Debate / Editorial comparison
Choose the audience or find the channel first?
Seth Godin and Rand Fishkin offer two starting points for a team deciding where its first campaign belongs.
Read the two arguments
Social Signal Playbook brings together two separately published works. The interpretation and exercise are the editors’.
Seth Godin
Godin’s specialist audio example starts with the people a business can serve unusually well. Defining that group gives a team a reason to decline placements that reach many other people.
Rand Fishkin
Fishkin uses web traffic estimates to examine where attention goes before a search. Those observations can uncover overlooked outlets. The data has limits, including activity inside mobile apps.
A decision in practice
Imagine a supplier selling quiet equipment to independent recording studios. An industry newsletter looks small next to a general music channel. Defining the studio buyer makes the newsletter worth investigating. Looking at actual audience behavior tests whether that assumption survives contact with the market.
Try it yourself
Write a one-sentence description of a customer you can serve well. Ask three such customers where they recently learned about a purchase. Check one of the named outlets before choosing a placement.