How to choose marketing channels: the constraint filter method

<p>You have been told to "go where your customers are." This is useless advice. Everyone is everywhere. You are not a billion-dollar enterprise. You are an early-stage founder with two developers, a credit card bill, and 12 waking hours a day.</p> <p>The problem is not lack of channels. The problem is having too many. Every channel demands time, money, and focus—your three non-negotiables. You try a little SEO, a little social, a little email. You end up with 3% results across 10 channels. This feels like chaos. That is because it is.</p> <p>Conventional wisdom says marketing is about addition. For you, it is about subtraction. The job is not finding the best channel; it is finding the only channel that fits your current constraints. This is the Constraint Filter method.</p> <p>We are going to stop adding tactics and start eliminating options. We will treat channel selection like a builder treats dependencies: ruthless simplification until only the one core path remains.</p> <p>TL;DR: The most effective channel for an early-stage startup is the one that minimizes your current biggest constraint, not the one that maximizes potential reach.</p> <p><em>Short on time? Scroll down to the Channel Strategy Builder section for a copy-paste tool.</em></p> <h2>How to choose marketing channels using the Constraint Filter method (four essential steps)</h2> <p>The Constraint Filter method forces you to evaluate every potential channel against your current resources (Time, Cash, and Access) and discard all but one. The goal is singular focus for maximum initial impact. If you try to run multiple channels, you run none effectively.</p> <h3>The Channel-As-Constraint Reframe</h3> <p>A channel is not a platform; it is a resource amplifier. Email marketing amplifies access to an existing audience. Paid ads amplify cash. SEO amplifies time invested into compounding authority. When you lack one resource, you must select the channel that requires the least of it. Ignore all other advice about audience demographics for one hour. You need a win right now. Focus on the plumbing, not the paint.</p> <p>You have permission to ignore the articles that tell you to be on TikTok. If you have no cash for production, no time for editing, and no pre-existing network, TikTok is a distraction, not a channel.</p> <p>Action: Take out a sheet of paper. Draw three columns: Time, Cash, and Access. Under each, list your current biggest limitation (e.g., “I have 1 hour/day for marketing” under Time).</p> <h2>Filter 1: The Cash Constraint</h2> <p>When you are pre-revenue, every dollar matters. You cannot outspend your competitors, so you must out-think them. This eliminates Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and most social advertising immediately. These are channels for companies that have figured out <a href="https://learn.getliftkit.com/learn/marketing-funnels-explained">their funnel math</a> and have cash to burn.</p> <h3>Cash-Poor Channels: Time or Skill-Rich</h3> <p>If cash is your biggest constraint, you must trade time or skill for attention. This leads directly to two channels: Content Marketing (SEO) or Direct Outreach/Community Building.</p> <p>Content is a time sink—it takes six to twelve months to compound—but it costs almost nothing but effort. Direct outreach to communities (Slack, Discord, niche forums) costs nothing but the skill of writing a human email. You can execute a high-impact outreach campaign in the next hour.</p> <p>Example: A new DevOps tool has $500 in the bank. They should not launch Google Ads. They should write 10 hyper-specific articles about niche problems their tool solves (SEO), or spend an hour crafting five personalized emails to influential engineers on relevant Discords (Direct Outreach). This uses existing technical skill (free) to generate early access signups (free).</p> <p>Action: If cash is your primary constraint, commit to one free channel for 30 days. Write one piece of utility content that solves a specific customer problem today. Or send five manual, personalized outreach emails.</p> <h2>Filter 2: The Time Constraint</h2> <p>You are a builder. You should be building. Marketing that demands constant feeding is a liability. Channels that require daily, manual effort—like active social media management or one-to-one sales—are often rejected by the Time Filter.