B · Demand & GTM channelsConvios method toolkit

The Core Four

There are only four ways to turn attention into leads: warm outreach (1:1, they know you), cold outreach (1:1, they do not), content (1:many, warm), and paid ads (1:many, cold). Every campaign is a combination of these four, the grid makes channel audits complete.

When you need this method

Your lead generation hangs on a single channel, or the channel discussion gets lost in tactical detail ("should we run a webinar?"). What is missing is a complete grid showing which fundamental paths to leads are being worked at all and which lie fallow.

Approach

  1. 1Map current lead generation into the four-quadrant matrix: warm/cold × 1:1/1:many.
  2. 2For each quadrant, record which activities run, at what effort, with what result.
  3. 3Identify fallow quadrants, often warm 1:1 outreach (existing customers, network, past contacts) is the unused lever with the best effort-to-yield ratio.
  4. 4Do not maximize all four at once; deliberately build up one neglected quadrant.
  5. 5Use the matrix as a recurring audit grid, not a one-off exercise.

Typical application

A typical case: a B2B SaaS sources nearly all leads from paid ads; rising click prices squeeze margin. The channel audit along the four quadrants shows warm 1:1 outreach is practically unused, past trial users, existing customers with expansion potential, the founders' network. The team builds up that quadrant systematically, reducing dependence on the ad channel before investing in new paid formats.

Limits and counter-indications

The grid organizes channels but does not prioritize them. Which combination works depends on ACV, audience, and maturity. It comes from a transactional context; in long-cycle B2B, content works with far more delay than the grid suggests. Building all four channels at once overwhelms most teams.

How to measure impact

Record leads, pipeline, and cost per quadrant and watch the dependence: what share of pipeline hangs on the single largest channel?

Related methods

Tools for this

Sources

  1. 1.Bryce Ryan, Neal C. Gross: The Diffusion of Hybrid Seed Corn in Two Iowa Communities, Rural Sociology 8(1), 1943, 15–24; erweiterte Fassung als Acceptance and Diffusion of Hybrid Corn Seed in Two Iowa Communities, Research Bulletin 372, Iowa State College, 1950 (opens in a new tab) · Iowa State College, Agricultural Experiment Station (Volltext ueber Iowa State University Digital Repository) · 1943 · academic and scholarly literature · supports the underlying mechanismThe study is the first to separate empirically the channels through which people first learn of something from the channels that move them to adopt: commercial outside contacts (salesmen 49 percent, 70 percent including farm press and radio of all first knowledge) informed, while personal proximity (neighbours 45.5 percent versus salesmen 32.0 percent) persuaded, the authors call this the functional split into introductory and activating media.
  2. 2.Copy This Marketing Strategy, It'll Blow Up Your Business, Alex Hormozi (opens in a new tab) · Alex Hormozi (YouTube) · 2025-07-03 · practitioner source · describes the methodTalk in which Hormozi develops the four routes to lead generation as an exhaustive list and delineates them from one another; carries definition and core mechanics.
  3. 3.Lead Generation Playbooks, Acquisition.com (opens in a new tab) · Acquisition.com, LLC · 2026 · practitioner source · describes the methodPublicly available teaching catalogue from the same author; shows that the framework is organized there into related channel groups (cold outreach, paid advertising, content, referrals and partners). Because those groups do not map exactly onto the four quadrants and the source comes from the same author, it is not independent confirmation that the grid is exhaustive.
  4. 4.Everett M. Rogers: Diffusion of Innovations, The Free Press, New York, 1. Aufl. 1962 (hier geprueft in der 3. Aufl. 1983, Kap. 5, S. 198–202) (opens in a new tab) · 1962 · academic and scholarly literature · supports the underlying mechanismRogers crosses exactly the two axes the Core Four are built from: interpersonal versus mass media (one-to-one versus one-to-many) and localite versus cosmopolite (inside one's own social system versus from outside, i.e. warm versus cold). His generalizations 5-12 and 5-13 state that mass and cosmopolite channels matter more at the knowledge stage, interpersonal and localite channels at the persuasion stage.
  5. 5.Philipp Schmitt, Bernd Skiera, Christophe Van den Bulte: Referral Programs and Customer Value, Journal of Marketing 75(1), 2011, S. 46–59 (opens in a new tab) · 2011 · academic and scholarly literature · supports the underlying mechanismPanel of about 10,000 customers of a German bank: customers acquired through referral (warm) show higher contribution margins, markedly higher retention and at least 16 percent higher customer value than comparable non-referred customers. Evidence for the warm-beats-cold asymmetry in modern customer data, not for the four-cell grid itself.

Origin: Hormozi · Adapted from: Alex Hormozi ($100M Offers/$100M Leads, YouTube-Langform)

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