Every day of our lives is filled with decisions and choices whether they are big or small. What do I eat for breakfast? What am I going to wear? Which job am I applying for? Where am I going for my holiday? To have a choice is to have power. The power to determine how the course of our day plays out.
World-renowned author, John C. Maxwell once wrote that “Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.” This applies to our businesses as well. The choices we, as well as our clients make, determine the course our business takes. This is where multi-channel marketing comes in.
What is Multi-channel Marketing?
First off, what exactly is Multi-channel Marketing? It is the process of engaging leads, prospects, and customers using a blend of both online and offline channels such as websites, mail (direct and email), phone, social, mobile apps, etc.
The goal of any marketing strategy is to be able to convince the client to avail of our products and services. However, if we limit the methods with which they can do so, the success of selling them our services is scarce.
With the internet vastly growing and social media always pumping out new ways for people to communicate, it is important for us to know exactly where our customers hang out. There are various ways to interact with our customers, and as we cater to their needs and communicate with them accordingly, we will reap the benefits of multi-channel marketing.
Let’s talk Benefits
Convenience is key
Customers always seek out the most convenient way to connect and interact with a company. Uniqlo, one of the forerunners in the modern fashion industry, has strong online and offline marketing strategies by incorporating new technology that keeps their customers on their toes and coming back for more.
In 2012, Uniqlo launched the world’s first virtual “dressing room” called The Magic Mirror. The mirror has a touch screen panel that allows the customers to try on different color variations of a piece of clothing they wanted without the hassle of going in and out of the dressing room. To add to the fun, customers were also able to pick different backgrounds to fit their outfits. In addition to this, the store also allows customers to check stock availability on their websites as well as in stores nearest to them.
Flexing Flexibility
With life being fast-paced and busy, people are either at the office in a meeting or out on the streets rushing to get to the office to attend a meeting. Our customers would want diverse options in paying for our products and services. If customers are able to pay online or using their mobile phones, and apps, it shows them your efficiency, and the chances of being recommended are higher.
Brand Presence
It’s all about being seen and heard by your customers. Aside from all the big marketing activities, another good way to establish your brand visibility is through social media such as Facebook and Twitter as they are the top tier of social media platforms. There are 2.3 billion Facebook users as of the first quarter of 2019 alone.
Take HBO’s marketing strategy for Game of Thrones for example. The show’s presence was undeniable. Makeshift “iron thrones” were placed inside malls for people to take pictures with and share all over social media with hashtags and tagging HBO. It caused the company online traffic, high Google search rankings, and gaining more subscribers.
Evolution is Inevitable
The great thing about multi-channel marketing is that it’s ever-evolving and a brand that evolves with it can become unstoppable. When one medium becomes outdated, a newer one takes its place. Keep yourself open to new innovative ways to market your brand that could make you stand out above the rest.
Remember to cater to your target audience. Once you’ve figured out who your demographic is, it will be much easier to come up with the best-suited channel for them.
Now that we’ve established what the different benefits are, it’s time to discuss marketing channels that drive B2B sales and lead generation.
Related: Capture More B2B Sales Leads with Multi-Channel Marketing
Multiple Channels, Multiple Touchpoints
By embracing multi-channel marketing, not only will it benefit your consumers and make their interactions with your brand more memorable, but it also benefits your company by ringing in more engagement and lead generation.
Call ‘em up
When a customer wants to place an inquiry, what’s their first instinct? Call. When a customer encounters a problem with a product, what do they do? Call. About 92% of your live conversations with your customer happen over the phone. Up to this day, Telemarketing is still one of the quickest and most interactive ways to reach a client and make sales. If done right and with patience, you could be having an online payment transaction in a matter of minutes.
Emails up!
This marketing channel has got to be the most exhausting one out of the bunch. To ease the burden of typing out the same message over and over again, companies now incorporate automated email responses as well as hire people with the specific task to write and reply to emails. As tedious as this task may sound, it has been shown that automated messages have a much higher click-through rate.
To ensure that you will have a successful transaction over email is letting your target email have attention-grabbing subject lines, brief yet precise text and compelling call-to-action closing statements, and voila! You will see higher click-through rates.
Related: Sell Smarter with these 6 Email Marketing Automation Workflows
Into the Web
As mentioned earlier, online presence is very important and one of the biggest digital capital you can have is a website. A little bit of caution here is that you make sure that your website doesn’t just sit pretty, but that it’s regularly updated and interactive as well.
The Social Route
We live in a day and age where everyone has access to social media and everyone can be found there, too. Young and old alike can be found liking and sharing all kinds of posts on their Facebook. If you study your client’s behavior on the internet, you will be able to pick the right platform to use add into your multi-channel arsenal.
Read more on the detailed statistics of these channels here.
Of course, multi-channel marketing tools aren’t limited to only the ones we’ve mentioned here. There is a myriad of tools out there, and we at Callbox collated a list of must-have Multi-channel Marketing Tools out there that will help you grow your business.
