There’s hardly a better way to grab your customers’ scattered attention than a multi-channel marketing approach. It implies establishing a brand presence at multiple places at once, thus increasing chances for acquisition, conversion and retention across all channels. It’s what gamers call a “combo”.
Besides, multi-channel is no longer optional, but rather a requirement for meeting customers’ expectations and demands. According to Mashable, 72% of customers prefer a seamless experience tailored with integrated marketing approach, and they are willing to spend three to four times more.
These are the six essential things that will help you design, launch and run a successful multi-channel marketing campaign.
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Clearly Defined Marketing Objectives
Multi-channel marketing gives you a chance to approach your customers via different routes of communication, but that doesn’t mean that you’re going to need separate campaigns and core messages for all of them. On the contrary, multi-channelling depends on coherence and consistency.
Feel free to treat it as a single, but more complex marketing campaign project, and to determine a uniform focus and goal. Pay attention to the way your target audience behaves on different channels and these channels’ unique approaches to marketing. Find a common objective, and adjust the rest.
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Engaging Content that Converts
Content is a perfect example of a multi-channel approach that must be consistent but fine-tuned in a way that complements different channel behaviours. Your email newsletters won’t be the same as your blog posts, even though the marketing message you’ll convey on both will be essentially identical.
Multi-channelling requires you to create different types of the same content, and in accordance with the preferences of individual channels. Instagram and Pinterest are all about images, for instance, while Facebook and email mix them with text. Regardless of that, content must still be engaging and helpful.
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Multi-Channel Tips and Tactics
There’s a number of multi-channelling tips and tactics that can be easily overlooked in a greater scheme of things, but are just as vital for success as common strategies. Such are social sharing buttons, for example, that should be included in emails and blog posts for an integrated experience.
SEO and keywords are other factors that can tie your marketing efforts together, and help them rank higher on both Google and social media. Hashtags, on the other hand, serve not only to build hype around offline events, but also to uniform the way customers perceive you on different social media.
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Marketing Automation Tools
Unless you want to spend months on your campaign and see the first tangible results in a year or so, you’ll need to automate at least part of your marketing efforts. Multi-channeling is particularly time-consuming, given that it requires your team to stay on top of multiple channels at the same time.
Marketing automation tools are therefore crucial for achieving the ultimate goal – many of them provide a centralized platform that allows you to create and monitor campaigns on different channels without having to switch between tabs. Simply schedule them for later, and the tool will do the rest.
Take WorkFusion, for instance. They specialize in comprehensive products that integrate powerful robotic process automation (RPA) with AI, thus helping you run simultaneous campaigns from a single hub. It’s up to you to create a marketing roadmap; every other task can be efficiently put on autopilot.
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Social Media Tracking Tools
Though most marketing automation suites come with built-in monitoring tools, stand-alone social media tracking solutions offer a greater variety of features for all marketing teams to put to good use. Even if basic, tracking tools can give you a kind of actionable insight that Google Analytics never could.
Despite some variations, they all combine social media listening and brand mentions with more robust metrics for campaign performance tracking, and include tools for collecting, evaluating and analysing customer data. Essentially, these tools let you determine where your time and money is best invested.
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Reliable CRM Software System
Finally, you cannot run a successful marketing campaign – be it multi-channel or not – without a trustworthy customer relationship management system. Traditional CRM solutions can help you a great deal too, but only integrated ones offer a holistic approach to channels, data, and campaigns.
Ask your vendor about 360 degree customer view, since that’s the only way to incorporate smart personalization into a multi-channel marketing approach. And, whatever CRM solution you choose, make sure that it can be integrated with marketing automation suites and social media tracking tools.
Multi-channelling is all about being where your customers are (spoiler alert, they are virtually everywhere). There are numerous ways to address their purchasing habits and tug at their heartstrings, so never limit yourself to just one. With these six things, reaching out is as easy as 1-2-3.