</p> <h3>Time-Poor Channels: Automation or Velocity-Rich</h3> <p>If you lack time, you need systems that run without you. This points toward two channel families: <a href="https://learn.getliftkit.com/learn/email-marketing-strategy">Email Marketing</a> or Paid Ads (if you have the cash). Email can be automated after the initial setup. Paid ads can be set, monitored, and scaled, requiring bursts of attention rather than continuous presence.</p> <p>But the true solution is an asset-based strategy. The content you create must be durable. A great utility article (SEO) is a one-time time investment that works for years. A TikTok video lasts six hours. Choose compounding assets over ephemeral content.</p> <p>A small win you can achieve today: Set up a single, simple automated email sequence. It takes thirty minutes and instantly turns your landing page into a passive lead nurturing machine.</p> <p>Action: Review your current marketing tasks. Identify the one that requires daily effort and find a system to automate it or cut it completely. If you spend time updating Twitter, stop. Move that time to one compounding asset.</p> <h2>Filter 3: The Access Constraint</h2> <p>This is the hardest truth. You can have all the time and money in the world, but if you cannot reach the right person, you fail. Your target customer lives behind a wall. This wall is often proprietary access (e.g., a closed industry conference), specialized knowledge, or a high-value relationship.</p> <h3>Access-Poor Channels: High Specificity</h3> <p>When you need targeted access, volume is the enemy. This is where channel selection shifts from platform (like LinkedIn) to content-delivery vector (like a niche newsletter sponsorship or a guest post on a domain-specific blog). You trade volume for density.</p> <p>If you are building a tool for orthodontists, Google Ads is too broad, and Reddit is irrelevant. Your channel is the Orthodontic Association’s annual journal or their member-only forum. You must get extremely specific about where they spend money and attention.</p> <p>Reframing: Your customer isn't 'everyone who needs a calendar.' They are 'the small business owner who uses four different tools and needs them to talk to each other.' That level of specificity drastically narrows your channel choices, making the decision deterministic.</p> <p>Action: Name the single most exclusive place your target customer spends time online. Then, determine one single action—a sponsorship, a comment, a guest post—you can take to break that wall this week.</p> <h2>The Channel Strategy Builder: The Priority Prompt</h2> <p>The goal is to select one channel, not five. Once you have filtered out options using your constraints, you should have one or two viable paths left. Choose the one that provides the fastest feedback loop (e.g., Direct Outreach is faster than SEO). Focus all resources there until you hit a local maximum, then re-evaluate your constraints.</p> <h3>The Channel Strategy Builder Prompt</h3> <p><strong>Goal:</strong> Select and justify the single best marketing channel for an early-stage startup given current constraints.</p> <p><strong>Copy-Paste Prompt:</strong></p> <pre> Based on the Constraint Filter method, analyze the following situation and recommend the single highest-priority marketing channel for the next 90 days. [YOUR PRODUCT]: [One sentence description of your product and its core value] [YOUR TARGET CUSTOMER]: [Specific title or niche] [PRIMARY CONSTRAINT]: [Time, Cash, or Access] [CURRENT RESOURCES]: [Specific budget, hours per week, and existing audience size] Deliverable 1: The recommended channel and a one-sentence justification based on the primary constraint. Deliverable 2: Two specific, 1-hour actions to execute on this channel immediately. Deliverable 3: The single metric to track to measure success (not vanity metrics). </pre> <p>Example Output:</p> <p>Deliverable 1: Content Marketing (SEO). Justification: Given the severe Cash Constraint ($0 budget), SEO trades a high time investment for zero cash required, creating long-term, free assets.</p> <p>Deliverable 2: 1. Research the top 10 long-tail questions your target customer is asking on Reddit. 2. Write a 500-word answer to the easiest question, focused entirely on utility.</p> <p>Deliverable 3: First-Page Keywords (number of keywords ranking in positions 1-10).</p> <p>This is one of countless interconnected prompts in the LiftKit system, designed to turn vague marketing problems into immediate, actionable tasks.</p> <h2>FAQ</h2> <h3>Q: How do I know if I should choose SEO or PPC?