Creating Multi-Channel Marketing Campaigns

I’m sure you’ve had this experience, you are browsing some products on a company’s website but you don’t see anything you like, or you get distracted. A few days later and an advert from that very company pops up in your social media newsfeed.

Or you read an announcement about a company’s latest summer discount on social media and then you receive an email with some offers tailored from your previous purchases. That’s multi-channel marketing. Using more than one marketing platform together to achieve one result.

The number of marketing channels available to businesses is increasing all the time, giving you more ways than ever to reach out to potential and existing customers. It makes sense to make the most of these options and use them to work together too.

There are multiple benefits to using multichannel marketing. The Future of Commerce:

“Not only does multichannel marketing increase your reach to potential customers with a consistent brand message, it orchestrates a plethora of customer choices, making it easier for them to purchase when, how, and where they want.

In addition, when selling online, generally, you need to interact with customers more than once to build enough trust to make a sale. Multi-channel offers a way to do this from multiple angles, with flexibility, interacting with customers at multiple touchpoints to drive them towards conversion.

And with more and more businesses taking this approach you may get left behind if you aren’t.

Why Multi-Channel Marketing?

There are numerous potential benefits to spreading your marketing over more than one channel

• Wider Audience: It may seem obvious but by increasing the channels you use you are reaching more people and different demographics. Instagram and Snapchat for example tend to have a younger audience than Facebook, whilst LinkedIn can be more effective for B2B marketing.
• Re-marketing: When selling online you need to build trust with potential customers before they will make a purchase, this is hard to do in one interaction. With re-marketing, you can save money as you are marketing to people that have already expressed an interest in your product, and you can personalize based on data from previous interactions with you.
• More data: The more channels you have, the more data you can collect about your customers to tinker with your strategy and optimize it for maximum conversion!
• Strong branding: Having a consistent message across all of your channels with a strong brand image can help to build that all-important trust.
• 24/7: Using multiple platforms means that you can be in front of customers throughout the day, whether it’s when they check Twitter at lunchtime or the first email check in the morning.
• Increased Consumer Satisfaction: It’s not just about you reaching out to customers, they are going to want to contact you too. And the more platforms you use, the more chance that they can use their favourite one, making life easy for them.

How to Make the Most of Multi-Channel Marketing

• Have a cohesive strategy: To get the most out of the multi-channel approach you want all channels to work together towards common goals, instead of having each channel operating separately. This involves careful planning, geared towards your target audience and taken into account the strengths and weaknesses of each channel you are using.
• Understand the buyer’s journey: Part of planning an effective strategy involves understanding the journey buyers go through along your sales funnel. Smart insights highlight the importance of knowing each phase and how you can interact with customers at each one:

“In the phases, they may interact with five to seven channels. Understanding how customers interact with these touchpoints will help you plan a better experience.”

• Content ideas. Neil Patel offers some content options here, including:
  • Blog posts: Great for building trust and SEO.
  • Syndicated content: Posting the same content across channels.
  • Guest blogging: An awesome way to promote to a wider audience.
  • Viral videos: Neil recommends making these relatable, humorous or informative.
• Avoid data silos: Make sure to keep your data organized well so that you can make the most of it in your multi-channel efforts
• Lean into your tools: Automation is key to winning when it comes to multi-channel. There are lots of powerful tools out there to optimize your processes such as quality CRMs and email automation plugins such as MailOptin.
• It’s important to keep your brand consistent but to also adapt your marketing efforts to fit each channel. E.g. An email may need to be worded differently to a social post, different social platforms have different requirements for optimum image sizes, a PPC ad may different copy to an infographic, hopefully, you get the idea.
• Choose the right channels: Marketing is not a one-size-fits-all approach, what works for one company may not work for another. Make sure you take the time to find out which channels work for you individually and as part of a multi-channel strategy. Which leads nicely onto the next point.
• Test: One of the golden rules of digital marketing, make use of the data available to you, and AB test elements of your campaign if you have the resources to keep your strategy performing at its best.

Multi-Channel and MailOptin

By itself, Email is still one of the most effective marketing channels available, add this into the multi-channel mix and you should have a recipe for success. Email marketing starts with building your list, and a quality opt-in app such as MailOptin can help you to grow and automate your list quickly and efficiently.

Use our intuitive and powerful form builder to create effective opt-in forms and keep them optimized with our AB split testing tool. Other powerful features include exit intent technology to grab those details at exactly the right moment, eye-catching display effects and advance analytics to stay on top of what is working and what isn’t.

Once people subscribe to your list you can set up automated, event-triggered follow-up emails to coincide with the rest of your multi-channel marketing efforts, all from within WordPress.

Wrapping it Up

Plan your marketing to work collaboratively across all of your channels to make the most of the ever-increasing communication options available to businesses. But just remember not to spread your efforts thinly across too many channels as this could be counter-productive.