From 2010 to 2014, the average number of channels used before conversion rose steadily, more than doubling from 1.25 channels to 3.25. Consumers are no longer shopping exclusively in person and are using multiple channels to make purchases. A consumer might see a pair of jeans that she likes in store, but decide not to purchase them immediately. She may want to get more information about the product before making a decision. After looking up the jeans online, she uses her phone to buy them.
If a business does not have a strategy for marketing across multiple channels, it is unlikely to convert the consumer. One-third of consumers are mono-channel shoppers, and younger consumers are likely to use three or more channels. Businesses need to market across channels now.
What is multi-channel marketing?
Multi-channel marketing involves interacting with customers through multiple channels, such as websites, digital ads, social media, direct mail, catalogs, email, mobile, or any other channel chosen by the customer. You need to be marketing your products and services on multiple channels in order to reach today’s consumers. Your prospects want to be able to shop in-store, on their mobile phones, or even by talking to a sales rep on the phone.
As more channels become available, marketers have to change their approach to stay available to their potential customers. Marketing across multiple channels is all about giving the consumer choice and control over how and when they interact with the business.
Marketing that occurs through multiple channels allows potential customers to have more options, but there can still be difficulties with this method. Although it can be difficult to determine which channel had the most impact on a conversion, it is important to try to determine this information. Being able to identify which touch point had the biggest influence on a sale could help marketers to be more effective with their campaigns.
One issue with marketing across multiple channels is that it is difficult to target a specific audience. Someone is more likely to buy something if they receive a message that is personalized to them and is on their preferred method of communication.
59% of shoppers who have experienced personalization feel that it has an impact on their shopping habits. Developing personalized messages requires creating a single customer view with information from multiple channels aggregated in one place.
According to an Econsultancy survey, only 29% of businesses had this capability in 2015. It can be difficult for marketers to create highly choreographed campaigns that are integrated, with a consistent message and experience found throughout each channel. That same Econsultancy survey found that only 14% of businesses integrate all of their marketing campaigns across channels.
It can be difficult for marketers to create a consistent, personalized experience across channels, but this is what cross-channel marketing is all about. Cross-channel marketing is designed to create a cohesive experience for customers regardless of the platform they are using. The goal is to prevent customers from having a completely different experience with a company when they switch channels. Cross-channel marketing has a big impact on businesses’ conversions, according to a 2015 survey from Econsultancy.
A shopper may visit Walmart’s website to look at a flat screen TV. For example, the shopper may view the price of the TV, the shipping time, and whether the TV is in stock at the local store. Although they consider buying the television, they don’t end up making the purchase. Later that evening, the shopper saw a Walmart ad for the same flat screen TV he had placed in his cart earlier. Cross-channel marketing helps create a consistent shopper experience regardless of the channel a shopper uses.
The fundamental difference between multi-channel marketing and cross-channel marketing is that multi-channel marketing does not require channels to be interchangeable, while cross-channel marketing does. Businesses that have multiple channels for their campaigns usually have a presence on multiple channels. However, the customer experience is not always the same on all channels. Cross-channel marketing companies want customer experiences to be identical regardless of the platform or channel used. A customer should be able to move between channels without noticing any change.
Difficulties with multi-channel marketing attribution
Determining which aspects of a campaign are most effective when marketing across multiple channels can be difficult. Open rates give marketers an idea of how successful an email campaign is, but a campaign that uses multiple channels gives prospects more opportunities to interact.
What is the most effective way for marketers to determine which interaction had the biggest impact on the conversion?
For example, a customer might visit a store in person and then sign up for the email newsletter online. After someone clicks on a social media post, they might be taken to a company post-click landing page. All before they ultimately convert. What was the most influential touch point in the conversion process? Was it the email newsletter? Or was it the social media post?
There is no clear-cut answer yet to the question of marketing attribution. The most common attribution model used is the last-click model The last-click model is the most common attribution model used to discern which touch points have the biggest impact on prospects. The different attribution models are as follows:
- First interaction: This model gives the first touch point the prospect interacted with all of the credit for the conversion.
- Last interaction: This model gives the last touch point the prospect interacted with all of the credit for the conversion.
- Time decay: This model gives the last touch point the most credit, with each contact point closer to the first interaction receiving less credit for the conversion.
- Linear interaction: This model gives all touch points equal credit.
- Position based: This model gives the middle touch point less credit than touch points at the beginning and end.
7 New Breed Multichannel Marketing Strategies to Implement ASAP
Despite the various challenges that marketers face, they are increasingly steering their time, effort, and investment towards multichannel marketing. You got to be where the consumer is. The average consumer today is constantly moving and switching between screens. They are always on their mobile phone, browsing through Instagram. A new study claims that nearly every user (90%) moves between two screens every day. You can’t deny how important going multichannel is. What’s important is to figure out how you win at it.
(1) Track users and user activity across all channels
Almost three-quarters of customers use more than one method for interacting with the retailer they choose. They need to do this in order to understand how these users interact with their brand so they can cater the experience to them.
If you look at the State of Multichannel Marketing statistics, you’ll see that 51% of companies use at least 8 channels to communicate with their customers. Only 9% of marketers can effectively engage their users across multiple channels.
