3 Reasons Your Small Business Could Benefit From Multi-Channel Marketing

As 2020 fast approaches, small businesses are looking to gain an additional edge over their competition, and are exploring the next big trend in the world of marketing.

If you have already tried social media marketing, SEO, PPC advertising, and everything else you could think of, now might be the time to synergize all of them, and step into the world of multi-channel marketing.

What is multi-channel marketing?

As the name itself would suggest, multi-channel marketing means implementing a single strategy across multiple channels. These channels can include the ones you already have: your social media pages, website, paid ads, etc. They can include platforms like email, print, apps, physical products, and anything else you can think of that can act as a vessel for your message.

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The aim of multi-channel marketing is to target people across multiple avenues, allowing them a choice in how they will communicate with your brand, and reaching them more often than you would with a single channel.

What you need to know before you get started

The thing with marketing your business across multiple channels is that you are giving your customers more than one chance to land on your desired page. In other words, you will most likely gain more traffic faster. What this translates into is very simple: your website needs to be in top shape if you don’t want all those visitors to bounce off in a matter of seconds.

Marketing expert and founder of Smash Digital, Travis Jamison, points out a few website improvements businesses need to focus on:

• Improving website speed
• Improving the quality of your landing page content
• Ensuring that the site is engaging and user-friendly

When looking to explore additional marketing channels, always take stock of who your target audience is. There is absolutely no point in trying to reach them through a channel they don’t ever use. Do some research on your current customer base, as well as the leads you are trying to attract, and play your hand accordingly.

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Another important thing to note is that your strategy needs to encompass all of the avenues you hope to use, and send the same message through all of them. If you keep advertising one thing on your socials, and another on your website, your customers will only get confused and your message will lose momentum.

Select one clear goal, and see how each channel fits into it. Ask questions such as:

• Where can you use more images?
• Where would video come in handy?
• How can you best shorten your message for paid ads?
• What does your website landing page need to communicate?

Keeping your brand identity and tone of voice uniform across all channels will help boost your recognizability. If you confuse your target audience with different messages and visuals, they are not as likely to notice or remember you.

What are the benefits of multi-channel marketing?

And now for what you have all been waiting for – the benefits of multi-channel marketing:

Your customers can find you through their favorite media channel

When you choose only one of the many available digital avenues to promote your product or service, you instantly limit your customers’ options.

At any given point, they are accessing online content via multiple channels: email on their mobiles, videos on their TVs, news on their desktops, and so on. By ensuring your presence across more than one of them, you are reaching them constantly, consistently, and via their preferred method of communication.

If you email someone who hates getting emails, your chances of converting them are pretty slim. But if they see one of your paid ads while looking for a product you sell, these chances increase significantly.

Your brand awareness will improve

As we keep mentioning, the main thing about multi-channel marketing is being consistent, as this is the only way to boost your brand awareness.

This means having the same logo displayed on every channel, using the same colors, using the same or similar wording, and so on.

The more people see you, the more trust they will place in you, as you are no longer a random brand randomly targeting them online. You are appearing via their favorite channels, and are reinforcing a message they have already seen.

As people like to shop from and work with brands they know, establishing a positive reputation for yourself is one of the first steps towards reaching your goals.

More touchpoints for data collection

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In this data-driven world of marketing, the more information you have about your (potential) customers, the more powerful you are.

With multi-channel marketing, you will exponentially increase your databases. You will not only gain access to more information about your core customer base, but also about everyone else you are targeting and who has come into contact with your brand.

This will help you craft more informed marketing in the future – you will know what kinds of words inspire what kinds of actions in your audience, what your best selling products are and how to sell them, what sorts of price points are the most acceptable, etc.

Remember that it is very important to segment this data properly, as your Instagram audience and your YouTube audience may not be the same, and they will often require a different approach. When working with your data, always make note of the source it has come from, and make your decisions accordingly.

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Granted, multi-channel marketing comes with its challenges: namely, it may be more time-consuming and demand more of your resources. But if used correctly, it is a great way to gain an edge over your single- or -double-channel competitors. In the end, it’s an increasingly impactful tool for attracting more of that desired attention.