Cross Channel Marketing: Why It's Important
Previously, we discussed cross-channel marketing in brief and discussed the four-point conversion funnel that multichannel marketing aids with gaining the prospects' attention and closing the sale. Don’t take the business terminologies too seriously. A conversion funnel is merely a term that is used in e-commerce describing the process the potential customer takes to finalize a purchase of your services or products. Again, the four-point conversion funnel was covered in the basics of cross-channel marketing. Check out our blog for more insights into marketing and its multiple facets.
Moving forward and staying on point, cross-channel marketing provides multiple ways to engage with your prospects and current clients on different types of devices and channels. We live in an era where just about everyone has a cell phone or tablet. Most people don’t even have desktops anymore due to the ease and portability of using a laptop. Wi-Fi connectivity is taking over and you can obtain a free Wi-Fi connection just about anywhere for any purpose from education to business.
Let’s refresh ourselves on what cross channel marketing is: Cross channel or multichannel marketing is a term used to identify the practice of engaging with customers directly and indirectly. Examples of channels used to interact with clients and prospects are; email, text messaging, automated calls, direct mail, websites, apps and so much more. Cross-channel marketing is all about empowering your prospects and customers and giving them a choice.
The Importance of Cross Channel Marketing
The greatest common in factor in why cross-channel marketing is important is because your customers are everywhere, and you want to be where your customers are. Cross-channel customers have the potential to spend three to four times more than customers on a single channel of marketing.
You want to ensure the customer has suggestive purchasing power when it comes to services and products of interest. Your customers make your business what it is. Without a doubt, there are multiple channels available to customers and prospects to utilize to gain information, insight, and the ability to purchase while having the ultimate customer service experience. The channels used for marketing have multiplied and will continue to do so.
Channels
Let’s take a direct look at the types of channels offered in multichannel marketing. You determine which ones are right for your marketing strategies.
Email
Direct mail
SMS
Interactive apps
Automated advertising
Mail-order catalogs
Social media marketing i.e., Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
Websites
Ad Clicks
Retail stores
Customer service engagement channels: email, online chats, 800-numbers
This list just names a few of the channels utilized in the cross-channel marketing process, it doesn’t stop here. There are so many other options available to you. Again, you must determine the marketing strategies that are right for you.
The Challenges of Cross Channel Marketing
Campaigning. Placing expectations is setting yourself up for failure. You expect customers to change channels as trends change. This isn’t always the case. Some people are “stuck in their ways” and prefer consistency in the way they do things. As a marketer, you should constantly develop an interchanging marketing campaign that allows your customers access to touch-points that fluidly guide them into change while providing value creation and trust.
Marketing Response Acknowledgement. It’s quite difficult to determine campaigns or channels that produce successful sales conversions. This is a good place to go back and check out Analytics Oversight. Analytics is another important aspect of the marketing process. Understand the triggers of your customers and prospects allows the marketing strategist to gain greater insight into whether the marketing efforts are successful.
Targeted messaging Hitting your target market is critical to conversion sales. If you want to sell something you must identify who your target market is, age, demographics, and region you want to channel traffic from the back into your business. Content-centric marketing helps with hitting your target market and conveying the correct message. Your message must catch the attention of your audience, ensure they are receptive and willing to take action—no matter what channel you choose to use.
A lot of marketing strategies fail because the operator doesn’t take into consideration the importance of cross-channel marketing in a constantly changing economy.
Happy marketing!
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