This is something early stage founders struggle with a lot. Failure isn’t always a factor of picking the wrong channel.

Sometimes a channel fails because you don’t actually know your Ideal Customer Profile.

Other times it’s because you have the wrong messaging.

Or the wrong Call to Action.

Or the wrong number of touchpoint required to build trust with a customer.

But let’s assume you do know your target customer profile.

And that you have a strong hypothesis of where you can predictably reach them.

Most founders succeed in making a particular channel work because they relentlessly work on that one channel until it starts working.

But here’s a simple framework for knowing when to give up.

And it has to do with two factors.

➕ Complete lack of positive signals

🚫 Poor founder/channel fit

Let’s start with #2.

If you spent the last 10 years managing paid Facebook campaigns for other brands your chances of succeeding with that channel are orders of magnitude higher than someone that’s never done it.

If you’re a great writer ✏️ but feel totally awkward on video your chances of success with written content marketing is infinitely higher than forcing yourself to pump out poor quality videos 🎥

You’re also likely to give up faster on channels that don’t come naturally to you.

So narrow down your list of options to something you’re likely to stick with.

Going back to the original question though, how do you know when to give up?

When I’m testing a new channel I like to see wins quickly.

Wins don’t have to equal ≠ money 💰.

Wins can be:

✅ A new lead that resulted from great engagement on your 20th LinkedIn post

✅ A successful event that drew 100 people

✅ A call scheduled from a well thought out email follow up sequence to your ICP

✅ A 3x increase in clicks to your website from a previously poorly performing Ad

A single win can validate that a particular channel has the propensity to work.

It also can give you important data on what part of the funnel you need to refine or spend more time testing.

When testing a new channel I like to give myself between 7-14 days to see a positive signal.

From there I give myself 30-60 days to refine a channel to see if it can predictably drive leads or revenue.

Some channels take much longer to drive financial outcomes.

SEO and Audience Building are two examples that come to mind.

Expect to spend 6-12 months of consistent daily/weekly output before you see any results.

It’s why I typically recommend investing in those channels only once you identify the target customer profile you know you need to attract.

With everything else make sure you’re optimizing for short term wins.

It’ll give you the motivation to continue to execute on a particular channel.

And ensure that you’re spending your time on something that has a higher probability of actually working in the long run.

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