Any business that is hoping to grow needs to employ a solid marketing strategy. Here at Big Golden Pineapple, we place a lot of emphasis on marketing, across all of our businesses. One key thing to remember is that you can’t simply employ one strategy, on a single platform - you need to expand your reach. A great example of this is creating multichannel marketing campaigns for your business.
The idea behind a multichannel campaign is to stand out from the crowd. Particularly since the rise of technology, someone is always trying to sell you something. So in order to make people aware of your business, you need to spread a wide net, across a range of platforms. You can reach your audience through the platform they favour, with the aim of increasing your sales and revenue in the long run.
You may be thinking that a multichannel strategy sounds like a lot of work, not to mention time consuming. But it might not be as complicated as you might assume! You don’t need to start posting on every platform at once, nor do you ever need to have an account for every online channel. The main thing to do is experiment - see what works best for your company, and focus your efforts there.
If you haven’t tried a multichannel approach before, there’s a good chance that you’ll see fairly rapid results. To help you get started, we’ve looked at three of the main benefits of multichannel marketing campaigns below:
1. Reach a Wider Audience and Get Them to the Right Destination
Perhaps the most obvious advantage of a multichannel approach is that you're able to reach a much wider audience. As every social media platform has a large number of users, simply joining these networks can instantly expand your reach. Other methods of communication, such as via email newsletters, can also increase your follower count quickly. And if you have the funds to invest in things like radio or television ads, you’ll almost certainly reach a huge audience.
The key thing to bear in mind with multichannel marketing is to try out different channels. Odds are, you won’t have an unlimited budget, where you can post on every available channel, so you’ll need to see which ones perform best for your business.
When it comes to getting your followers to the right destination, once you’ve reached out to them, this can be a little more tricky. But there’s little point connecting with your target audience if you can’t then redirect them to your website to make a purchase. So how do you get people interested enough in your product to leave the platform they’re on and visit your website?
The trick is to create a unified message, with plenty of clear calls to action. Decide what you want your audience to do, whether it’s buying a product, signing up for your newsletter, or leaving a review. Then help users go down this path by encouraging them to take this specific action.
2. Boost Your Brand Awareness
Another benefit of a multichannel marketing campaign is that you can improve the brand awareness of your business. Across a multitude of platforms, you can show the different elements of your brand. Each channel can provide you with a new opportunity to showcase your brand, from social platforms to email newsletters. You can tailor the content to each platform too, depending on your audience.
If you’ve ever worked in marketing, you’ll probably know that the more you're able to get your brand out there, the better chance you have of generating more sales. People need to know what your company has to offer, and what it stands for, before they can make a purchase. So a multichannel strategy, which can reach a wider audience, is bound to not only increase your brand awareness, but also boost your revenue.
It’s also worth noting that this method of marketing is easy to implement. All you need to do is decide what you’d like to post, when you’d like to post it, and on which channel. A marketing calendar, as well as scheduling tools can be useful, but as long as you’re organised, there’s no need to invest in any specialist tools for multichannel marketing to work. It’s incredibly straightforward, and you don’t require a background in marketing, or any formal training!
3. Use Analytics to See Better Results
Although it can be challenging to analyse the results of some marketing strategies, as you won’t always have clear metrics, it’s simple to get the results of a multichannel campaign. By looking at things like social media interest and Google Analytics, you should be able to find measurable metrics, which can be used to dictate future campaigns.
In terms of testing, in order to see better results, it can be sensible to look at a few marketing channels first, measuring the success of each campaign, then adjusting your focus depending on the results. This could mean anything from redistributing your budget to moving to a completely different channel.
The main thing to remember with analytics is to allow enough time to see accurate results. It can take weeks or even months to yield significant results, so don’t give up too soon!