How to Make Your Multichannel Marketing Campaigns Succeed

As marketers, we’re continually learning more about how people buy things, and adapting our strategies to align with these shifts in consumer trends. 

Multichannel marketing – sometimes referred to as omnichannel marketing – is  the process of communicating with – and marketing to – prospects and customers across many different channels, both online and offline. 

These days, people consume content on different devices and in different media throughout the day. You might, for instance, watch news on the TV, download a movie on your laptop, play a game on your tablet, and get a constant stream of updates and alerts on your smartphone.  

Multichannel marketing is following suit. In other words, instead of using a single channel or outlet (print, TV, radio, email) to target and engage with customers, successful marketing campaigns try to reach their audience where they are: in lots of places at the same time. 

The point is potential customers can be anywhere, and it’s easier to reach them where they are rather than trying to get them to come to you. An interesting fact: multichannel customers spend, on average, 3-4 times more than single channel customers.  

The Benefits of Multichannel Ad Campaigns 

1. You get expansive data on your customers. 

Multichannel marketing campaigns afford you many more touchpoints along a customer’s journey versus a single channel. This, in turn, throws up a lot of valuable behavioral data that will help you fine tune your marketing. This includes where and when your customers engage a particular channel—helping you determine timing—as well as which ones are most likely to convert. This kind of data, your analysis of it, and subsequent response is what often determines the success of one campaign over another. 

2. You gain valuable real estate in consumers’ minds. 

Did you know advertising on YouTube increases searches for a brand on Google by 420%?Spreading your presence around many different channels increases brand awareness, which leads to a spike in website traffic by way of search engines. That also means your website should be one of the primary channels in your marketing campaigns. 

3. You increase customer engagement. 

With multiple channels come multiple points through which to engage and interact with your customers. You can use these opportunities to draw customers into your primary channels of communication, or even to offer exclusive promotions, such as free consultations and planning sessions or trial periods on your products and services. 

The Challenges of Multichannel Ad Campaigns 

1. You spend more. 

Obviously, because you’ll be advertising on more channels, it’s going to cost more time, money, and effort.  Different channels have different requirements, so you’ll require more work out of your team—or even need to develop more creative assets. Done right, it’s a worthwhile investment, but you need to be conscious about the additional costs and adjust your budgeting accordingly. 

2. You need to manage more things. 

Tracking and managing a single channel marketing campaign is challenging enough. It will only get more complicated with multiple channels. Make sure the people who are managing these campaigns are aware of the additional expectations and plan accordingly, so you maximize your investment. 

3. You might weaken a main, preferred channel. 

If you’ve been focusing on a single point into which customers funnel, you might find multiple points a bit overwhelming. It can also be a challenge to aggregate these different channels into a single organized list. Having a system in place before you launch your multichannel ad campaign should be an integral part of your pre-campaign planning. Done correctly, this challenge can be turned into an advantage. 

The Keys to Multichannel Advertising Success 

1. Understand Your Audience 

If you don’t understand your audience, your campaign doesn’t stand a chance. With multichannel campaigns, you also have to understand the channels your audience prefers. Why spend all your resources on email if your target audience is on social media? 

2. Create Control Groups 

If you’re just starting out with multichannel advertising, it’s a good idea to test whether it’s a fit for your business. If you’re starting out with a leads list, this is so much easier. For some, you target with a multichannel campaign. For a few, keep going with your standard single channel approach. This will help you gauge the effectiveness of your multichannel campaigns.

You could, alternatively, set your multichannel campaign for a mass audience and keep a single channel approach for the leads where you have detailed contact information. 

3. Create Multiple Touch Points 

In line with creating a multichannel advertising campaign, you want to set up multiple touch points that are appropriate for the channel you’re using. This will help you better draw in and connect with people. For instance, you might want to flash a phone number on a banner ad instead of a link to your website; or you could add a link to your main promotional video in emails you send out. Having multiple touch points makes it significantly easier for potential customers to reach you at the point where they saw your campaign materials. 

4. Work With a Reliable Partner 

Finally, you can choose to have your multichannel campaign guided by an experienced partner. DemandScience’s PureABM service specializes in targeted ads and account prioritization. We fine tune your targeting to reach potential customers with the greatest intent to make a purchase—all based on analytics and data on their current engagement with your company as well as other online behavior. PureABM tracks this behavior on multiple devices so we can help you choose which channels are best for you.  

Maximize Your Marketing Budget with PureABM

Let us help you choose the right channels to maximize your marketing spend. We have in-depth knowledge about the required specifications of many different digital advertising platforms. With PureABM, we help you reach both your ideal target audiences as well as look-alikes that match your unique parameters. Talk to us today about your advertising goals—we can help you achieve them.