The other day, we were working on a full-funnel marketing audit for a client. Typically, such projects dive deep into the data surrounding the current buyer journey and often reveal what companies should be doing that they aren’t. But in this case, the company had been spending a lot of budget and resources on areas that weren’t really moving the needle for them in any kind of demonstratable way. 

Let’s face it: Small and midsize business owners and their teams only have so much capacity. Part of doing marketing well, we believe, involves focusing on those areas that provide both short-term and long-term benefits for the organization, while eliminating those that don’t have any impact.

How do you determine the best way to do that?

Try Our Easy-to-Remember Prioritization Model (NICE)

To help guide you, we developed this easy-to-remember prioritization/scoring model, NICE (necessity, impact, capability, and effort). It works this way: Evaluate any given channel or tactic (e.g., advertising, email/newsletters, social media, SEO/GEO, content, etc.) on each of those criteria, giving each a score from 1–5.

• • Necessity: Is this channel essential for your category? For example, if you’re a local business, maximizing local search (including developing and maintaining a Google business profile, doing location-based ads and SEO are probably a must. On the other hand, if you’re an influencer, maybe the focus for you is more on social media but less on the other channels.
  • Impact: This is probably the trickiest one. Many small and midsize businesses simply focus on revenue or ROI of a particular channel or tactic. That would be a huge mistake. Why? Because it’s not always easy to tell the impact of a particular marketing channel. It might be that, over time, a channel contributes to customers/clients becoming more aware of your business or keeping your business top-of-mind. That would be a huge part of your marketing, but likely quite invisible to you unless you have a really sophisticated attribution system. To illustrate this, when Coca-Cola runs its advertising, does it expect a direct ROI from the ads themselves? Of course not. Even for a company like that, it’s hard to measure the return on investment exactly. But those ads clearly play a huge role when it comes time to deciding what soda to buy when you’re at the store. So, how do you decide what has impact? One thing you can certainly do is look at what the key measures (KPIs) are in different parts of the funnel. Conversion and revenue are obviously important but also gauge how you’re trending with different channels in terms of the top-of-the-funnel metrics such as awareness, engagement, and acquisition. What channels really help you in those areas? By balancing this concept of impact, you’ll be able to position your business for both short-term and long-term success.

• • Capability: One of the biggest questions to rate yourself or your team on honestly is what marketing channels are you good at? What are you motivated to do? Different small and midsize businesses will have different capabilities. Some organizations/individuals, for example, are great at developing marketing content. Others perhaps know and understand how to save money and set up their own advertising. The key thing to determine here is, if you are capable and motivated to run a channel, does it also have necessity/impact and is worth the effort? If it is, great. But figure what those other channels are that you need (necessity and impact), then outsource what is important and will move the needle to an agency or other individuals.
  • Effort: How much time, money, and skill does it take to execute well and consistently? (Lower effort = higher score.) Obviously, the longer something takes you or the more effort something requires is a big consideration for most business owners and their teams who are short on time. That’s not to say certain marketing efforts (such as SEO, which are often very labor-intensive) aren’t worth it in the end, but it requires balance with the other key factors (necessity, impact, and capability).

When you’re done, calculate a simple average for each channel. The top 2–3 become your core priorities; everything else becomes either “test lightly” or “not this year.”

Ruthlessly Cut the “Random Acts of Marketing”

If you want clarity fast, do a quick audit and mark any tactic that:

• • Has no clear owner on your team.
  • Doesn’t have a defined goal and KPI attached (e.g., “this Instagram series exists to drive email sign-ups, not just likes”).
  • Hasn’t been updated or touched in 60–90 days.

These are your “random acts of marketing”—things you started with good intentions but never integrated into a larger funnel. Your default move this year: stop them, or fold them into one of your 2–3 priority plays.

Turn “Not This Year” Into a Parking Lot, Not a Graveyard

Saying “no” this year doesn’t mean “never.” Create a simple parking-lot list of tactics you want to revisit once you’ve maxed out your core channels.

For each parked idea, jot down:

• • What would have to be true to make this worth testing (extra budget, more content resources, a new hire)?
  • What specific hypothesis would you test for (e.g.,  “TikTok will increase brand searches and email opt-ins in 90 days”)?

This way, you’re not just cutting; you’re sequencing. You focus on what works now and tee up smarter experiments later.

How to Put This Into Practice This Week

If you want a concrete starting point:

• • List every channel and major tactic you used last year.
  • Score them using NICE and sort from highest to lowest.
  • Circle your top three and write a one-sentence goal and one primary KPI for each.
  • Draw a line under number three and label everything below it “parking lot for now.”

If you have questions, don’t hesitate to contact us at Marketing Nice Guys. We’re available for a free 30-minute consultation any time.