ADDING MORE MARKETING CHANNELS—5 EASY WAYS TO MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU!

May 13, 2014

For consumers, it is not enough to interact with a single channel anymore. Whether it’s for business or personal, they want to use multiple channels like direct mail, email, and social media to investigate, research, compare, and check in with others before making a final purchase.

In fact, one retail marketing survey finds that consumers using two or more In fact, one retail marketing survey finds that consumers using two or more media channels to connect with brands are the most satisfied shoppers.

While most marketers see “every channel, everywhere” as the ultimate goal of a broader multichannel marketing program, their ability to actually implement such programs is restricted by time, expertise, and marketing budgets. Fortunately, there are a few easy steps you can take to create highly effective multichannel campaigns regardless of your level of resources.

WORK BACKWARDS.

Don’t start with a list of all of the channels you want to include. Start with the end result you want to achieve. Do you want to gain new customers? Cross-sell or upsell to existing customers? Boost signups for a loyalty program? Once you have a clear, detailed understanding of what you want to accomplish, you can work backwards to create the rest of the campaign.

PLAY TO EACH CHANNEL’S STRENGTHS.

Each marketing channel has strengths and weaknesses. Don’t try to use them interchangeably. Understand where to use direct mail. Where to use email. Where to use mobile and social media. Then create a plan that capitalizes on the strengths of each.

INCLUDE THE ENTIRE TEAM OF STAKEHOLDERS.

Your customers are diversified. So should your campaign development team be. Tap your sales, customer service, graphic design, IT/web, marketing, and business development teams. Draw in people from different ages and social and economic demographics to gain deeper insight into how different customer groups react, what they need, and how they perceive different types of messaging.

USE IT OR LOSE IT.

Let your team test the different elements of the campaign. Ask them to open a sample direct mailer. Respond to different subject lines in the emails. Click through the links. Scan QR Codes and download files. Let them test the usability of your marketing elements before your customers do!

BUILD IN METRICS.

Build in testing mechanisms so you know which elements of the multichannel campaign are working. For example, send people to different personalized URL landing pages to test various offers and responses to questions. Find out which messaging, offers, and landing pages are most effective.

TO THE TOP