It is now more about the customer journey than about closing the sale for many brands and businesses. This is because technology has given customers numerous ways to find, research, and interact with brands.
Multichannel marketing is effective in meeting customers where they are and providing consistent messaging. Buyers frequently use different devices and platforms before converting, so multichannel marketing strategies let you reach them at each stage of their journey.
This article covers what you need to know to successfully use cross-platform marketing to guide customers down your sales funnel. You’ll learn about the basics of multichannel marketing, how to develop and implement a strategy, and how to measure and analyze your results.
What Is Multichannel Marketing?
The multichannel marketing definition is fairly simple and refers to the process of connecting with customers across multiple communication mediums. Multichannel marketing can be both direct and indirect and might include the use of platforms such as:
- Websites
- Print catalogs
- In-store messaging
- Social media
- Targeted advertising
- Direct mail
- Text and SMS
Many businesses and marketers reach out to potential customers in multiple ways, which has been shown to improve the quality of leads and increase conversions. Customers are more likely to make a purchase when businesses tailor their methods of communication to fit the customer’s lifestyle, preferences, and unique needs.
Why Is Multichannel Marketing Important?
There are several marketing strategies you could use to connect with your customers. Multichannel marketing strategies would allow you to do that — and give you numerous paths to grow customer connections, leads, and conversions.
More marketers are using multiple platforms to reach consumers, with 52% using three or four platforms in 2020 compared to 44% in 2015, according to Invesp, a conversion rate optimization service.
The growing number of marketers adopting multichannel marketing strategies shows the importance of meeting consumers across multiple platforms. Multichannel marketing is important because these strategies can help your business:
- Find new customers
- Maintain interest from existing customers
- Gain an understanding of customer demographics
- Analyze customer interactions
- Focus spending and advertising budget
It is important to have a multichannel marketing strategy because it allows you to reach your customers through different channels. This is important because your audience is probably varied and uses different channels to consume information. For example, some people might spend all day on social media while others only use the internet for work. Some people prefer to shop online while others might prefer brick-and-mortar stores. A good multichannel marketing strategy will be designed to reach each of these types of consumers.
In short, if you want your business or service to stay on your customers’ minds, use multiple marketing platforms. This will reduce the chance of being overlooked and allow you to reach a wider audience.
How Do You Implement Multichannel Marketing?
There are several key factors to keep in mind before launching a multichannel marketing strategy. Before implementing a multichannel marketing strategy, businesses should understand buyer personas, develop an aligned presence for each channel, consider how to strategically link each medium, and be aware of brand reach, messaging, consistency, and compliance.
You’ll need to create a consistent experience across all of the channels you’re using ( social media, your website, print media, etc.). Lastly, you need to identify the best platforms to reach your target customers.
When you take into account the information mentioned above, you can follow these eight steps to put a multichannel marketing plan into effect.
1. Establish the goal of your strategy.
Building an effective multi-channel marketing strategy starts with figuring out what your goal is. Without a goal, your strategy is just a bunch of disconnected marketing efforts.
What is the main point you are trying to communicate with your target audience? How will you make sure your message is different from everyone else’s on any given channel?
Ultimately, your strategy’s goals should serve to accomplish several things:
- Creating a strong brand personality that stands out from your competitors.
- Promoting your USP (unique selling proposition) centered around your business offering.
- Hitting your desired KPIs (key performance indicators).
It is important to maintain consistency across all marketing channels and to ensure that the message is aligned with the main goal. The tone and personality should be carried over to all channels, with some variation. The messaging should be focused on spreading awareness of the unique selling proposition and converting potential customers. Without a clear goal, the strategy may be less effective.
 2. Create customer personas
The first step in creating a successful multichannel marketing strategy is to identify your target audience by creating customer personas. This is a detailed profile of an individual that represents your target audience and can include demographic data, behavioral traits, interests, pain points, and buyer patterns.
For example, an online athleisure wear boutique might target women aged 30 who earn approximately $75,000 a year. Jill, for example, might be a single woman who enjoys taking barre classes, blogging, and dining out. She might also find it difficult to purchase leggings that work for both athletic and leisure activities and often shops at Lululemon and Athleta. Yes-be this specific with your created personas.
3. Decide on the channels you want to market on.
Did you know that more than half of companies use at least eight channels to engage with their customers? Though that number of channels may seem large, it could be necessary for your strategy.
The goal of multi-channel marketing is to market on channels where your target audience is spending the majority of their time, not to market on every existing channel.
In order to make the most out of multi-channel marketing, you need to identify which channels will be most effective in reaching your target audience. You can learn this by studying your buyer persona, which will give you insight into their behavior and demographics.
The different channels have different audiences. For example, Facebook has an older user demographic than TikTok, which is mainly for Generation Z. If your target audience is a B2B (Business to Business) customer in their late 40’s, then TikTok is not the right channel for you to focus on – LinkedIn may be a better choice.
