I don’t like it when people rattle off a long list of all possible marketing channels, because it doesn’t fit a framework and is easy to forget. What's way more valuable is to give you all the options within a unifying structure, so that you can decide what is best for your store.
Remember, you want to use the different marketing channels as tools in a toolkit, just like a mechanic can choose which tool to use from his garage arsenal.
Let’s start with the 2 main distinctions within marketing:
Paid vs. Organic marketing
Warm vs. Cold marketing
I’ll clarify each of the distinctions now and then bring everything together towards the end.
1.) So, PAID vs. ORGANIC:
Run Paid Ads: run paid marketing campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Google, TikTok, Snapchat, Youtube, X, or any other platform that gives you reach (i.e. eyeballs) in exchange for you money
Organic traffic: you create content about your product or service, which gets “free” traffic to your website
Ok let’s assume you don’t want to spend your hard earned money on paid ads straight away. Well then start creating content, you’ll need it anyway.
Here you have a few options (this graph makes a global point but it also applies to Ecommerce, full credit to Lennysnewsletter where this graph was made):
You can:
Create the content yourself (or hire someone), described as ‘Editorial’ here
Let your customers create your content for you (user generated content or UGC)
This content can either be geared towards virality (think TikTok) or optimized for ranking / SEO (think store blog that you want to rank top of Google etc.).
As a side note, there are stores that ask their customers to post their favorite picture/video of using their product, compile that, repost and put it on their website for social proof to attract new customers. Works beautifully.
Also remember you can create content in:
Video form
Audio form
Written from
Those are literally the only options you have. So choose the one(s) that fit best with your strengths and start producing content. Have no idea where to start? Here are a few topics that will help you:
Choose any niche or product and think of:
Interesting fact about it
Say something funny about it
Say something provocative about it
Gamify it somehow
Ask you potential customer a question about it
Tie it with some relevant current events
The list goes on but hopefully this gives you the first ideas, which then snowball into many other ones.
2.) Warm vs. Cold Outreach:
Intuitively, you probably already know what this means.
Cold outreach is marketing to strangers, so people who never heard about you or your brand before.
Warm outreach is marketing to people who already interacted with your store or know you.
Of course warm vs. cold is on a spectrum and not a binary option.
This distinction applies everywhere, including the paid and organic channels described above.
If you launch your first FB ad for your product, that is cold outreach. If you then retarget your past purchasers, well then that’s already much much warmer.
If you start sending out cold emails from an email list you got online, well that’s very cold by definition. If you send the same email to a list of colleagues you previously worked with, well that’s warm. ETC.
This applies to any channel. Why is this distinction important? Warm marketing is generally easier and cheaper to convert than cold marketing. However there are of course classic tradeoffs. Cold marketing can provide way more scale, whereas warm will always be a fraction of that. Ultimately you should use both and make sure they compliment each other.
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Ok now with those distinctions made, I’ll present you with a graph I made several years ago:
At the time, I didn’t have a solid framework in mind and was just putting down everything I thought my store should do. To be clear, it was a good starting point, but the depth was missing.
The point of this graph was that any Shopify store should have a diversified mix of marketing channels, to not be reliant on any one. I still stand by this today. If your store is making 80% of your revenue from Instagram, then your business is vulnerable to that platform (and being kicked off at some point).
But the bigger point is that now if someone presents you with such a ‘marketing list’, you can put things into place better. Since now we covered:
Paid vs. organic
Warm vs. Cold
SEO vs. UGC for content
Video vs. Audio vs. Text
Ultimately there will always be tradeoffs between the various marketing channels. You need to customize the marketing mix that fits YOUR store needs. Hopefully now you are now better equipped with the tools and framework to make those decisions.
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PS, in case you do just want a bucket list of marketing channels for your Shopify store, I’ve added them below. Even though I did caution against such lists in the beginning, I think there is a use case to use them as a checklist once you understand the frameworks above.
Paid marketing campaigns
Facebook, IG, Google, Youtube, TikTok, Snapchat, X, LinkedIn Ads etc.
Organic posting on social media and other platforms
Post content on platforms above (video, audio and text)
Podcasting (primarily audio)
Blogging (primarily text_
SEO
Onsite & Offsite SEO
Pay for PR Press articles
Get local press coverage
Email marketing Mass Volume (Cold)
Email marketing Klaviyo (Warm)
Influencer marketing
Affiliate marketing
Refer a Friend schemes (Referral marketing)
Post purchase email, SMS or push notifications marketing
Word of Mouth
Physical events
Get featured on product review blog posts
Get included in gift guides
Direct mail marketing
SEO on external marketplace (Amazon, Ebay, Etsy etc.)
→ If I missed something, let me know!
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For more detailed overview on marketing channels see:
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