Benefits of Multi-Channel Marketing
Marketing through multiple channels, or multi-channel marketing, involves the seamless combination of promotional and distribution channels your company uses into a single marketing strategy. Multi-channel marketing not only works to reach more customers but also dramatically benefits the return your company will see from marketing efforts.
A multi-channel approach takes advantage of the strengths of each channel by effectively presenting content, messaging, and value to customers based on your goals. Such a strategy allows you to reach your target demographic where they are instead of your target audience taking the effort to find you.
The channels that make up a multi-channel approach include, but are not limited to, social media, email, direct mail, signage, display ads, and your company website. There is no limit to how many channels you utilize depending on your goals, budget, and action plans.
What is Multi-channel Marketing?
A simple definition of multi-channel marketing is a business strategy involving a combination of separate marketing channels to maximize the likelihood of interactions with potential prospects of your business. This approach ensures that you can reach customers with the appropriate content based on all channels they use.
Examples of channels within a multi-channel approach include:
- Social Media
- Direct Mail
- Signage
- Display Ads
- Website
- Word of Mouth
- Mobile App
- Radio
The advantages of executing a multi-channel approach are reaching more customers, driving traffic to your brand, increasing sales and revenue, gaining a competitive edge, and increasing market share.
Reaching Customers Where They Are
Your business goals should always be concerned with widening your reach, so more awareness is brought about for your brand and its products. Using only one or two marketing channels will make satisfying this goal difficult and limited. Take social media, for example, Facebook has continued to hold its status as the most popular social platform with close to 3 billion active users. The largest age group is 25-34 on Facebook, but on rising star Tik Tok, the largest age group is 10-19. Instagram, another popular platform has a large presence in the age group of 18-24 at 31% of users. Communicating with those on your email list or one social media platform such as Facebook will leave your audience that prefers Instagram or Tik Tok out of the loop. The same goes for the folks who prefer receiving direct mail over digital content.
With a multi-channel approach, your message gets received on the channels your audience prefers and is present no matter where they are. Placing your content across more channels also increases the likelihood it will be seen, thus raising awareness of your brand. The abundance of touchpoints available to marketers today makes it essential to take advantage of them.
Drive More Traffic to Your Brand
One of the main benefits of multi-channel marketing is building your presence across each available marketing channel that drives your desired audience toward your products and services. People are tech-savvy today and are not afraid to try new media, and neither should you.
An established presence across various channels drives audience engagement and the traffic your business sees online and in a brick-and-mortar environment.
Think of it like a domino effect. Your audience sees what you’re doing across multiple channels repeatedly, slowly becoming more interested in your offerings, and then acts, benefiting your brand in the end. A widened sales funnel rarely hurts a brand in the long run.
Increase Your Revenue Potential
As stated above, multi-channel marketing drives more traffic toward your brand presenting a prime opportunity to increase sales. All businesses have financial goals, so why not put your best foot forward by taking advantage of all possible marketing avenues to satisfy these goals?
Placing your calls to action across eight channels will render far more results in terms of leads than only advertising on two or three. With 72% of consumers saying they’d rather connect with brands via multi-channel marketing, it should be a no-brainer for your organization. Through constant interaction as a prospect moves through the sales funnel, multi-channel marketing gives you the best chance at securing your next sale.
Gaining Competitive Edge and Market Share
Both the online and offline environments in business have been getting increasingly competitive. With 92% of retail brands using multiple channels to market their brand, you’ll find yourself falling behind quickly if you’re not also utilizing a multi-channel marketing strategy. There are many options available to consumers, don’t waste away your opportunity to reach consumers first which could make all the difference.
Leveraging multiple marketing channels builds your competitive advantage by placing your content in front of as many targeted eyes as possible, building a valuable brand reputation. Your competitors that don’t have a presence on a particular channel will miss out on capturing the attention you will. Doing so increases your potential gain in market share once you’ve got an audience interested in your brand.
It’s harder for another company to pry away loyal customers, so be sure you’re doing as much as possible to have a presence across all marketing channels. Multi-channel marketing has proven to earn results for the brands that use such a strategy. It grows your awareness and loyalty across all known channels and devices and helps drive your business’s bottom line!