In the perfect world, all your customers would be easy to reach. You’d have a single channel to get to them, and you’d know precisely when they’re active. Of course, you’d use the same channel to engage them, convert them, and keep in touch with them. Unfortunately, we don’t live in this perfect place. And in the real world, you have to learn how to use cross-channel marketing to grow your business. So, that’s what we’re talking about today.
Now, the single-channel approach did work in the past, so if you’re in the game for a long time, you might be wondering why you can’t use it anymore. And it’s because it doesn’t give you a complete understanding of your audience.
So, you won’t get your customers, you won’t be able to create a top-notch experience for them, and when you start losing your social media followers, you won’t know why it’s happening. Luckily, you can easily avoid all these things if you go for cross-channel marketing. But what is it exactly?
What is cross-channel marketing?
Cross-channel marketing is when you use multiple marketing channels to create a more fluid customer journey. In essence, you set multiple touchpoints for your prospects, and at each of them, the message leads them to the next one. The purchase should seem like a logical and natural path to them, and it’s your job to create it.
Of course, if you set things right, throughout their journey, you’ll learn more and more about your buyers. All the data you collect will help you create a few buyer personas that best represent your target audience. And by drawing data from your personas to power your campaigns, you’ll improve the CX and build trust.
But let’s dive a bit further into why you should use cross-channel marketing before giving you tips on building a high-converting campaign.
Benefits of cross channel marketing
Optimizing customer journey
Cross-channel marketing isn’t exactly a new thing, and we know for sure that it can improve marketing budget efficiency by as much as 20%. That’s how much more money you’ll make if you do things by the book. And on top of that, it’s not a secret that people love to buy through different channels. If it’s convenient, they’ll use it.
As a marketer, you have to follow your audience. Wherever they are – you have to be there, and at the same time. However, that doesn’t mean you can allow your campaigns to become fragmented across channels. Instead, you want them to rely on solid numbers from the same marketing database. When all your customer data is in a single location, you can be sure there won’t be any miss-matches with parameters.
Higher engagement
The more channels a customer uses to engage with your brand, the more often they’ll buy from you. And when you think about it a bit more, it makes sense. Your clients create emotional connections with your brand as they engage with you. They start trusting you more, which is vital for making customers loyal.
So, you want your leads and customers to engage with you as much as possible. By being present on multiple channels, you give them more opportunities for it. You don’t wait for them to come to you, but you put your brand in front of them.
A stronger brand
By being omnipresent, you’ll be more visible. And as people will see your brand more often, it’ll grow. They’ll recognize your logo, and your customers will stay with you longer.
However, you’ll have to avoid all the common digital marketing mistakes and maintain a consistent look across the channels for this to work. Use the same colors and voice in your messaging at each touchpoint. You want your audience to know it’s you as soon as they see the post.
How to create a successful cross-channel campaign
Now, we finally get to the best part. And it’s the essence of how to use cross-channel marketing to grow your business.
A thing to remember is that the goal of cross-channel marketing is to create a more exciting and personalized customer experience. So, here are some tips that will help you do just that.
Use data to drive your campaigns
For a multichannel campaign to work, it must be data-driven. You need to know who your target audience is, what platforms they like to use, and what kind of content they respond well to. Compile the data from all channels, and behavioral patterns will emerge. By using the data, you’ll be able to shape your campaigns better and get better ROI.
Create comprehensive buyer personas
If you know a lot about your audience, you can create accurate buyer personas. Then, you can examine them and find the motivation and drivers behind their buying habits. You’ll realize what your customers need and how you can help them even more. Of course, you’ll use all these insights to improve your product and future campaigns and messaging.
Choose the right marketing tools
In marketing, you need tools for everything. You need tools for keyword research, PPC advertising, and of course, social media and website analytics. Naturally, you want to ensure that the tools you pick gather accurate and quality data. You’ll use the insights these give you to:
- Determine when to show your ads
- Which channels to show your ads on
- Which messages you’ll use to engage your audience
So, it’s clear why you want this data to be correct. If your marketing software steers you in the wrong direction, you’ll lose time, money, and customers.
Optimize your KPIs
KPI stands for key performance indicator, and you need to have a few of those and optimize them throughout your marketing funnel. Of course, the obvious ones to track are your revenue growth, revenue per client, profit margin, client retention rate, etc. But that said, you can add any you feel will matter to you.
The data you collect by tracking your KPIs will help you figure out what you need to do to increase your marketing ROI. As a result, you’ll make more informed decisions, which will lead to higher conversion rates.
The bottom line
You know how to use cross-channel marketing to grow your business, so get on it. Don’t skip any steps, and you’ll create a fluid customer journey across all your marketing platforms. And if you pick the right tools to help you, you won’t even have to do any heavy lifting. The software will tell you what to do, and you just need to listen to it.