</h3> <p>A: It depends entirely on your constraints. If you have a significant cash reserve and need fast results and immediate feedback on your messaging, <a href="https://learn.getliftkit.com/learn/seo-vs-ppc">PPC is the answer</a>. If you have no budget but plenty of time and are focused on long-term compounding value, choose SEO. They serve different masters; most early founders cannot afford to master both simultaneously. The Constraint Filter makes the decision for you.</p> <h3>Q: When should I start using multiple channels?</h3> <p>A: You should only expand to a second channel once the first channel is systematized, automated, or has demonstrably hit a plateau—meaning you have extracted most of the easy wins. Trying to run SEO, social, and email while defining your <a href="https://learn.getliftkit.com/learn/marketing-strategy-for-startups">marketing strategy</a> guarantees failure across all three. The system must work first. Once one channel operates like a clear, deterministic machine, you can allocate resources to a second one.</p> <h3>Q: How can I choose a channel if my product appeals to multiple audiences?</h3> <p>A: You can’t. The core mistake is believing you have multiple target customers when you are pre-revenue. You must prioritize one niche, one persona, and one singular problem. Your channel choice should align with that single persona's habitat. If you sell an HR tool, pick the Head of HR at a 50-person company and choose the single platform they use for learning—perhaps a specific industry association’s Slack group or a specialized HR newsletter. Read more about <a href="https://learn.getliftkit.com/learn/how-to-build-a-marketing-strategy">how to build a marketing strategy</a> that forces this focus.</p> <h3>Q: If I choose email, how do I build the list without another channel?</h3> <p>A: Email is not an island; it is an amplification system. To build an initial list without a channel like SEO or Paid Ads, you must rely on Access or Direct Outreach. Offer a high-value, niche utility (a spreadsheet template, a brief guide) to a target customer and manually ask ten people per day if they want it. This rapid, focused effort uses <a href="https://learn.getliftkit.com/learn/email-marketing-strategy">email marketing</a> principles without needing massive traffic volumes.</p> <hr> <h2>Start running operator-grade marketing in under an hour.</h2> <p>LiftKit is the only strategy-first AI marketing system built for founders. It distills the same Fortune-500 frameworks used at Apple, Stripe, and McKinsey into a simple, actionable playbook you can run in under an hour.</p> <p>Stop tinkering with tactics. Start operating with strategy.</p> <p><strong><a href="https://getliftkit.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Get LiftKit</a></strong></p> <h2>Keep learning</h2> <p><a href="https://learn.getliftkit.com/frameworks" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Frameworks</strong></a>: Learn proven mental models to diagnose, prioritise, and scale marketing outcomes.</p> <p><a href="https://learn.getliftkit.com/channels" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Channels</strong></a>: Understand which acquisition paths actually work and how to deploy them strategically.</p> <p><a href="https://learn.getliftkit.com/messaging" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Messaging</strong></a>: Build positioning, angle, and copy that converts without guesswork.</p> <p><a href="https://learn.getliftkit.com/strategy" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Strategy</strong></a>: Make smarter decisions using operator-grade prompts and structured thinking.</p> <p><a href="https://learn.getliftkit.com/tools" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Tools</strong></a>: Use AI, automation, and practical templates to move faster.</p> <p><a href="https://learn.getliftkit.com/research" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Research</strong></a>: Tap into market insights, psychology, and patterns that drive effective marketing.</p> <script type='application/ld+json'> { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "headline": "How to choose marketing channels: the constraint filter method", "description": "How to choose marketing channels using the Constraint Filter method (four essential steps)", "articleSection": "learn", "keywords": "how to choose marketing channels, channels, focus, startups", "author": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "LiftKit" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "LiftKit" }, "url": "https://learn.getliftkit.com/learn/how-to-choose-marketing-channels", "mainEntityOfPage": "https://learn.getliftkit.com/learn/how-to-choose-marketing-channels" } </script>