Effective sales are all about reaching, attracting, and retaining your customers. With the proliferation of channels, your customers could be anywhere. Trying to connect with potential customers in the retail environment, on Twitter, via email, over the radio or television, on your website, and with a direct mail can leave your marketing group feeling stressed and overextended. However, failing to market to channels puts you at a disadvantage compared to your competition. Multichannel marketing connects these channels so you can accomplish more, with less effort, while giving the consumer a greater degree of choice and flexibility.
Overview of multichannel marketing
At its most basic, multichannel marketing refers to the idea of marketing across different channels. Chances are, you are probably incorporating some multichannel marketing into your existing campaigns without even being aware of it. For example, you might include social media icons in your e-newsletters, or you might include QR codes on direct mail so users can go directly to the relevant URL from their smartphone. Respectively, these strategies tie together email, social, website, mobile, and direct mail. They put the choice of access in the consumer’s hands, so the consumer can choose to interact with your brand using their preferred channel. The repetition also helps keep your brand in the user’s mind, enhancing brand recognition.
Brand benefits
As Shawn Collins, founder and CEO of the EXTEND GROUP, notes, “Technology is only smart if you apply it in the right place.” Leveraging the choice element accommodates the widest possible array of consumer behavior and poises the brand to capture the largest revenue stream. The EXTEND GROUP can overhaul your current marketing strategy to incorporate a multichannel approach.
Additional benefits for brands include:
- Greater attention from consumers: The more channels you use, the more eyes you’ll have on your campaigns and the more customers and brand recognition you’ll receive.
- Customer choice = Higher rate of conversion: When you allow customers to use the medium they are most comfortable with, they are more likely to complete the conversion than when you force customers to use 1-2 channels of your choice.
- More Touch Points: The increased number of touch points in your marketing funnel lets you collect more data, which can help you develop a better understanding of your promotions’ success rate.
- Brand Consistency: Since you are managing your business’s reputation across all areas, your brand can stay consistent across mediums.
The EXTEND GROUP’s Change Agent process can jump start your sales across channels by incorporating a multichannel approach. To learn more about our services, read case studies, or click here for contact information.
