Back to the on-screen lesson ·
A channel fits when it reaches the named customers where and when they decide; count segment reach — audience times the share in the segment — rather than audience size.
Paper packet. Every task here also exists on screen, where it is checked automatically; answers written on paper are not assessed by Nydus. When you are back at a device, enter your answers there.
You will match segments to the channels present where they decide, count each channel's segment reach rather than its audience, and draw the path by which a customer arrives at an order.
You have a segment, a promise and a test. None of it matters until the right people hear about the offer. A channel is how they hear, and this unit is about choosing, paying for and measuring channels. This first lesson chooses them; the next two put a price and a fit on them.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Channel | A route by which a customer learns of and reaches the business: a sign, a newsletter, a partner, a listing, a stall. |
| Audience | Everyone a channel reaches, whether or not they could buy. |
| Decision point | Where and when the customer actually decides. |
| Segment reach | How many members of the segment a channel reaches: audience times share. |
| Partner channel | Another business that is trusted at the customer's decision point. |
| Customer path | The steps a customer takes from a need to an order. |
Every segment has a moment when it decides, and a place where that happens. Tenants moving out decide who will clean when their property manager tells them about the inspection. A commuter decides on the day the chain snaps, somewhere on the route to work. An office manager decides on Tuesday, looking at the office park newsletter for Friday's lunch. The channel that works is whatever is already present at that moment: a card in the agent's office, a sign by the cycle path, an advert in that newsletter.
Owners are drawn instead to size: the account with 6,000 followers, the radio station everyone listens to. Size is the wrong number. Count segment reach:
$$\text{segment reach} = \text{audience} \times \frac{\text{share in the segment}}{100}$$
If 2 percent of those 6,000 followers are about to move out, the account reaches 120 of them, spread over months and mostly not at the moment they choose. Two property managers who hand a card to the 45 tenants a month giving notice reach fewer people, all of them in the segment, all of them at the decision.
Another way: table
Audience against segment reach, one month.
| Channel | Audience | Share in segment | Segment reach | At the decision? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Social account | 6,000 | 2% | 120 | rarely |
| Property managers' cards | 45 | 100% | 45 | yes |
| Local radio | 40,000 | 0.1% | 40 | no |
Another way: steps
A reliable way to find the decision point is to draw the path a customer takes, using the last-time stories from lesson 5: what happened, where they went, who they asked, what they found. For the office manager: a meeting is booked, so lunch is needed, so she checks the newsletter, so she orders. The channel is a link on that path. A billboard on the highway is not on it at all, however many cars pass.
Paths often run through other businesses: the property manager, the shop-fitter, the school gate, the vet's front desk. These partners are often the cheapest channels a small business has, because they are already trusted at the moment of decision. Channels built on another business's customers come with obligations: asking before handing out anything, and respecting rules about marketing to people who have not agreed to it. The federal CAN-SPAM Act, for example, sets rules for commercial email, and some states add their own, so agree terms with the partner first.
Name the segment and its decision. Not 'people who need cleaning' but 'tenants who have just given notice and face an inspection'.
Draw the path. From the situation that creates the need, through every place the customer goes and every person they ask, to the order.
List the channels on the path. A channel counts only if it sits on a link the customer actually travels.
Work out segment reach. Audience times the share in the segment, divided by a hundred. A partner whose every customer is in the segment reaches its whole audience.
Choose. Prefer the channel present at the decision. Among those, prefer the larger segment reach. A channel off the path is a last resort, however large it is.
Check the answer. The segment reach can never exceed the audience. The share must be the share in this segment, not in the general public. And the path must come from what real customers did, not from where the owner imagines they go: if no last-time story mentions a channel, it is not on the path yet.
Multiplying the audience by the share is allowed because a percentage is so many out of each hundred: 2 percent of 6,000 is 2 out of every hundred, sixty hundreds, so 120 people. It assumes the segment is spread evenly through the audience. Where it is not, such as a newsletter that goes mainly to retired readers, use the share among the people who actually read it.
Preferring the decision point over raw reach is allowed because reach away from the decision has to be remembered later, and most of it is forgotten. A card handed over with the notice to vacate does not need to be remembered; it is in the tenant's hand at the moment they choose.
Drawing the path from real stories is needed because owners and customers rarely travel the same paths. An owner who spends time on social media tends to assume customers find businesses there; the stories say otherwise more often than owners expect.
