The market grows continuously, and your customers exist everywhere. Investing and leveraging on the best multi-channels as well as employing the right multichannel strategies can make your business competitive in the market and in communicating your messages to reach, connect, engage, and convert more customers to succeed in the new normal setting.
Even before the pandemic happened, businesses have already been using multi-channels to communicate their products and services in order to reach more customers, build connections, and engage customers with the value the business offers with the hopes and goal of converting them into paying customers who take desired actions to the business. However, some of these channels, such as physical locations and physical trade shows or events, are no longer viable or not that effective in the new normal due to health and safety restrictions. In this guide, we take a look at multi-channels to step up your campaigns in the new normal. But first, we define what multichannel marketing means.
What is Multi-Channel Marketing
Multichannel marketing is the practice of using a variety of or multiple channels, which may be a combination of direct and indirect channels, in order to communicate and interact with prospective or current customers of the business. These multi-channels may include, but are not phone calls, mobile apps, search engine optimization (SEO), and a lot more. Multichannel marketing makes it easier for customers to reach you and the offerings you have through the channels of their choice.
While numerous channels are available for your company to use, not all of these could provide better results and help you succeed in the new normal. The pandemic has intensified and accelerated digital consumption. With that, more customers are going online and utilizing digital channels to communicate, interact, and get relevant information of products and services.
In the Digital Around the World Report by DataReportal, 4.72 B or 60.1% of people around the world use the internet. This number is still growing, which makes it an opportunity for businesses to utilize more online or digital channels for its multichannel marketing strategies.
So, which multi-channels will work best in the new normal and how to effectively use them?
Here are some of the online channel’s businesses must look into and should strengthen this new normal in your multichannel marketing.
E-Mail still remains as one of the most cost-effective and powerful marketing channels for your business. In fact, it has a 4400% ROI if effectively employed by your business. This means having a $44 dollar return for every dollar you spend. Emails can drive conversions, which can also be measured using other metrics.
It is expected that there will be 4.5 billion users of this channel by 2024. That is a large pool of people to acquire the right target market and leads from. Your business can build relationships with them, as well as sustain current customers and regain past ones. It is because email is the only channel that allows the business to access customers directly.
When using email as a marketing channel in your multichannel marketing strategy, use email marketing tools to help you overcome the challenges of spending a lot of time and money in the process of creating a great email. These tools can make you more productive in your email campaigns.
Businesses can also re-evaluate their email content by making sure it is relevant and suits the interest and needs of their recipients. Making email content more personalized can keep customers engaged. Sending COVID-related messages can also show that you are empathetic to them during the new normal. Moreover, timing is also an important factor. The best time and day to send emails are during 8am, 1pm, or 5pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Social Media
Next to email, social media might just be the next channel businesses might go for when taking into account the number of users. DataPortal indicates that global social media users are 4.33 B people, or 55.1% of the world population. The potential of this platform is favorable as social media use continues to grow. Data shows that 73.5% use this channel to follow and research on brands and products. Also, 22.6% use this for work-related matters. Facebook and YouTube leads the list of most used platforms.
Customers use social media for a number of hours in a day, which makes this platform effective for reach and engagement in your multichannel marketing. In a study by Mason, et al., the channel is useful in the customers’ decision-making process from awareness to post-purchase in the new normal. The social media channel has platforms that are free to use or have paid options, but at a low cost. Also, these platforms have analytics that also allows businesses to directly target customers and measure likes, comments, shares, clicks, and other metrics to assess success depending on your goals.
People share a lot of content in social media, so the best way to increase visibility when using this channel in your multichannel marketing is to create messages and content that are shareable by making them useful, entertaining, and inspiring at the same time for your target market.
LinkedIn is a social networking channel, but more specifically for business networking. This platform has 756 million professional users and over 57 million listed companies that will allow your business to interact with the right business people. LinkedIn allows businesses and professionals to connect with each other to build connections and grow their business. The channel has also been utilized for information sharing, job seeking, product offering, and more.
LinkedIn is useful for B2Bs in generating leads as 89% of B2B marketers use this for lead generation as it can generate 277% more effective leads which is a great addition to your multichannel marketing strategies. When using this channel, it is important to create and publish professional content that can add value to your connections and target market. Other than using the channel’s own analytics to measure your performance, some analytics tools can also be used to improve the performance of your page.
Webinar/Virtual Events
With the new normal, webinar and virtual events have been the norm for businesses. The ongoing restrictions and strict physical distancing and face to face measures leads businesses to rely on online formats.
Webinars and virtual events can be a great addition to your multichannel marketing strategies, as these channels could gather and bring together a wide group of people anywhere in the world. However, bear in mind that you should target the right audiences.
These are great ways to present your business, products and services, as well as things to look forward to your business in real time in order to engage and interact with participants who could be your prospects and future customers. In fact, 73% of B2B marketers see webinars as effective in generating high-quality leads. This channel can get you 500 up to 1,000 leads. This and other data will surely get you started with your virtual events.
When hosting one, always prioritize your message and convey it to your audience. Using these as channels is great in generating valuable content as virtual hosting platforms can accommodate polls and Q&As which can be recorded along with the whole session, so you can share, replay, and repurpose it for your other campaigns.
Website
A website can make your business credible. It can serve as a one-stop-place for you to reach prospects and customers anywhere around the world. Your website can present information about your business, the products and services you offer, people involved in delivering the services, contact details, customer testimonials and a lot more relevant information that customers might find necessary to consider when creating their purchase decisions.
This channel is great for your multichannel marketing strategy as this can aid as the starting point for your customers to directly reach and contact you easily. Which is why you should keep in mind to make your website seamless and easy to navigate. A great website could engage more customers.
Establish more online presence by creating and publishing valuable SEO-friendly content to bring customers to your website. Google processes an estimated 63,000 queries per second, proving that a lot of people are searching the internet daily. More content and SEO practices can make your website more noticeable and drive more traffic to it.
Chatbots can also be a great addition in this channel. Other than improving customer experience, Neon Goldfish provides six reasons why you should consider it now.
Now you know what marketing channels you can work with in your multichannel marketing strategies, this new normal. In these strategies, it is important to know your target market and their behavior. Knowing the recipient of your marketing communications and the people you interact with will enable you to tailor personalized content and messaging that is highly relevant and useful to these people. This will allow you to bring in more success to your business.
Select and use the set of channels that can meet your goals and where most of your target market are in or are currently using. Taking into account the pros and cons of each would guide you to find the multi-channels that suits your business.
Speak with one voice
When communicating marketing messages in the multi-channels, you should be able to use and speak with one voice. This means using uniform and consistent messages across the various channels mentioned above. The core message must exist and must be relayed effectively.
Employ multichannel marketing software/tools
Working on multi-channels can be challenging, so it can be helpful to manage your channels and strategies with multichannel marketing software or tools. This will allow you to automate and consistently execute campaigns to continuously communicate, interact, and engage with your customers. It can improve your performance, meet your metrics, and succeed.
The pandemic has changed the way business operate, particularly the way they implement campaigns. While this became a challenge, the new normal has driven more online opportunities for businesses, leading them to utilize more online multichannel marketing strategies. Knowing these channels and using multi-channels effectively could still bring you success even in the new normal. This new normal, also make business and marketing success your new normal.