Underused Marketing Channels That Can Boost Results Without a Bigger Ad Budget
Most marketing budgets go to the same few places: Google, Meta and LinkedIn. That's where the competition is too, so costs keep rising and results get harder to win. Meanwhile, some channels that reach the same buyers get far less attention, from answer engines like ChatGPT to the reply button on your own newsletter.
We asked marketers, founders and agency leaders which channels they think are most underused. Here are their picks, grouped by type, with our view on which deserve a test.
Underused channels at a glance
Channel | Why it's underused | Contributor |
|---|---|---|
AI search and answer engines | Most brands haven't optimized for them yet | Brandy Morton |
Working notes and honest lessons | Feels risky to publish | Nick Sawinyh, Veodyn |
Searches by existing customers | Rarely tracked | Keith Holloway, PureSEM |
A precise topic cluster | Brands try to cover everything | Natalia Maganda |
Educational YouTube channel | Brands make ads instead of answers | Seth Wingate, Turnstone Video |
Email to people who opted in | Seen as old-fashioned | Jason Bland, Custom Legal Marketing |
Newsletter replies as research | Most emails are sent from "no-reply" | Lilach Bullock |
Behavior-triggered emails | Takes setup time | Eric Gantz, Verena Street Coffee |
Post-visit follow-up emails | Forgotten after the sale | Cheryl Cullen, Visit London Taxi Tours |
People-led LinkedIn | Brands post from company pages | Mark Huntley, Citeworks Studio |
Brands fear it | James East, countrygenerator.com | |
Support as marketing | Seen as a cost center | Brittany Weber, Wightman Telecom |
Google Business Profile | Treated as a one-time setup | Avram Gonzales, Digital Harvest |
Post-click experience | Teams buy more traffic instead | James Weiss, Big Drop |
Security questionnaires | Treated as paperwork | Sherif Koussa, Software Secured |
Content partnerships | Take effort to coordinate | Steven Mitts |
Search channels most brands overlook
Get found in AI search
Brandy Morton, Founder and CEO of Brandy Morton Marketing, points out that buyers now ask ChatGPT and Perplexity who can solve their problem. She optimizes content for both human searchers and answer engines with structured data, original research and verifiable claims. She reports that one B2B SaaS client saw AI citations rise eightfold and top-10 keyword rankings grow by 56%. Her free first step: ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google who the top providers in your category are, and see whether you appear.
Our take: this is the most important shift in search in years. The basics are the same as good SEO: clear answers, structured pages, evidence and a reputation other sites mention. See why SEO is a long-term investment.
Publish what you actually learned
Nick Sawinyh, Head of Product and GTM at Veodyn, recommends publishing working notes rather than thought leadership: what you tried, what broke and the number that surprised you. Specific pieces travel further than general advice. One genuinely useful piece a month, written by the person who did the work, is enough.
Track what your existing customers search for
Keith Holloway, CEO of PureSEM, notes that businesses rarely track what their existing customers search for. Connecting search data to your CRM can reveal customers researching competitors before renewal, or features they didn't know you had. Build content that answers those searches.
Own a precise topic
Natalia Maganda, a website designer and SEO specialist for therapists, built her strategy on authority in one narrow niche: marketing for therapists. After narrowing her focus, AI answer engines began recommending her, and most of her clients now come through search alone.
Build a YouTube channel people choose to watch
Seth Wingate, Owner and Founder of Turnstone Video Agency, says to stop making commercials and publish videos about what you know: answers to sales questions and honest industry opinions. A library of useful videos keeps working for years. Read more in our guide to YouTube Shorts ads.
Channels you already own
Email to people who asked to hear from you
Jason Bland, Co-Founder of Custom Legal Marketing, recommends consistent, valuable email to people who opted in. You own the list, so no algorithm decides who sees your message. In his law-firm example, a monthly newsletter keeps past clients warm for referrals and repeat work.
Use newsletter replies as research
Lilach Bullock, an AI Implementation Consultant and Fractional CMO, invites replies to her newsletter of around 15,000 subscribers and treats them as research. Confused replies show her where a message stops making sense, which shapes her next page, offer or email.
Trigger emails from customer behavior
Eric Gantz, Co-founder of Verena Street Coffee Co., automates emails based on what customers do: browsing, purchases, ignored offers and returns. He judges success by whether customers come back and spend more over 90 days or a year, not by opens and clicks.
Follow up thoughtfully after a visit or sale
Cheryl Cullen, Managing Director of Visit London Taxi Tours, uses follow-up emails after an inquiry or tour to answer common questions, share useful links, set expectations and invite reviews, without pressure. Review these emails before chasing new channels.
Social channels used differently
Let people, not brands, lead on LinkedIn
Mark Huntley, CEO of Citeworks Studio, finds LinkedIn works best when founders and employees post, not the company page. Short posts with real insights, client lessons, opinions or original data start conversations. As he puts it, the people inside the business become the media channel.
Use Reddit to listen and learn
James East, Marketing Director at countrygenerator.com, notes that AI models often repeat what people say on Reddit. He used Reddit to get honest website feedback and to research questions that later earned links from journalists. It takes patience, and a branded sales voice doesn't work there.
Turn customer experience into marketing
Treat support as a referral channel
Brittany Weber, Marketing Manager at Wightman Telecom, points out that existing customers are the cheapest audience to reach. Every support interaction earns or loses a referral, so service is marketing.
Prioritize your Google Business Profile
Avram Gonzales, Chief Strategist at Digital Harvest, sees many customers choose a local business from its Google profile before ever visiting the website, based on reviews, proximity and trust signals. Our local SEO guide shows how to make the most of it.
Fix the post-click experience before buying more traffic
James Weiss, Managing Director at Big Drop, says to fix the site before buying more clicks: the message, the form, the load time and the path to purchase. Improving one page can beat a bigger ad budget. See website optimization challenges.
Use security questionnaires to build trust
Sherif Koussa, CEO of Software Secured, treats security questionnaires as a sales asset for B2B software. Clear, well-structured answers reduce legal friction and speed up approvals.
Partner with brands your buyers trust
Steven Mitts, a CEO and founder, recommends content partnerships: co-hosted webinars, founder interviews, joint guides and newsletter swaps. List five companies or experts your buyers already trust and build one useful piece with each.
Which channels we'd test first
For most small and mid-sized businesses, we'd start with the channels that cost little and build on assets you already have:
Your Google Business Profile and reviews, if you serve local customers
Visibility in AI search, by strengthening your most important pages with clear answers and evidence
Email to existing customers, including behavior-triggered messages
Your post-click experience, before increasing ad spend
People-led LinkedIn, if you sell B2B
Give each test a fixed time and a clear success metric. Our article on marketing resource allocation explains how to budget for tests.
Find your underused channel with SYMVOLT
SYMVOLT helps businesses find and scale the channels that work for them, from SEO to paid social and Google Ads.
About the author: Ruby Sharma is a Marketing Analyst at SYMVOLT.
Comments