10/03/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/03/2024 08:07
What Is Multichannel Marketing?
Multichannel marketing uses multiple communication channels to reach more customers and maximize your exposure.
A multichannel marketing strategy can span both online and offline channels. Think social media, email, PPC, TV ads, and billboards.
Take this skincare website-The Inkey List-for example.
Their marketing efforts include social media, out-of-home ads, influencer partnerships, and in-person pop-up events at local hotspots.
Why You Need a Multichannel Marketing Strategy
53% of marketers struggle with building an effective strategy when launching multichannel marketing campaigns.
However, multichannel campaigns using four or more digital channels can outperform single or dual-channel campaigns by as much as 300%.
A well-defined multichannel marketing strategy helps you to:
Our State of Content Marketing campaign is a great example.
We spent months planning our efforts. We then created a data-driven report as a gated ebook, which we promoted (and repurposed) across multiple channels to maximize downloads.
Those channels included social media and display ads, influencer partnerships, blog posts, webinars, email marketing campaigns, and sponsorships.
The result was over 100,000 visits, 18,000 report downloads, and excellent ROI-something we could only have achieved with a solid strategy.
How to Build an Effective Multichannel Marketing Strategy in 7 Steps
So, how can you put together your own effective multichannel marketing plan?
Here are our 7 steps to success.
1. Align Business Objectives with Your Marketing Strategy
Start by setting clear goals for your marketing strategy.
These should directly align with overarching business objectives. Such as building brand awareness or generating sales.
Make sure your objectives are SMART: specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bound.
For example, if you're looking to attract more leads in the next quarter, your goal might be:
"In the next 3 months, we plan to increase the number of sales qualified leads (SQLs) coming from marketing campaigns by 20%, reaching 2,300 leads by the end of Q4."
Next, consider how each marketing channel will help you to achieve this goal. For instance:
Finally, map each channel in your strategy to a specific goal-related outcome-be that revenue growth, brand visibility, or customer loyalty.
2. Conduct Deep Audience Analysis
The foundation of any successful multichannel marketing strategy is a deep understanding of your audience.
Knowing where your leads spend their time online helps you to focus your efforts on the most impactful channels.
Here's how you can understand your audience :
Let's look at an example.
Head to One2Target to generate audience insights in just a few clicks.
Simply enter your (or your competitors') website domain(s), and click "Analyze".
Next, explore the key tabs for a breakdown of the audience insights.
One2Target will generate information about their demographics, favorite communication channels, behavior, and more.
3. Select and Prioritize Your Marketing Channels
Next, decide which channels you want to tackle with your campaigns.
Look at your audience preferences and analyze historical performance data.
For example, have you noticed if paid media performs best for conversions? Or, perhaps you've seen that a specific type of email nurturing increases engagement?
Use this information to inform your channel selection. Here are some key metrics to consider:
There are many tools for analyzing channel performance.
For example, you can use Google Analytics (GA4) to find out how different traffic sources contribute to conversions.
Once you understand which channels perform the best, prioritize them in your campaign.
For instance, choosing channels that convert at the highest rate will aid a sales-focused campaign.
4. Craft a Unified Messaging Strategy
A messaging strategy defines the core ideas, values, and information you will share with your target audience.
For example, Nike's "Just Do It" tagline communicates their core message: to empower individuals to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals.
To devise your own messaging approach, use this message map template from Wynter:
Here's how:
For example: Busy professionals struggle to manage tasks and feel overwhelmed by complex processes.
For example: "Get more done without stress" with our project management tool.
For example: Save time on routine tasks, automate communication, collaborate in real-time.
For example: Use AI assistant for task prioritization, automatic requests, offline access.
For example: Customer reviews, or statistics that demonstrate how the project management tool saves time.
5. Personalize Your Messages Across Various Channels
Once you have defined your messaging concept, think about how to adjust it to suit different channels.
Of course, your key message should be consistent across every platform.
But the tone of voice and formats you choose might vary, depending on what works for each avenue.
Let's use Nike as an example again. Their social media posts are energetic and community-driven.
However, their print ads are bolder and more minimalistic.
They transmit the same message and personality, but take a different approach.
Here's how this could work for our fictional project management tool:
6. Set Up Your Multichannel Marketing Campaign
Next, take care of the technical setup of your campaigns.
Imagine you want to run ads on various channels.
You'll need to use different platforms to upload campaign creatives, manage budgets, and track the results.
Alternatively, you could use specialized tools like Semrush's Ads Launch Assistant. It lets you manage Meta Ads (Facebook, Instagram) and Google Ads in one place.
First, navigate to the tool and log in or sign up.
Next, connect your Google Ads and Meta Ads accounts.
From here, start adding your campaign details, such as the target URL, the campaign description, the daily budget, and so on.
Ads Launch Assistant will also generate customized ad variants for you and help you set up targeting.
Once you're ready to go, review the suggested ads and launch your campaign with one click.
7. Measure Performance Data Across Channels
Continuously tracking your cross-channel campaign performance will help you get better results over time.
It also lets you determine which channels, content, and messaging work best, with such performance metrics as:
For example, you can use Ads Launch Assistant to analyze your paid campaign performance in a particular place.
It will consolidate data from your Google Ads and Meta campaigns and help you quickly spot high- and low- performing strategies.
Use it to examine your conversions and clicks and spot important patterns and trends. You may find that certain creatives, targeting settings, or budget setups tend to work best for your campaigns.
Key Features of a Strong Multichannel Marketing Strategy
So, what are the key features of a successful multichannel marketing strategy?
Let's have a look.
1. High-Quality Integrated Customer Data
With multiple marketing channels in use, it can be difficult to keep track of your campaigns.
You may have a clear overview of what's happening on each channel.
But you might also struggle to get a holistic picture with data housed across different tools and platforms.
In this case, you could try a CDP (customer data platform) to collect details on customers from various sources and create personalized campaigns.
Here's an explanation of how it works:
CDPs like Segment and Bloomreach help you track customer actions and tailor marketing acitivites based on user characteristics and behavior.
2. Consistent Cross-Channel Messaging
It's important to maintain a consistent message across channels. This helps you build trust and tell an engaging story.
To do this, you should:
For instance, take a look at how Semrush's marketing team came up with the powerful message behind our Gaby campaign.
To manage your campaigns efficiently, use marketing automation and AI tools to streamline and personalize your content creation.
For example, our Ads Launch Assistant has a suite of AI features that can help you:
Another great example is ContentShake AI.
This AI writing tool automates content creation for your SEO and social media efforts.
For example, it can help you write blog posts optimized to rank in search.
It can also create engaging social media posts to promote your content on Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), and more.
4. Use a Functional Marketing Attribution Model
Marketing attribution assigns credit to the marketing channels and touchpoints that influence a customer's decision to convert.
This helps you understand which channels and assets contribute to the ultimate success-and iterate accordingly.
For example, marketing attribution shows you whether a customer who purchased your product entered the marketing funnel through a specific ad or social media post.
Here are the key types of attribution models:
For multichannel campaigns, the linear attribution model is often the best choice because it assigns equal credit to all touchpoints in the customer journey.
This helps you get a balanced view of how each channel contributes to conversions.
Craft a Stellar Multichannel Marketing Strategy
With a well-planned multichannel marketing strategy, you can amplify your reach, boost engagement, and increase conversions.
When building out your multichannel strategy, remember to:
Ready to give it a try?
Try Semrush's Ads Launch Assistant to create high-performing multichannel ad campaigns in a couple of clicks.