Cross-channel marketing, also known as multi-channel marketing, or omnichannel marketing, relies on the use of multiple channels to reach customers. Though this approach makes marketing more complex regarding execution, it allows customers to choose the medium they are most comfortable with, increasing the likelihood of conversion. Your cross-channel marketing strategy can make all the difference in how many of those customers you’re reaching, and how many of them are converting.
Why You Must Consider Cross-Channel Marketing
Today, businesses can pick and choose from a variety of channels to reach potential customers, including:
● Brick-and-mortar stores
● Email marketing
● Website
● Social media
● Pay-per-click (PPC)
● Mail order catalogs
● Direct mail
● Mobile app
● TV
● Radio
The assortment of channels businesses has to choose from, also means prospects can choose from those, too. Your potential clients or buyers could be anywhere, and you have to be there, too. As the number of marketing channels continues to grow, having the right cross-channel marketing strategy in place for all of your campaigns will play a significant role in your success.
Multi-channel customers spend an average of three to four times more than single-channel customers, so you don’t want to let those valuable customers slip by unnoticed. Developing a strategy ensures you coordinate efforts across channels to create a seamless customer experience. Developing a strategy, will foster user more engagement and helps move them down the funnel.
Which Channels are Consumers Using to Interact With Your Brand?
Use website analytics data, sales data, and social media data to determine the channels where your customers are the most active with you. If you notice there’s a particular segment of your target demographic that’s not engaging or interacting with you on those channels, maybe it’s time to find the channels they are using and create a presence there. Your business may prefer to stick to a particular channel but using multi-channel marketing removes your ability to funnel people to a specific channel. A good salesperson can get more sales with a telephone conversation than a website can with cross sales. But, because many people prefer to order online, phone sales wouldn’t necessarily get more conversions.
Understanding who your audience is and the channels they use the most is a crucial part of making sure your business on the channels where your customers will find you.
How are They Using Those Channels to Interact?
Beyond knowing which channels your audience is using to connect with you, you must understand how they’re using those channels to interact with you. If people are turning to Facebook and Twitter for customer service, that’s the channel where you want to share helpful material to address common questions and concerns. If they’re using email to get in touch with you, and social to share your promotions with their friends and family, then email is where you want to send the significant assets.
Based on how they’re interacting with you, you can make adjustments to your marketing strategies to improve conversion rates and keep your customers happy.
Keys to a Winning Cross-Channel Strategy
Use Mediums that Complement One Another.
Specific channels will work better together than others. Using the most common media pairings helps spread your message regardless of which medium your prospects choose. Common options include:
● Computer/Mobile
● Computer/TV
● TV/Mobile
● Radio/Mobile
● Computer/Radio
● Retail Store/Mobile
For example, you can:
● Include URLs on direct mail
● Encourage consumers to check-in via a mobile app while in store
● Create hashtags to use in television advertisements
Build Multiple Touch Points into Each Campaign
The more touch points you have in each marketing campaign, the more data you can collect. The more information you have, the better you can understand how your promotions are working and measure their success. For example, if you thought Facebook would be the most popular place to connect with customers, but after integrating multiple touch points discover that Twitter is where most of your engagement is taking place, you now know you need to shift more effort to Twitter.
Your touch points can include surveys, social media content, email newsletters, and so on. Anything that gives the customer a chance to engage is a touch point.
Retarget
With the Facebook Conversion Pixel installed on your website, you can easily retarget people who visit your site – or specific pages of your website – with relevant ads on Facebook. You can also do this with many other platforms, such as Google AdWords, and other advertising networks. All it takes is a bit of code installed on your website.
Since an average of only 2% of website visitors purchase on their first visit to a website, retargeting presents those visitors with subtle reminders of your business as they continue browsing the web. After so many exposures to your brand messaging, the idea is that prospect will eventually come back to your website and make a purchase. Maybe before they purchase, they’ll become a social media follower, so they learn more about your business. Perhaps they’ll ask questions and otherwise engage with your business, but in any case, retargeting is aimed at keeping your business front of mind.
Test with Control Groups
Use a control group that doesn’t receive any multichannel promotion to help you gauge your multichannel campaign effectiveness. Use the information from each campaign to fine-tune the next one and continue using control groups to refine your efforts.
There’s No One-Size-Fits-All Approach
Every business is different, with access to different budgets. TV shows can easily create promos with hashtags for use on social media, where they can track viewer feedback. Smaller businesses may not have the capital to launch such large-scale campaigns, but they can still earn a killer ROI by employing the same tactics.
Want to learn more about how SEO, Inc. can help you build the ultimate cross-channel marketing strategy? Contact us today!
