If you’re up to here with words like channels, silos, and multi-touch, you’re not alone. The digital revolution has forever changed the way businesses identify and approach prospective customers, and it’s easy to get lost in the lingo of the Internet.
The gist of cross channel marketing is using one form of media (like email) to promote your presence on another form (like Facebook). Organizations use this tactic to increase their marketing effectiveness and create a more holistic Internet presence, one that integrates the various channels to accommodate the way customers want to receive your message.
Using a single silo cross channel marketing approach all communications and media tie into one unified database. Relevant messages about customer preferences or behavior can be sent based on current data or data captured and leveraged across multiple media platforms. Cross channel methods like this are getting the highest return on marketing investment.
And what exactly are those channels? They include email, social media, direct mail, broadcast media, pay per click ads and, of course, content marketing – the blogs, videos, whitepapers and more that engage people by helping them solve their business problem without using a sales pitch.
You may send an email that includes a hyperlink to your Facebook or Twitter page – and there, you may offer links to content that resonates with customers.
As an inbound marketer, your ultimate goal is to drive visitors from cross channels to relevant pages on your website, microsites, or landing pages where they can inquire and you can capture a qualified lead. Best practices to getting them to your sites is a matter of enticing them with outstanding content that’s focused on their need and offers your credibility of how you can help them
So is everyone else. Truth is, cross channel marketing is an inexact art; no one solution will drive visitors from one channel to another. Solutions may vary and be industry specific. You need the right strategy, and the right marketing partner with the right marketing automation. From there it’s all about building a baseline and then improving on your baseline.
Research bear this out: according to a study commissioned by Forrester Research and cited in 2012 by Fast Company, while 78 percent of companies consider cross channel marketing important or very important, “more than half … still believe their current marketing efforts fall short due to a lack of analytics that provide cross-channel data.”
But at the same time, this discipline is ripe for experimentation, which is basically true of all inbound marketing – you launch, wait, measure, adjust, relaunch and repeat. Google Analytics tracking tools can help you determine the paths visitors take across channels. And, the right cross channel marketing technology can tell you the very specific who is clicking on what and where.
You can increase your chances of success by getting a better handle on the online habits of your customers and targets.
For instance, tracking behaviors based on links clicked, videos played, pages viewed can help you develop an event track that’s triggered based on what the individual clicks on.
Behaviors and data captured can then startup relevant drip and nurture campaign based on very specific clicks on emails, microsites and landing pages. These tactics are proven to deliver higher marketing results and revenue.
Cross channel marketing may be a challenging discipline, but many businesses have found success using it to enhance their strategic marketing objectives.
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