3 Golden rules to master multi-channel marketing

All roads lead to Rome.

That more or less sums what marketing is all about today.

Just as the Romans built an amazing network of roads thousands of years back, so they had a convenient way to connect with their provinces; marketers too are using various digital routes (email, mobile, social) along with the traditional media to connect with the new age customer. Essentially, all paths and efforts lead to the same destination a winning (and retaining) the customer.

Why has multi-channel marketing become so important?

Multiplying digital touch points has significantly changed the lead generation and customer engagement process. According to a Harvard Business School study, businesses taking advantage of multiple channels were more profitable than those employing only a single channel.

Recently one of our customers, a leading mutual fund company in India decided to capitalize on the power of multi-channel marketing to attract attention to its new product. Our strategy of combining the reach of Email and SMS with the power of human voice (Customer care call integration) helped the brand achieve 25% of online sales. (Case study shared at the end of this blog)

So how does one effectively build a multi-channel marketing program? In this blog I share with you the 3 golden rules to master multi-channel marketing:

1. Create work flows and define your channels of communication

When choosing a combination of channels, predict outcome from each channel and use that information to create follow-up opportunities. Like say, when you send out an email to your customer, there are 3 possibilities – your customer opens the email, opens and clicks the CTA (Call-to-action) or simply ignores (doesn’t open the email). Based on these outcomes, plan your next communication, which could be as follows-

– Only opens the email a follow up email

– Opens and clicks the CTA trigger a call from your customer care

– Doesn’t open the email Send an SMS reminder about the email that was sent

Scenario planning will help create the communication flow and plan a unified marketing strategy.

2. Create consistent customer experience across all channels

Customers interact with you across multiple channels throughout their journey of purchasing. Disconnected interactions are the leading cause of missed sales. Ensure that all the processes are in sync and communication is consistent across all channels to create positive customer experiences, open the next channel of communication and move customers deeper into the sales funnel.

3. Measure performance

Measure your ROE² (Return on Experience X Engagement) not just ROI. This is the most important aspect of any multi-channel strategy. All channels are working cohesively to influence customer behaviour. Some of these channels might not be directly impacting the ROI but instead helping in the ROE factor that in turn gets the sales. Take a closer look at individual channels and analyse their performance. Tweak and make adjustments to your multi-channel strategy; removing channels that you feel haven’t given a positive impact and optimizing those channels that your customer prefers to interact with.

Here’s the case study on how multi-channel marketing helped increase Sales by 25%