

Section 1 — Owned, Earned, and Paid

Facilitated discussion — no deliverable. 10–15 minutes.

Introduce the three-category framework as a mental model before diving into research.

Owned — assets the business controls outright: website, email list, blog, podcast, social profiles. No platform can take these away. Every paid and earned channel should ultimately drive traffic into owned assets.

Earned — built through relationships and reputation: referrals, word of mouth, press, reviews, speaking, organic community participation. Highest trust, lowest cost per acquisition, slowest to build.

Paid — requires spend to activate: search ads, social ads, sponsorships, retargeting, event booths. Fastest to turn on, fastest to turn off. Requires consistent investment to sustain.

Owned-first principle: Build on what you own before renting someone else's platform. Social media is rented land — algorithms change, reach gets throttled, platforms fade. The email list is yours. The website is yours.

"If every social media platform disappeared tomorrow, could you still reach your audience? If the answer is no, that's a risk — and a priority."

Section 2 — Hunting vs. Farming

Brief orientation — 5 minutes.

Hunting is sales-driven — actively going out to find buyers now. Cold outreach, paid ads, events. Fast to activate, requires constant effort to sustain.

Farming is marketing-driven — building an audience and ecosystem that produces buyers over time. Content, email, SEO, community. Slower to build, compounds.

Neither is wrong. Most businesses need both. The channel mix should reflect the right balance for where this business is today.

Fishing net (April Dunford): Fish where your best customers are actually swimming. The channel mix should follow the evidence — what the market tells you — not the assumption. The Watering Hole Analysis is how we find out where the fish are.

Facilitation prompt:

"Which channels will pay the bills in the next 90 days, and which ones are we planting seeds in for next year? Let's be honest about which bucket we need to prioritize right now."

Section 3 — Watering Hole Analysis

Hand off to watering-hole-analysis skill.

Run the full Watering Hole Analysis. The skill will:

1. Collect inputs (persona, product/service, location, context)
2. Execute the three-prompt research workflow
3. Produce the narrative report
4. Extract the full channel list into the Channel Map spreadsheet

The Channel Map at this stage has channels logged but Quality and Cost fields left blank — scrubbing and scoring happen next.

Section 4 — Channel Map: Scrub and Score

With the Watering Hole Analysis complete and the Channel Map populated, run the two-phase prioritization session.

Phase 1 — Scrub (15–20 min)

Go through the Channel Map row by row. Remove channels that are obviously not candidates:

• Wrong audience for this persona
• Irrelevant geography
• Defunct or inactive
• Category mismatch with the product/service

This step is binary: keep or cut. No scoring yet. If there's any plausible case for a channel, keep it — the scoring step handles prioritization. Only cut what is clearly not a fit.

Phase 2 — Score (20–30 min)

With the scrubbed list, work through each remaining channel with the client — or assign the client to complete it independently before the next session.

Quality (1–5):

"Is our persona actually here and reachable? Would we find [Persona Name] in this channel in a meaningful way?"

• 5 = Perfect fit — persona is highly concentrated here, actively engaged
• 4 = Strong fit — good concentration, accessible
• 3 = Moderate — persona present but diffuse or hard to reach
• 2 = Weak — peripheral presence only
• 1 = Poor — persona rarely here or wrong context entirely

Cost (S / M / L / XL): Estimate total investment to activate and sustain — media spend + time + production.

• S (Small): Under ~$500/month — organic, free, or minimal spend
• M (Medium): ~$500–$2,500/month — moderate paid or time investment
• L (Large): ~$2,500–$10,000+ — significant campaign or sponsorship
• XL (Extra-Large): $10,000+/month or major one-time commitment

Weighted Score calculates automatically:

(Quality × 200) + Cost Offset (S=150, M=100, L=50, XL=0)

Sort by Weighted Score descending. The top 3–5 channels become the plan.

Section 5 — Budget Allocation

Return to Zero Square. The Marketing Budget Required is already on the board. Allocate it across the top-ranked channels from the Channel Map.

"We have $[budget] to work with. Looking at our top channels — how do we distribute this to maximize reach to [Persona Name] while keeping CAC at or below $[target]?"

Rough allocation framework:

• Prioritize owned channel development (website, email) before paid
• At least one hunting channel (paid/outbound) to fund near-term pipeline
• At least one farming channel (content/SEO/community) for long-term equity
• Reserve a testing budget (10–15%) for channels ranked 4–5 on the list

Deliverables

Facilitator Notes

• Don't recommend channels before running the research. The obvious channels (LinkedIn, Google ads) may not be where this persona actually is. Let the Watering Hole Analysis surface the real list.
• The scrub must happen before the score. Scoring a list that still contains obvious rejects wastes session time and creates noise.
• The Channel Map is a living document. It gets updated as channels are tested and results come in. It's not a one-time output — it's the execution tracking doc.
• Tie every channel decision back to the budget number. The Zero Square math is on the board for a reason. Every channel should have an estimated CAC attached to it before the sprint closes.
• Owned channels are often underinvested. Clients tend to default to paid. Make the case for email list building and SEO if it's not already a priority.