A study of 46,000 shoppers by the Havard Business Review (HBR) found that 73% interacted with brands via multiple channels during their shopping journey. This report highlighted the importance of multichannel marketing in a business’s success and its irreplaceable role in shaping the experience of modern consumers.
What is multichannel marketing?
Multichannel marketing is the integration of multiple communication channels to foster seamless interactions between a business and its customers. It is a unified marketing strategy that utilizes both direct and indirect channels, such as email, websites, mail order catalogs, mobile, social media, and more, to engage with a brand’s target audience and enable them to take action in response. Multichannel marketing leverages the unique strengths of various communication channels to effectively market to prospects at key touchpoints in their customer journey.
In today’s business ecosystem, multichannel marketing is indispensable to a company’s success–irrespective of its size. When employed correctly, it expands the reach of your marketing efforts and increases the number of people interacting with your brand. This strategy also helps you to get through to your target audience on their preferred channels, which boosts your conversion rate and overall revenue.
3 Ways to Optimize Your Channels for Multichannel Marketing
Optimizing your communication channels enhances your customers’ experience and allows you to reap the full benefits of multichannel marketing. Here are three ways to go about it:
Build a community around your brand
A brand community refers to a group of people who feel an emotional connection to a business and actively participate in discussions and activities concerning it. Members of this community are loyal to the brand. They buy from it, engage with its content, and publicize its products and values to their friends and family. Furthermore, these actions raise the brand’s awareness among its target audience, boost customer loyalty rates, and rev up sales.
The first step in building your brand community is to define your company’s mission, values, and vision. Establishing these pillars provides a sturdy foundation for your brand community and creates a strong bond between you and your customers.
You should also invest time in engaging directly with your target audience via your communication channels. Create high-quality content that preaches your brand’s message and speaks directly to the user demographic of each channel. Also, encourage your customers to share their thoughts and opinions on your content to promote conversations around your brand. These interactions rally consumers with a sense of shared identity around your business in one place, building your brand community.
Be authentic
Authenticity fosters trust. And with trust comes improved customer acquisition, loyalty, and lifetime value. Being authentic to your brand’s values and vision prevents you from losing touch with your target audience. Your business isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay! Diluting your message to align with causes that clash with your values is detrimental to your business’ growth. Furthermore, it comes off as disingenuous and can destroy the connections you’ve built with your target audience.
An authentic brand remains true to its core. The messages you share on your marketing channels should reflect your staunch commitment to your mission and goals. Rather than putting out content only because you think people will like it, consider telling your brand’s story. Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools in the arsenal of a savvy marketer. Tell the story of how your business began, why you established it, the struggles you’ve faced, and how you surmounted them. Without a doubt, this humanizes your brand and injects a healthy dose of authenticity into it that’ll keep your customers loyal to you.
Build relationships with influencers and affiliates
Although their strategies are quite different, influencers and affiliates both make money by marketing other brands’ products on their websites or social media accounts. Affiliates earn a percentage of a business’s sales revenue when customers purchase products through their affiliate links. On the other hand, influencers are paid a flat fee to promote a business’ products to their followers.
Building great relationships with influencers and affiliates is a highly effective way of optimizing your communication channels. They both improve the reach of your marketing efforts by promoting your products to active audiences that respect their opinions. Moreover, this can help your business achieve its long-term goals, boost brand awareness, and improve customer acquisition.
Get a quote with GoShip
When employed correctly, multichannel marketing attracts an army of loyal customers to your e-commerce business, leading to higher order volume. GoShip connects you with professional shipping carriers that can handle your increased order volume expeditiously. We partner with over 40,000 certified and affordable shipping partners to ensure that you find the perfect carrier for your business needs. Check out our platform and enter your shipment details in our online quotation tool for a free quote.