A business with two segments usually needs two channels. Neighborhood Kitchen's office lunches are chosen from the office park newsletter, but its family dinners are chosen on the walk home past the window, so the window board is a channel in its own right, with its own message. Northside Repairs reaches commuters by the cycle path and weekend riders through the local cycling club's ride calendar.
Trying to reach every segment with one channel usually means reaching each of them badly: a message general enough for everyone speaks to no one's decision. Start with the segment that matters most, find its channel, and make that work before adding the next.
A partner channel works when it helps the partner too. A property manager wants tenants to pass inspection, because a failed inspection means disputes and delays. A cleaner who reliably gets tenants through is solving the manager's problem, which is why the card gets handed over. A fitter wants cafés to open on time with everything they need, so a reliable tableware supplier makes the fitter look good.
Agree the terms in writing, even briefly: what is handed out, to whom, and whether any referral fee is paid. Where a fee is paid, rules in some fields require it to be disclosed to the customer; real estate and health care, for instance, have their own limits on referral payments. Check before offering money, and when in doubt, offer a better service rather than cash.
A channel choice is a guess until the business knows where its orders came from. The simplest record is one question at the first contact: 'How did you hear about us?' Write the answer in the booking log, in the customer's words, and group the answers at the end of each month.
Make the question easy to answer truthfully. Offer a short list that matches the channels the business actually uses, plus 'other', so the answers can be counted. A different code or phone number on each printed card, or a separate web address for each partner, records the channel without asking at all.
After three months the log shows which channels bring customers in the segment and which bring people who never buy. That count is the starting point for the next lesson, which puts a price on each new customer, and for the one after, which asks whether a channel's customers are the right ones. A channel that brings nobody after a fair trial can be dropped without regret; the record says so, not a feeling. A channel that brings a steady trickle of the right customers deserves more attention, not less.
A two-person cleaning business in Chicago spent its first year posting on social media and paying for a neighborhood advert. Its followers grew to about 3,000, and bookings barely moved. When the owners asked their last 20 move-out customers how they had found a cleaner, 14 said the same thing: the building manager gave them a list when they handed in their notice.
The owners worked out segment reach. Perhaps 1 percent of their followers were moving out in any month, so the account reached about 30 people in the segment, at no particular moment. Six large apartment buildings in their area had about 50 move-outs a month between them, and every one of those tenants met the building manager at exactly the moment they needed a cleaner.
They visited the managers, offered a short checklist of what inspections look for, and asked to be on the list. Four of the six agreed. Within three months, move-out cleans from those buildings made up more than half of the business, and the managers reported fewer disputes over deposits. The social account still runs, but the owners now treat it as a place for proof, such as before-and-after photos, rather than as their main channel.
Map and search listings have become a channel in their own right for urgent needs: a locksmith, a bike repair, a plumber. Search engines and map apps let a business list its hours, location and services free of charge, and customers in a hurry often choose from the first few results near them. For a business whose customers decide on the day, keeping that listing accurate is often worth more than any advert.
Choose the channel with the most followers. Audience is not segment reach, and reach away from the decision point rarely converts.
One channel suits every segment. Each segment decides somewhere different.
A channel is an advert. A partner, a sign, a listing or a party bag can be a better channel than any advert.
Use the channel competitors use. They may be reaching a different segment, or wasting their money.
Customers find businesses the way the owner does. The path comes from customers' stories, not from the owner's habits.
Name the segment and its decision.
$\text{commuters with a broken bike, that day}$
The decision cannot wait.
Draw the path.
$\text{breaks} \to \text{searches nearby} \to \text{walks in}$
From last-time stories.
List the channels on it.
$\text{map listing; sign on the path}$
Both sit on the path.
Rule out a channel off the path.
$\text{radio: } 0 \text{ stories mention it}$
Not on any customer's path.
Choose the channel to use.
$\text{the sign and the listing}$
Present at the decision.
Name the segment.
$\text{tenants giving notice}$
They face an inspection.
Work out the account's reach.
$6000 \times 2 \div 100 = 120$
Two percent of followers are moving out.
Note when they see it.
$\text{spread over months}$
Mostly not when they decide.
Work out the cards' reach.
$45 \times 100 \div 100 = 45$
Every card goes to the segment.