Most marketers fail in cross-channel engagement because they can’t effectively track their users and activity across channels. Although Google Analytics can be helpful, it is not easy to track users. Internet users are becoming more suspicious of online activity and are increasingly protective of their personal information. As a result, they are disabling cookies and refusing to provide information in online forms. In order to get the information you need, you will need to ask a lot of questions.
Progressive profiling and browser fingerprinting are two advanced solutions to user tracking. Even when users switch their browsers, you can still track them using browser fingerprinting, which can identify user behavior and activities.
With progressive profiling, people can disclose information easily without getting turned off by the length of the form.
(2) Develop a channel focus
Multichannel marketing does not mean targeting all channels. You should not spend money on Facebook if you are a B2B business and your audience does not use it. There is no point in marketing on LinkedIn if you are an eCommerce business.
Into real-estate and eyeing the new-age millennials? You need to develop a focus for online selling. You will most likely have to explore Facebook Live and Instagram Live, with VR and AR coming into the picture, in order to be successful. It’s all going high-tech for real-estate.
To develop a channel focus, you need to understand:
- Who is your audience?
- What are their education, career, and income?
- Where in their career stage are they?
- Where do they live?
- What’s their age?
Answering these questions will give you more power to reach out to them with the right messaging at the right time, through the most powerful channel. Snapchat isn’t the best channel for people in their mid-thirties who have management jobs and earn seven-figure salaries.
You can use marketing automation tools like Aritic PinPoint to focus your marketing campaigns on a specific channel. What this means is that you can choose which channels to run your campaigns on, or you can run them on all channels at the same time. Automation tools like Aritic can help you track results on channel-specific campaigns easily.
(3) Utilize the power of a CRM platform
Multichannel marketing runs on technology. Use the best technology you can for your multichannel campaigns to get the best results. You can post your content on multiple channels every day, but if you don’t target your campaign to the right audience, it’s a complete waste.
Marketers find it difficult to properly execute multichannel campaigns. While 45% of consumers say multichannel experiences are not being delivered fast enough, only 21% of marketers say they lack the understanding of developing a multichannel experience. If marketers are lacking in certain areas, a CRM platform can help to address these areas.
A CRM platform that is smart allows you to see all data that is related to customers in one place. In other words, it creates a complete customer profile by integrating information from various sources. This gives organizations a better understanding of customer behavior and needs. Additionally, a CRM system allows you to see how users interact with your various channels and identify key moments that could lead to a sale or conversion. This information can then be used to create targeted campaigns aimed at improving sales numbers.
An awesome CRM or marketing automation tool will give you a complete overview of your customer. Additionally, lead scoring allows you to prioritize potential customers in your CRM.
(4) Run dynamic re-targeting across platforms
People exhibit unpredictable browsing and buying behaviors. It’s no use forcing them through a path that has been predefined for customers. Keep your audience engaged by delivering content that is relevant to them in real-time.
You can show personalized ads to users based on their past engagement on your website using dynamic retargeting. This could include categories or products they browsed through. Additionally, by analyzing your users’ behavior, you can discover the best time to contact each individual consumer in order to get the most engagement and avoid interrupting them. If you want to run a retargeting campaign that is successful, marketing automation can help you.
Running dynamic retargeting has been a great success for numerous brands and businesses. Netshoes, for example, doubled their ROI with dynamic retargeting.
(5) Run automated multichannel drip campaigns
Both dynamic remarketing and drip campaigns rely on specific timelines or user actions (behavioral triggers) to create a customized experience for the user. Drip campaigns move users closer to conversion by effectively engaging them at each stage of the buying process. Behavior based emails are 18% more likely to result in a conversion than broadcast emails.
However, drip campaigns will only be successful if you have segmented your customer list properly. If you’re looking to create customer list segments that are both smart and effective, Aritic PinPoint is a great tool to use. Their micro-segmentation capabilities allow you to create segments that are truly customized to your needs, making the process of list segmentation much easier and more effective overall.
(6) Personalize your multichannel marketing strategy
In a world where customers shop both online and offline, it is crucial to engage them across all devices and touchpoints. Personalization is not just a buzzword, it is the key to multichannel marketing. In a world where customers shop both online and offline, it is crucial to engage them across all devices and touchpoints. This makes messaging much more contextually relevant and emotionally engaging on all platforms. Brands that deliver personalized experiences see their revenue increase by 10%. They also grow 2-3 times faster than brands that don’t focus on personalization. Sephora is working towards personalized multichannel marketing.
Smart marketing automation tools, such as those that offer AI-assisted personalization, have made it possible for companies to create relevant, contextual, and real-time experiences that were otherwise hindered.
(6) Measure results across all platforms
It is just as important to track your users and their behavior across all channels as it is to keep a check on your campaign success. If you want to know which channels to focus on, look at the user engagement levels, click-through rates, and conversions from different platforms. This will also give you information on which campaigns need to be changed to get more conversions.
One channel isn’t enough anymore
Your company probably already uses multiple channels to reach potential customers and increase sales. It is more likely that you will be successful if you provide your visitors with a consistent experience on their chosen platform.
Design a consistent user experience across all your channels with our 100% customizable post-click landing page platform.
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