As business owners and entrepreneurs, we know how much is required of us to market our businesses successfully.
There are so many opinions and strategies out there, but it’s hard to distinguish which methods are worth investing in and which ones you are better off without.
With cross-channel marketing, “better off without” shouldn’t be an option. Cross-channel marketing has been proven to be a leading strategy for businesses and the entrepreneurs behind them.
In fact, 93 percent of consumers search online for local businesses— showing that web marketing is important to your business’s future growth.
So, what is cross-channel marketing and why should every business utilize it? In this article, we’ll explain it all, including a four-step process that can get you started.
What is Cross-Channel Marketing?
Cross-channel marketing is a marketing concept where cross-channel communications are leveraged to create customer value and competitive advantage.
In cross-channel marketing, marketers design campaigns that target customers through multiple marketing channels. These cross-channel campaigns typically involve a mixture of both online and offline experiences.
In doing so, cross-channel marketing can help businesses improve brand awareness while also driving sales. However, cross-channeling is not limited to using different communication channels in a single campaign. It may include the use of the same channel for different stages in an end-to-end customer journey.
For example, a company might run cross channeling promotions by sending promotional text messages to existing customers who have shown previous interest in their products.
Cross-Channel vs Omnichannel
We get it, there are so many ambiguous marketing terms out there that seem to share the same meaning, but that’s why we’re here to clear up the clutter for you.
Cross-channel marketing and omnichannel marketing already sound essentially the same, so what makes them different?
Cross-channel marketing is how brands can connect with their customers through multiple communication channels such as email, SMS, mobile apps, social media and more. It’s also a way for businesses to pass their data between these channels to create a streamlined customer experience.
With omnichannel, customers can use multiple channels at the same time. Like if a customer was using their mobile phone to access your company’s website while they were in your physical store.
To sum it up, cross-channel helps brands connect with customers through different channels by passing data between them. Omnichannel, however, helps customers integrate their experience all at once through said channels.
The two essentially go hand in hand and when implemented effectively do wonders for your multichannel campaigning.
At Business Marketing Engine, we can help you make sure you begin your cross-channel marketing journey successfully. With our marketing expertise, we’ve created over 33 custom solutions that help entrepreneurs plan, build and grow. Contact us today to learn more!
Why Use Cross-Channel Marketing?
As we’ve stated earlier, cross-channel marketing is a must if you want to build the brand awareness and customer outreach that will take your business to the next level.
But, if we haven’t convinced you enough already, we’ve put together three key reasons why you should incorporate cross-channel marketing in your multichannel marketing strategy.
Improves Marketing Budget Efficiency
You can’t have a quality marketing strategy without proper budgeting, so, why not make that process as seamless as possible? With cross-channel marketing, you can.
Cross-channel marketing is great for budget efficiency because it does not require you to spend an excessive amount of time on large, one-time cross-channel marketing campaigns.
Instead, cross-channel marketing separates your communication channels from your communication types by allowing you to see which communication performs better in which communication channel.
For example, cross-channel tracking might show that direct mail yields a higher return on investment than email marketing. Therefore, you can adjust your budget to invest more in marketing through direct mail rather than email.
Builds Emotional Connection
Whether you’ve realized it or not, emotions run the world. Consumers are more likely to buy when they are emotionally driven to do so. Therefore, it makes sense to have a marketing strategy that makes an emotional impact on your target audience.
Cross-channel marketing will build an emotional connection with your customers because it provides a more unified and seamless experience. Customers will be able to move seamlessly between various platforms, such as your website, social media and email marketing campaigns. They’ll get to know your brand better and feel like they are interacting with a real person, not just a company.
Strengthens Your Brand
Not only does cross-channel marketing build an emotional connection with your customers, but it also strengthens your brand.
When customers see your brand across different channels, they start to recognize it and trust it more. This increased trust leads to more purchases and a higher ROI for your marketing efforts.
To create a successful cross-channel marketing strategy, you need to first understand how your customers interact with your brand. Then, you can create content and campaigns that are relevant and engaging for them.
By using the right channels and targeting the right audience, you can increase brand awareness and drive more sales.
Steps to Get Started with Cross-Channel Marketing
We’ve covered what cross-channel marketing is, how it’s different from omnichannel marketing and why it is so important for every business owner to use. Now, let’s go over how you can begin building your own cross-channel marketing campaign.
1. Manage Data
To get started with cross-channel marketing, you first need to manage your data.
This means ensuring that all your customer data is organized and accessible in one place. By doing this, you’ll be able to identify which channels are most effective for reaching your target audience and create campaigns that are more likely to succeed.
Another important part of managing your data is regularly tracking how customers interact with your brand across different channels. This will help you fine-tune your cross-channel marketing strategy and make sure that you’re providing the best possible experience for your customers.
By managing your data effectively, you’ll be able to create successful cross-channel campaigns that will boost sales and improve customer loyalty.
2. Analyze Data and Customer Segmentation
Once you’ve effectively managed your data, it’s time to analyze it thoroughly. You can do this by creating cross-channel marketing reports.
This will help you understand how each channel is performing and how they’re interacting with each other. Not only that, it’ll help you identify trends to determine which channels are most effective and which ones need improvement.
Then you can move on to customer segmentation. This is important for cross-channel marketing because it allows you to target different groups of customers with specific messages and promotions that appeal to them.
Segmenting your customers by their demographics, interests, buying habits and other factors can help you create a more effective cross-channel marketing strategy.
By understanding your customers’ preferences and behaviors, you can create cross-channel campaigns that are more likely to reach and resonate with them.
3. Target Your Customer with Smart Content
So what do we mean by smart content? Smart content is content that’s tailored to the individual recipient, taking into account their past interactions with your brand, as well as their current location and other demographic factors.
This will help to create a more personalized customer experience and reduce the number of bounces and unsubscribes that you see in your email marketing campaigns. It can also help to improve click-through rates and conversion rates.
To create smart content follow these simple guidelines:
- Use customer data to personalize content.
- Tailor content for different channels.
- Use dynamic content to change the layout and delivery of content based on customer preferences.
- Make sure that your customer data is up to date and accurate.
4. Conduct Test and Optimization Process
If you’re looking for ways to improve your cross-channel marketing, consider conducting tests and optimizations.
They can help you identify which marketing channels are working best and enable you to fine-tune your campaigns for maximum effectiveness. With these tools in hand, you’ll be able to achieve better results from your cross-channel marketing efforts.
There are many different types of tests and optimizations that you can conduct. One of the most important is A/B testing, which involves testing two different versions of a campaign to see which one produces the best results. This type of test can be used to determine such things as which headline or color scheme generates the most clicks or conversions.
We’ll Build the Bridge, Now You Just Need to Cross It
We hope this article was helpful in understanding just a little bit more about what the wondrous world of marketing has to offer.
As we’ve mentioned, cross-channel marketing is integral to any successful marketing campaign in today’s digital world. It has proven to exponentially improve anything from brand awareness to cross-channel advertising, lead conversions to customer retention rates and more.
At Business Marketing Engine, we can build the bridge to get you there.
Contact us today. We are a full-service marketing agency that helps our customers build their brand, master their multichannel campaign management, boost lead generation and more.
No matter what marketing you require for your business, the sky is the limit when we’re by your side.