Picks, sequences, and scales the distribution channels that fit a company's economics, producing a scored channel matrix and a 12-month sequencing plan.
Picks, sequences, and scales the distribution channels that fit a company's economics, producing a scored channel matrix and a 12-month sequencing plan. Use when someone asks "which marketing channel should we focus on", "should we do paid or content or outbound", "our growth is stalling across channels", "when do we add a second channel", or "is this channel worth scaling". Do NOT use for auditing an existing paid-ads account - use paid-acquisition-audit instead - for the full go-to-market plan around the channels - use go-to-market-planner instead - or for modeling how channels compound into a growth model - use growth-model instead.This is the skill's description: the text your AI reads to decide when the skill applies.
channel-strategy/SKILL.md
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name: Channel Strategy
description: Picks, sequences, and scales the distribution channels that fit a company's economics, producing a scored channel matrix and a 12-month sequencing plan. Use when someone asks "which marketing channel should we focus on", "should we do paid or content or outbound", "our growth is stalling across channels", "when do we add a second channel", or "is this channel worth scaling". Do NOT use for auditing an existing paid-ads account - use paid-acquisition-audit instead - for the full go-to-market plan around the channels - use go-to-market-planner instead - or for modeling how channels compound into a growth model - use growth-model instead.
---
# Channel Strategy
Most startups die from lack of distribution, not lack of product, and the most common self-inflicted wound is spreading effort across ten channels before any single one works. At any given stage, one channel drives the majority of growth; the job is to find it, saturate it, and only then add the next. This skill produces the scored matrix and the sequencing plan that enforce that focus.
## Operating procedure
Work the steps in order - scoring before sequencing, sequencing before spend - because a sequencing plan built on unscored channels is a wish list.
### Step 1: Gather inputs
Collect these before scoring anything. Label guesses as guesses.
1. ACV (annual contract value) or average order value - this alone eliminates channels.
2. Buyer behavior - do buyers search, scroll, get referred, or get sold to?
3. Current channels and their share of new pipeline or revenue.
4. Current CAC and payback per channel, if known (default: unknown, estimate and flag).
5. Gross margin and retention - payback tolerance depends on both.
6. Cash and team constraints - a channel you cannot staff is not a channel.
### Step 2: Inventory the candidate channels… load the full skill through Skill MeClick to play with sound.