Multichannel Marketing: What It Is, The Pros & Cons

The days of commercial advertisements restricted to billboards, radio, and print are long gone. In today’s digital age, multichannel marketing is a must. Hence, every firm must grasp the benefits and drawbacks of this modern marketing strategy. This will help them modify their tactics effectively. 

In this article, we will define multichannel marketing, and state its benefits and drawbacks. Also, we’ll highlight steps on how to create a winning multichannel marketing strategy. 

What Is Multichannel Marketing? 

Multichannel marketing is the process of interacting with clients across many channels. These may include the use of direct and indirect channels to promote goods and services. Examples of direct channels are physical storefronts, catalogs, and direct mail.

Examples of indirect channels are websites or social media, often called inbound marketing.

You  would love to read “the differences between inbound marketing and outbound marketing.”

Other ways to contact customers through multichannel marketing are smartphones, SMS, email, corporate websites, social media, search engine optimization, or GPS to track clients’ proximity to goods and services.

Multichannel marketing blends inbound and outbound marketing tactics to contact consumers via their chosen channel. In this sense, the client has more influence over the purchasing process than the advertiser.

The idea behind multichannel marketing is that customers now have more options if they want to know more about items.

The expansion of various channels, like email, social media, and mobile, has pushed marketing departments to boost their presence on these platforms. This will help them strengthen their customer relationship management (CRM) initiatives.

Traditional marketing methods, such as print media, fax, radio, and TV broadcasting, are now outdated. These approaches continue to exist as part of a larger plan that includes new media. Marketing methods change in response to changes in clients’ tastes and communication patterns.

Multichannel Marketing Examples

Below are some real-world examples of multichannel marketing. 

1. TestGorilla

The lead-generating funnel of the pre-employment screening testing platform TestGorilla uses a number of marketing methods. TestGorilla posts an instructional ad on Facebook after determining its target audience. TestGorilla links visitors to a practical blog article about diversity recruiting, a subject that is extremely pertinent to their intended audience.

After seeing any engagement with that advertisement, TestGorilla contacts the consumer through email.

2. Toggl Hire

Toggl Hire’s marketing team is aware that their target market is looking to compare them with competitors. But Toggl Hire chooses an inbound marketing strategy as opposed to running advertisements and sending sponsored emails.

First, it creates content for high-intent keywords like “toggl hire versus testgorilla.” This content’s objective is education, not conversion. Then, Toggl Hire summarizes all three options in-depth in order to lead readers to its social media pages.

Thereafter, Toggle Hire nurtures the relationship until the client is ready to make a purchase. They offer more guidance and instruction on LinkedIn, a platform that is highly used by its audience of recruiters and hiring managers.

3. Asana 

The multi-channel campaign of the online project management platform Asana combines inbound and outward strategies. Asana first concentrates on creating original content relevant to the demands of its users.

For instance, the effectiveness and speed of task management are one of Asana’s value propositions (at its core, saving customers time each day).

Therefore, it has created content that targets keywords that are task-focused, such as “task switching vs. multitasking.”

This highlighted snippet attracts top-of-funnel traffic. Therefore its CTA is not intended to convert but to educate the customer. 

Benefits of Multi-Channel Marketing

Multi-channel marketing may benefit firms in various ways. It increases engagement, creates brand consistency, broadens your reach, and simplifies the customer process. Of course, adopting a multichannel marketing strategy has its own set of costs. So, each company must assess whether multi-channel marketing is right for them. 

Let’s look at the primary benefits of multichannel marketing strategies;

• Reach more customers: Using numerous channels allows you to engage with more individuals in different places.

• Increase user engagement: When establishing a multi-channel marketing campaign, you may contact people through their chosen channels. Hence, you may reach out to people on channels where they will engage with your post. 

• Boost brand consistency: Multi-channel marketing builds a consistent image across channels, so buyers get familiar with your company’s image and style.

