When you look at marketing in 2018, it’s clear to see that people’s priorities are shifting. People are moving away from traditional advertising mediums like printed leaflets, radio advertising, and billboard advertisement.
Instead, we are seeing a ton of business owners implementing multi-channel marketing techniques. With businesses heading online to Facebook ads, Instagram influencers, Snapchat influencers, Google AdWords and content marketing solutions.
In fact, a lot of marketers are turning to mediums like content marketing to promote their businesses. 60% of marketers create at least one piece of content each day.
With there being so many new forms of marketing out there, it can be intimidating to try and understand what cross-channel marketing can work for your business.
That’s why this article will take you through the dummies guide to multi-channel marketing so you can be up and running in no time.
What is Multi-Channel Marketing?
Multi-channel marketing (MCM) is the name for the practice of interacting with customers by a number of different methods. These methods of communication can be both direct and indirect.
The idea behind multi-channel marketing is to sell to your customer through a variety of different mediums.
With 63% of companies saying their top marketing challenge is generating traffic and leads, it’s easy to see why multi-channel marketing is so popular.
What Forms Of Marketing Are There?
When it comes to MCM, there are a huge variety of options at your disposal. It all depends on how you want to reach your audience.
Before you start using MCM, you should first consider who you are trying to reach, i.e., who is your target audience? Once you’ve established who you are targeting and who your ideal customer is you can begin to explore ways to communicate with them.
In 2018, a lot of companies are turning to content marketing as a means to communicate with their audience. Content marketing is one of the most popular forms of communication for MCM, not just because of its popularity but also because of the cost savings.
Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing channels yet generates nearly three times more leads. This puts it way up there as one of the top marketing channels.
Other popular mediums for MCM are email marketing, Facebook ads, Facebook groups, Instagram stories, Snapchat Influencer marketing and many others.
Why Is It Effective?
MCM marketing is an effective strategy for targeting your customers because you are coming at them from a lot of different angles. With just one marketing solution, such as direct mail, if your customer throws their mail away, you’re stuck.
No exposure.
In contrast, if you try to reach that audience across multiple networks, you have a much higher chance of engaging with that audience member. If they don’t read pamphlets, they may see a Facebook ad.
If they don’t use Facebook, they might see a blog post. If they don’t read blogs, but they use email, you can get them there.
Multi-channel marketing gives you lots of opportunities to get your brand exposed to your audience.
Where MCM really comes into its own is when you pair up the marketing techniques together.
Cross Market Promotion
Where MCM shines more than anything is when you take two marketing mediums, and you promote them together. Let’s give you an example to explain what I mean.
Let’s say you have a new piece of content you are promoting about ‘7 ways to save money on your car insurance’.
Traditional marketing would have you choose one method of marketing and hope for the best. Cross-market, Multi-channel marketing, promotion is different.
You can put out a piece of content on your blog which shares the seven ways you can save money. You can then promote that post to your audience on Facebook groups, through a Facebook ad and on your Facebook page.
You can then send an email broadcast out sharing the content to your audience as well. You can then create a complimentary video that’s 60 seconds long for your Instagram group, and a 15-second snippet for your Instagram story.
You can create a 2-5 minute video for sharing on Facebook and YouTube and include these videos in the original blog post. All of these pieces of content can point back to an offer you have running on your website which helps your customers save money on their car insurance.
This doesn’t just help to expose yourself to a wider audience; it brings all of your pieces of content together so that they are working together to promote each other.
This is how many marketers are so successful in promoting their content, as each piece of content brings in new audiences, then passes them onto the next piece of content and vice versa.
How Can You Build Up Your Marketing Channels?
As a brand new marketer, it can seem daunting to have to create content for 7-10 different ways to market your business. The trick is to start with one, perfect it then move on.
When we talk about perfection, it’s not to create the perfect post or perfect formulae for success. It’s talking about perfecting your understanding of that medium, understanding all of the components for success.
Once you fully understand how a platform works you can then move onto the next platform and keep promoting. In business, this is easier, as you can have different teams working on different projects at the same time.
It’s a little bit harder if your team consists of you and your dog.
One thing is for sure, learning how to leverage multiple networks for your marketing can bolster your marketing campaigns immeasurably. This cross-platform promotion is what is driving great success for thousands of business owners online.
Bring Multi-Channel Marketing Into Your Business
It can be tempting to stick to one marketing method if that’s what you’ve always known. But times are changing, and the benefits of leveraging multi-channel marketing for your business can be huge.
For more help in understanding how to market your business more effectively, reach out to us today.
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