Note when they see it.
$\text{with the notice to vacate}$
Exactly when they decide.
Choose the channel to use.
$\text{start with the cards}$
Smaller reach, but all at the decision.
Name the segment.
$\text{cafés opening within three months}$
They still need tableware.
Read the last-time stories.
$4 \text{ of } 4 \text{ bought on the fitter's advice}$
The decision point is the fit-out.
Work out the magazine's reach.
$5000 \times 1 \div 100 = 50$
One percent of readers.
Work out the network's reach.
$400 \times 10 \div 100 = 40$
Ten percent of members.
Work out the fitter's reach.
$60$
Every client is opening a café.
Rank the three channels.
$60 > 50 > 40$
And only the fitter is at the decision.
Set up the partner.
$\text{a sample cup and card with each new client}$
It helps the fitter's cafés open well equipped.
Say when shoppers decide.
$\text{Saturday morning, at the market}$
They want the week's vegetables in one stop.
Find the channel present then.
$\text{a board at the entrance}$
Seen on the way in.
Add a way to commit.
Match each segment to the channel where its members make the decision.
| Cards with property managers | The office park newsletter | The local business network | A sign on the cycle path | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tenants moving out | ||||
| Office managers booking a Friday lunch | ||||
| Cafés about to open | ||||
| Commuters with a broken bike |
Complete the worked solution: a local social account has $1000$ followers, about $4$ percent of them tenants about to move out. Property managers hand Bright Home Cleaning's card to $124$ tenants a month as they give notice. Find one percent of the followers, the account's segment reach, and how many more move-out tenants the cards reach.
Find one percent of the followers.
$(\text{followers}) \div \text{a hundred} =$ o
A percentage is so many hundredths.
Find the account's segment reach.
$(\text{one percent}) \times (\text{share}) =$ x
Only followers in the segment count.
Compare it with the cards.
$(\text{cards a month}) - (\text{segment reach}) =$ d
Every card goes to someone in the segment.
Say which channel is at the decision.
$\text{the cards, handed over with the notice}$
Reach at the moment of choice is what converts.
Northside Repairs wants more commuters whose bike has just broken. Which channel reaches them where they decide?
Maya compares three channels for cafés about to open. A national design magazine has $5000$ readers, $1$ percent of them opening a café soon. The local business network has $400$ members, $10$ percent opening a café soon. A shop-fitting firm works with $60$ new cafés a year, all of them opening. Rank the channels by cafés about to open that each reaches, most first.
Number the steps in order (write the number in the box):
Draw the path an office manager takes to Neighborhood Kitchen's Friday lunch. Use 'leads to' for each step on the path.
This task has no paper form; do it on a device.
Bright Home Cleaning compares two channels for its move-out clean. A local social account has $5300$ followers, of whom about $1$ percent are tenants about to move out. Two property managers hand out cards to the $20$ tenants a month who give notice. Fill in how many move-out tenants each channel reaches a month.
| Move-out tenants reached a month | |
|---|---|
| Social account | |
| Property managers |
A dog groomer in Denver wants owners of new puppies. A citywide pet magazine has $1200$ readers, about $5$ percent of them with a new puppy. A veterinary clinic nearby hands the groomer's card to the $113$ new puppy owners it sees each month. How many more puppy owners a month does the clinic reach than the magazine?
Answer:
A soft-play center wants more children's birthday parties. Parents usually choose a venue when an invitation comes home from school and they compare notes at the school gate. Which channel fits that decision?
Lesson test: one question per skill, one attempt each, no hints. Your answers are checked when you submit.
Maya weighs three channels for cafés about to open. A trade magazine has $4000$ readers, $1$ percent of them opening a café soon. A regional business network has $500$ members, $2$ percent opening a café soon. A shop-fitting firm works with $88$ new cafés a year, all of them opening. Fill in how many cafés about to open each channel reaches in a year.
| Cafés about to open reached a year | |
|---|---|
| Trade magazine | |
| Business network | |
| Shop-fitting firm |
You can choose a channel by where the segment decides and show with segment reach why a big audience can reach fewer of the right people. Tell someone why a property manager can beat a big social account. Next: what a new customer cost.
17. Your turn: Monica's weekly bag, step 3
$\text{a pre-order sheet on the stall}$
Turns a glance into an order.