Why a Multi Channel Approach is so Powerful

It’s all well and good having a great product or offering an unbeatable service, but marketing to the right audience is crucial. If a single marketing channel is no longer cutting through the noise, what can you do to give your business a fighting chance?

With consumers accessing information and making purchasing decisions across various platforms, establishing a diverse digital presence has become a necessity. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at multi-channel marketing and its potential.

What Do We Mean By A Multi Channel Approach?

When we talk about multi channel marketing, we’re referring to the use of different traffic sources or platforms. This might include organic search or paid search, social media, email marketing, direct referral traffic, forums, aggregator websites, review pages and even influencers. Very rarely are two approaches the same and the channels you utilise depend on who your target audience is and where they are active.

The aim of a multi channel approach is to target your audience, wherever they may be, creating multiple touchpoints and increasing your visibility. Every channel presents its own benefits and setbacks, and will require its own distinct strategies. Search engines are great as they’re demand-led; somebody is already looking for the services or products that you provide. Social media, on the other hand, is more about interrupting people’s feed with marketing messages. Not everybody on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter etc. is going to have a need or want for your products and services. It’s all about hitting the right people at the right time.

What are the advantages of having multiple touchpoints with your audience?

Research shows us that individuals rarely purchase a product or service the first time they see it. It takes multiple touchpoints for people to become customers. Utilising a multi channel approach enables a brand to build awareness and loyalty. Not every channel is designed for sales or conversions, butwork instead to reinforce a business’ credentials. For instance, many companies spend money on TV advertising, not to sell products, but to build brand recognition and a sense of familiarity.

Techniques such as remarketing can prove incredibly effective when used in conjunction with a multi channel approach. Whether this is via the Google Display Network, Facebook or another social channel, placing updates, promotions and discounts in front of customers establishes your brand as a reliable presence and increases the likelihood of conversions. Think of it as leading your audience down the marketing funnel. A multi channel approach should take individuals from one end to the other, converting interest to sales and encouraging repeat business and brand advocacy.

Which channels are best for your business?

Figuring out which channels are best suited to your business is very much a matter of audience. Understanding how your target customers consume media and search for products is key here. For example, if you’re aiming your service at a younger demographic, targeting Tik Tok and Instagram may prove more effective than a channel such as Facebook or email.

What’s more, the approach you take is also dependent on the price of the products or services you offer. More often than not, customers look to spend their money with businesses they recognise, or have interacted with in the past. In other words, the more your product costs, the more important it is to build a sense of trust between your brand and your audience.

Crucially, it’s important to understand the ways that channels compliment each other, becoming far greater than the sum of their parts. Targeting users across multiple platforms not only builds brand awareness, it also provides a more comprehensive insight into your target market. This data can be incredibly powerful. By analysing user behaviour across different channels, it is possible to identify which strategies are most successful for your business. For instance, keyword data acquired from a Google Ads campaign can be used to inform where your efforts could be focused organically.

Multi Channel Approaches At Superb Digital

Many of our multi channel strategies utilise paid and organic search on Google. This is a tried and tested method and can be put in place with clients of any size. In some instances, a well executed multi channel strategy can almost double the amount of interest a client receives within a given month.

Of course, our strategies are by no means limited to Google search alone; social media management, email marketing and digital PR are among the many services we offer. That said, it’s about knowing where to focus your efforts. We tend to keep it simple at first; two or three channels will allow us to understand what’s working and what isn’t. Then when we have momentum and these channels are delivering a good return on your investment (five to ten times or more), we’ll look to introduce a new channel and then take the time to optimise that. The channel we’ll recommend will depend entirely on your business, audience and campaign to date.

Trying to diversify too quickly with too small a budget can be counter productive, but conversely, being timid when it comes to investing in new channels can seriously limit how far your marketing will take you.

If you’d like to find out more about how we can deliver high return, multi channel marketing campaigns, book a discovery call today.