What is multi-channel marketing and why do you need it?

Look at any successful company’s marketing strategy, and you will see multi-channel marketing in action. A good in-house marketing team, agency or digital marketing consultant, will always seek to implement a multi-channel strategy that is right for each particular organisation.

But what is a multi-channel marketing strategy, and why should you be using one for your business?

What is multi-channel marketing?

A multi-channel marketing strategy uses a number of different platforms and promotional channels to communicate with, and attract customers. These channels encompass both offline and online activities. Examples of typical channels include;

• Content marketing
• Website
• Social media
• Email marketing
• Search engine optimisation (aka SEO)
• Video
• Offline advertising
• Display advertising
• Direct mail
• Podcast

The strategy behind multi-channel marketing is to target your audience in several ways and give them the very best chance to connect with your brand and buy from you in a way that suits them.

Working closely with your digital marketing agency partner, you’ll be able to identify the best combination of channels to concentrate on. Not every company will use the same channels in the same way, and marketing budgets need to be weighted to the best performing channels.

The benefits of multichannel marketing

Better results
Targeting the right channels to reach your audience, means better results for your company. Working with your digital marketing business partner to refine your strategy on each channel will improve results even more.

Improved buyer persona targeting
Any successful marketing campaign depends on knowing your customers. The more accurately you can refine what you know about their wants and behaviours, the better. Perhaps this will cause you to change your messaging slightly, or put more resources into a particular channel because it is performing better.

Brand awareness
Think about how many different channels you see on any given day. Do you read a newspaper, visit a website, go on social media or see a TV advert? Probably all of these. Being able to get your brand in front of your customer on many channels is the best way to target them. Almost 40% of people will end up buying on a different channel to which they first encounter a brand.

Targeted spending
Thanks to the technology available today, your marketing team or digital consulting agency will be able to analyse, in-depth, the success of each and every channel you are targeting. This will make it much easier to make decisions on where to put your budget for the best ROI. In some cases, it will make sense to redistribute the budget to a better performing channel and in others, you might need to put more budget into an underperforming channel to improve its ROI.

Key elements of a multichannel marketing campaign
When it comes to creating your strategy, it’s very easy to feel overwhelmed, which is why many people use an experienced digital marketing agency with experienced digital business consultants. However, for a company of any size, the process is basically the same.

Research your target audience
It can be a costly experiment to just guess where your target audience is spending their time. Conduct some research to find out who your target audience is, what their pain points are, and where they spend their time, both on and offline.

Target your message
Creating communications that resonate with your target market is very important. Not only do you have to keep your messaging consistent across all channels, but you also need to ensure that you are making it relevant for the channels you are on, in order to make the best of them. The way you communicate in a social post could be very different to a blog or whitepaper.

Automate your process
Today’s marketing software makes it very easy for you to automate many aspects of your campaign. It gives your brand a professional edge and can complete tasks at scale, without having to have someone manually doing everything.

Analyse results and refine your strategy
There’s a saying in digital consulting: ‘if you can’t measure it, it didn’t happen.’ Building analytics into every stage of your campaign is important to know, so that you can attribute sales to the correct channels.

For example, you can analyse the delivery, open rates and click-throughs on email marketing campaigns. It can tell you what’s working, what isn’t and where you need to make changes. For instance, are you getting a lot of visits to your website from newsletters, but no sales? This could indicate you need to work with your in-house marketing team or digital agency on your website.

Takeaways

It can be tempting to throw your marketing budget at a particular platform, but this won’t work and can be a dangerous business tactic. After all, your SEO strategy could be one Google update away from being less effective, as a social media platform could completely change how it operates its feeds. You don’t have to use a scattergun approach and try to have a presence everywhere but choosing a number of channels and focusing your strategy is the key.

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