Picture this: You’re a business owner who wants to promote a brand-new product launch. To get the word out as quickly as possible, you create an email, social media, and mobile strategy for your campaign. The content is tailored to each specific channel (email, social media, and mobile), but the messaging harmoniously promotes the launch of your product.
That’s multichannel marketing in action.
Multichannel marketing is an effective way to strategically target different audiences, build brand awareness and loyalty, and get more leads to help increase your ROI. By having multichannel strategies in place, businesses can evolve with the changing market to keep up with today’s on-the-go users.
Let’s take a deeper dive into what this type of marketing is, why it’s important, and how businesses use it today.
What is Multichannel Marketing?
Multichannel marketing is an integrated approach to marketing products or services across more than one channel. These channels could include:
- Social media
- Mobile
- Webinars
- Influencer
- Video
- SEO
…and many more! Any channel that will help you reach your target audience could be part of your multichannel strategy.
What Are the Benefits of Multi-Channel Marketing?
There are many advantages to implementing multichannel marketing into your business plan. Here are the key benefits you should be aware of.
Increased Reach
By leveraging multiple channels to promote your products or services, you can cast a much wider net and access potential customers that otherwise might not have been exposed to your brand. More touchpoints = more opportunities to engage with potential customers.
Improved Customer Engagement
Multichannel marketing allows businesses to engage with customers on a deeper level. By reaching out to them through multiple channels, you can provide customers with information that is relevant and helpful to their needs. Better engagement will help foster strong relationships with your target audience, driving customer loyalty, and satisfaction. (And FYI—fostering customer loyalty will help you recession-proof your business!).
Enhanced Insights
Gain valuable insights into the customer journey by tracking user behavior across multiple channels. These insights will help you better understand who your customers are so you can market to them more effectively by creating targeted campaigns that resonate better with your target audience.
Why Multichannel Marketing Is Important
Did you know that 71% of today’s consumers expect to receive personalized experiences when they interact with brands?
Multichannel marketing is essential for businesses that want to remain competitive in today’s digital landscape. Consumers are increasingly tech-savvy and expect companies to provide them with experiences tailored to their needs.
Investing in multichannel marketing is non-negotiable. In this digital age, it will become increasingly difficult to remain competitive without a strategy that unifies efforts across multiple channels.
What Is an Example of Multichannel Marketing?
Let’s say an online retailer is trying to promote a new line of outdoor products. They send out targeted emails that feature the new products, launch retargeted campaigns to reach users who have already visited their website, and post promotional content on their social media accounts. By using these multiple channels to promote the same product line, the retailer maximizes their reach and increases the likelihood of converting potential customers into paying customers.
Additionally, since the retailer is collecting data across multiple channels, they’ll gain valuable insights into their users’ behavior and, therefore, be able to tailor and optimize their strategy accordingly. The retailer can upload their email list to Facebook Ads Manager as a custom audience for a retargeting campaign. In other words, they can use data from one channel (email) to inform their strategies on another channel (Facebook).
What is Multichannel vs. Omnichannel vs. Cross-Channel Marketing?
These terms are often used interchangeably, but they shouldn’t be. (If you thought they all meant the same thing, don’t worry—we’ll clear up any confusion.)
- Multichannel marketing is an approach to marketing that uses multiple channels (as the name suggests!) It’s about creating cohesive messaging across various channels for your campaign, typically with the same goal in mind. However, the content can vary depending on the channel. The overall strategy is to promote a product or service.
- Omnichannel marketing is an integrated approach that uses consistent branding and messaging across all touchpoints as consumers move down the sales funnel to create a more impactful customer experience. This customer-centric approach focuses on understanding customer behavior to provide a personalized and positive experience on each channel.
- Cross-channel marketing focuses on creating a connected customer journey across multiple channels. The goal is to create a convenient and consistent experience for the customer as they move from one channel to the next, such as from a website to a mobile app. The different platforms share data, so info on every interaction carries over to the next platform.
Now that you know the difference between multichannel, omnichannel, and cross-channel marketing, it’s time to start building your multichannel marketing strategy!
The key is to create consistent messaging across multiple channels and use the data you collect to inform your decisions. This way, you can build a better understanding of your customers and create campaigns that are personalized and tailored to their needs.
Need Help Executing Your Multichannel Marketing Strategy?
Our experts are ready to assist you. At Marketing Automation Canada, we have a team of certified professionals who can help you execute and optimize your multichannel marketing strategy.
Get in touch today to schedule a free strategy session!