Depending on which platform you pick, you might need to optimize your content to fit that particular platform. For example, if you’re using YouTube or TikTok, you might need to create videos that are marketable. However, if you’re using Facebook or LinkedIn, you’ll need to focus on different types of content that are best suited for those platforms.
4. Develop content
All campaigns, regardless of platform or channel, need great content. You might need to create:
- A new landing or product page when using a digital channel
- Visual advertising content for a print or static channel
- Images and hashtags for social media channels
Even if the content you’re putting out varies depending on the channel, make sure it is always consistent with your brand. The best marketing strategies across multiple channels create a continuous experience. That means the tone, colors, and visual images you use should be consistent no matter what medium you’re using.
5. Keep your multi-channel efforts consistent.
It’s important to have unique content for each channel that is appropriate for the audience and format. However, the messaging should be consistent across all channels. This doesn’t mean that everything needs to be the same as in omnichannel marketing, but the channels should work together to support the overall campaign. 90% of customers expect consistent interactions with a business across all channels, so this is something that should not be ignored.
An example of this would be if you were marketing a brand-new product. In this case, you would want to create content focused on that product for each channel that has similar messaging and tone. Even though the format may be different for each channel, you want the product to still be the main focus. Therefore, you could write a long-form blog post announcing the new product, post a photo carousel showcasing the product on Instagram, and create a custom Snapchat filter to promote the product.
The different pieces of content on this page are all promoting your new product.
6. Target your persona at each point in the sales funnel.
If you’re familiar with marketing, the marketing funnel should not be a new concept for you. But, if you need a refresher, here’s a basic version of the marketing funnel:
To convert customers, you need to take them through a marketing funnel. Multi-channel marketing is perfect for this, because each channel you use serves a different purpose at each step.
The main goal at the awareness level is to introduce your business to people who are interested in your product or service. You want to have your audience established and their intent fleshed out. You should base your efforts on capturing awareness across all channels, but the most important ones are search ads, high SERP (Search Engine Result Pages) rankings, and social ads. These placements can capture leads that might not know your business, but they are aware of your general industry.
When you are targeting audiences at the consideration level, you are providing reasons for them to think about your business. This type of content can be effective on the same channels as the content designed to raise awareness. The audiences for these two types of content overlap to some extent.
At this point, the customer has decided they want a solution to their problem and your business should be that solution. You need to make sure your business is present whenever they look for a solution. This could mean ranking high on search engines or having PPC ads for specific search terms. If they’ve visited your site before and haven’t converted, you can use remarketing ads via email or on social media. Facebook is one of the best channels for this.
After a customer has converted, it is important to continue to market to them and produce content that they will be interested in. By doing this, you will keep your brand top of mind and build brand loyalty. Eventually, customers will advocate for your brand on their own channels.
7. Use customer relationship management tools.
Tools like CRM (customer relationship management) software can be helpful for businesses running multi-channel marketing campaigns because they can automate tasks that would otherwise take a lot of time to do manually.
A CRM platform helps you keep track of customer data in one place, monitor engagement across all channels, and develop a single view of your customer.
Additionally, CRM tools give you the ability to follow customers and potential customers as they progress through their buyer’s journey. This enables you to create targeted, personalized campaigns designed to provide each customer with a personalized experience every step of the way.
There are many CRM tools available that can help with marketing. Adding live chat support to websites and social media profiles using tools like LiveChat, Chatmatic and ZotaBox can help with direct customer contact. Software like HubSpot can help keep all channels connected for an overall CRM. Some eCommerce platforms have built-in CRM software to keep things streamlined and efficient.
8. Track performance metrics and adjust as necessary.
If you don’t track the performance of your marketing campaign, all your efforts could be for nothing. To make the most of your multi-channel marketing, track your metrics regularly and take note of progress, positive or negative, so you can make changes as needed.
You should track the KPIs you mentioned at the start of your strategy-building process for each separate channel. Keep in mind that not every KPI is relevant for every channel you’re active on. For example, retweets may be a key metric for your Twitter goals, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s also important for a platform like Instagram, which doesn’t have the same sharing feature.
If the KPIs aren’t meeting the standards, it’s time to change some things. See what is and isn’t working, such as if there are any underperforming channels, gaps in areas, or content that isn’t having much success. Do more of what is working well, and don’t be afraid to make changes. Things that are successful now may need to be changed in the future.
Conclusion
All marketing approaches, including multi-channel marketing, can be more effective with a good strategy backing it.
Multi-channel marketing can also be a starting point for other approaches, such as cross-channel and omnichannel marketing. You don’t need to stick to one approach – in fact, it’s recommended that you don’t. Marketing is constantly evolving, so it’s best to change with it.
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