• Promotes good brand connections and experiences: A marketing team may grow a business’s consumer base and foster brand loyalty. This will occur when they create a unified brand message that adds value and works well with the chosen platform. 

• Simplify the customer journey: By adding more touchpoints to the journey with a multi-channel marketing campaign, you may simply direct customers through the marketing funnel and onto the desired action.
  

Creating several channels for sales is a valuable effort for almost any business. With multi-channel marketing, you may showcase your brand’s various facets through several touchpoints, whether email, landing page, digital advertisement, social media post, postcard, automation, sign-up form, or website. You can let your brand shine differently through each medium.

Difficulties Of Multichannel-Marketing

While there are many benefits of multichannel marketing, it has some drawbacks; 

• Overwhelming: Managing your diverse mediums might feel daunting with so many channels and little time. Effective multi-channel marketing involves controlling cross-promotions. Also, it entails using integrated marketing to make the various channels complement one another. Coordinating such a task is not easy!

• Increased time & cost: Multi-channel marketing involves much more management. So you’ll need to put in more time and perhaps even recruit more people.

How To Create A Successful Multi-Channel Marketing

Though many marketers know the importance of having a multichannel marketing strategy, only 73% of them have it in place. Now that you know more about multi-channel marketing let’s discuss how to create a successful approach.

1. Identify Your Audience

Knowing your desired buyer personas is neither quick nor simple. But if you get enough information on each consumer category, you will succeed more. So, before creating a multichannel campaign, do in-depth market research.

Use the tools you have at your disposal, such as surveys, case studies, A/B testing, and more. And as you conduct your research, you’ll determine which channels are best for your various customer categories. This will help your team develop a comprehensive marketing strategy for the campaign.

2. Choose The Channels You Wish To Promote On

Did you know that over half of businesses use at least eight channels to communicate with customers? Although it may seem like a lot of channels, your plan may require that many.

Promoting every channel already in use is not the aim of multi-channel marketing. In fact, you can end up losing your time and marketing budget if you do that.

Therefore, you must focus on the channels that will engage your audience if you want to make the most of multichannel marketing. User behavior and demographics may help you understand your consumers and where they are. Various platforms draw viewers from various demographics. 

For instance, Facebook has a more mature user base than TikTok, which members of Generation Z. TikTok mostly use may not be the best channel for you to focus on if your target demographic and buyer persona are B2B customers in their late 40s; LinkedIn may be a better option.

Depending on your chosen platform, you may need to optimize for certain factors. You might need to optimize video marketing if you use TikTok or YouTube. However, there are various content best practices to concentrate on, whether you’re utilizing Facebook or LinkedIn.

3. Match Your Message And Content To The Channel

Now that you’ve decided on your channels, it’s time to research each one. You must personalize your information and marketing messaging to each channel because each has a different audience and format.

While this takes time, you need the right tools to write content. Be careful not to publish the same content on all platforms. 

For instance, you want to post an article relevant to your industry. This kind of content frequently does well on Twitter or even Facebook, but it won’t work on Instagram. Why? This is because Instagram focuses on photos.

Also, remember the channels other than social media. This applies to search engines which demand a whole different strategy. You should optimize multichannel marketing sites for SEO or develop PPC advertising if you want to attract traffic and leads from search engines.

4. Leverage CRM Tools

Manually handling so many channels can be time-consuming or impossible for many firms. Customer relationship management (CRM) software can make your multichannel marketing strategies seamless. You can manage your client information in one location with CRM software. 

CRM software also enables you to track clients throughout their purchasing processes. Through targeted, customized marketing, you can provide customers with unique experiences at every stage.

What Makes Multichannel Marketing So Great?

By using the channels where customers are most inclined to make purchases, you may reach more of them. Additionally, you’ll be able to gather customer feedback that will help you decide more about your goods and services. It will help you take proactive measures to address customer problems.

Final Thoughts

The best multi-channel marketers devote time and effort to customer journey planning and audience research. Also, do rigorous testing and experimentation to improve their strategies for attracting potential clients.