There are so many ways to grow a business online, and with all the advice flying around, it’s easy to get lost in strategy-hopping and trying a bit of everything. In today’s episode, I’m diving into something that doesn’t get talked about enough: the difference between top-down and bottom-up marketing strategy. If you’ve never considered these two fundamental approaches—or you’re not sure which one is right for you—this chat will help you figure out how to build a business that feels good and gets momentum.
Let’s get into it…
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Why Picking a Marketing Approach Matters
It’s totally normal to experiment with different strategies when you’re building a business. But if you’re constantly half-committed to lots of different things, none of them gets the time and energy it needs to work. You end up juggling audience building, offer-creating, social media, and wondering why nothing is really working. Your strategy needs legs—it should feel exciting and fit with your goals, your energy, and your lifestyle.
Honestly, any marketing strategy can work. I love tinkering with business models and strategies and have been obsessed with this stuff since I was young. University, consulting, working with thousands of entrepreneurs—trust me, you can make most strategies work, but only if you really commit and finesse the path.
But, there are two big-picture methods you need to choose between: top-down and bottom-up strategy. Each comes with its pros, cons, and is a better fit depending on your resources and your goals.
What is Top-Down Marketing?
Top-down marketing starts with an idea for a business or a passion area—maybe you think, “I want to do something with pet products.” In the top-down approach, you start building your audience before you figure out exactly what you’re selling. You might create a bunch of social channels, start making Instagram reels, launch a website, and generally aim to attract people who love pets. You build up a group of followers, maybe even go viral, but at this point, you don’t have your exact offer or pricing figured out.
Here’s the cool thing: having an audience alone can actually be monetised.
Over the past decade, we’ve seen creators get paid simply for having big followings and generating views. In some countries, platforms pay you for bringing in lots of eyeballs (think: creator funds on TikTok), but even if you can’t monetise viewership directly in Australia, a big audience gives you plenty of doors to open (ads, sponsorships, affiliate deals).
The visibility game is strong with top-down, and that’s why so many social media personalities go this route. But here’s the reality check: growing an audience big enough to monetise often takes way longer (and costs more) than you think, especially if you’re doing it organically.
Once you have an audience, you then test out offers—maybe create a course, product, or service—and see how many of your followers actually buy. You can put up waitlists, do audience research, ask your mailing list what they want… but the only real proof is whether people pay for your offer. Not everyone who says they’ll buy actually does! For instance, a waitlist usually converts around 15-20%. If 100 people say, “Yes, I’ll buy your $97 sleep training course,” you’ll likely get 15-20 actual sales.
This means you need some solid metrics, and often a much larger audience, for your offers to really take off.
Pros and Cons of Top-Down
Top-down has its perks—if you love making content, adore social media, and get excited about going viral or building a massive following, this approach can feel super aligned. Plus, your audience can translate into money over time, and every 10,000 new followers might mean $15,000 in sales once your offers are validated.
The flip side? You may find yourself spending between $500 and $1,000 a month in ads just to get your audience to a profitable size. The return on investment might take a while, especially if you’re hoping for quick income.
Those who are side-hustling (building a business next to a day job) often start top-down—they can batch content, spend on ads, and don’t rely on immediate vanishing cashflow. But the patience required is huge, so don’t make sales your core metric in the early days, or you’ll feel flat and disappointed for a long time.
How Bottom-Up Marketing Works
Now, let’s flip things and talk bottom-up. This approach starts with the business idea, but instead of hustling for followers first, you validate every step by making sales. Here’s the order: niche, message, offer, then marketing and audience growth.
In bottom-up, you start small—you tap into your existing network and your network’s network. Borrow other people’s audiences, ask for introductions, and literally reach out one-on-one to see if your idea solves a real problem for someone. When you make a sale, you’ve validated the niche. Message gets validated by sales. Offer gets validated by sales.
It’s more confronting, and it takes guts (and sometimes a bit of ego risk). You will hear “no,” or “it’s not a priority,” but every sale proves your concept, sharpens your messaging, and gives you a strong foundation to build on. You’ll create your content and assets later, but with way more clarity and efficiency, because you’re not guessing—you know what makes people buy.
Pros and Cons of Bottom-Up
Bottom-up is brilliant if you want to make sales and generate income quickly, with less investment upfront. You don’t need a huge audience—sometimes a handful of enthusiastic clients is all it takes to prove your offer and start growing. You’ll spend less money, but maybe more time having those direct conversations and handling occasional rejection. And because you’re validating with real humans, your marketing gets laser-focused and your audience doesn’t need to be huge.
This is hands-on work, but I promise a little bit of validation goes a long way. You don’t have to do a million one-on-one calls, but you can’t skip building those initial connections.
Why Most People Start Top-Down (and Get Stuck)
Here’s the catch: about 80-90% of new business owners go top-down, simply because it feels obvious—“I want a business, so I need an audience, right?” Social media screams at us to build followers and create content, so we follow suit.
But when you start learning about lean business models and foundations, it gets tricky to let go of that focus on audience size. I see so many entrepreneurs half-in both strategies—growing social media, but also selling high-ticket VIP packages behind the scenes. The problem is, they end up with hundreds or thousands of followers who don’t buy, while all their sales come from referrals or word-of-mouth or meeting people at BBQs.
This causes massive frustration. The two ends don’t meet, and it can feel like all the effort on audience growth is wasted—especially if you really want faster sales and profitability.
The Solution: Choose and Commit to One Approach
Here’s what makes the difference: consciously choose which approach fits your goals, resources, and personality. If you commit to bottom-up, let go of the pressure to constantly grow your audience and focus on validating every piece of your offer with direct sales. You’ll generate results much faster. Once you have that proof, you can apply it to your marketing and grow your audience with confidence, knowing every new follower is linked to a powerful, tested offer.
If you swap your time and energy—go 80% bottom-up and only 20% top-down—you get profitable so much quicker.
Key Takeaways and Next Steps
This episode is all about helping you pick the approach that works for you. Are you excited by content creation, viral reels, and big numbers? Go top-down. Want fast results, high-ticket sales, and a lean foundation? Bottom-up strategy might be your path.
If you do decide to go bottom-up, remember that the discomfort (the one-to-one conversations and occasional rejection) is worth it for the speedy profitability. A validated concept means every marketing move you make is more effective, and your audience needs to be much smaller to hit your goals.
Want help with the bottom-up strategy? I’ve got a free training called “Fast Track Your Business”—it walks you through every step and focuses on high-ticket VIP packages for faster profitability.
Register for free at: tashcorbin.com/fasttrack
Thank you so much for joining me for this Heart-Centred Business Podcast episode. I hope it’s inspired you to get strategic, get focused, and choose what works for your business.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
