Connecting the dots – how does cross-channel marketing improve your results?
Erica Williams, Sales & Marketing Director
At Icon Visual Marketing, we are focused on connecting and re-connecting marketers with their customers. And a great way you can do this is with cross-channel marketing.
Cross-channel marketing is very effective and should be an essential part of your strategy. It gives you the ability to keep your brand in front of your audience – meeting them where they are at.
What is cross-channel marketing?
Cross-channel marketing is integrating various customer experiences to lead them on a journey – which could see them jumping from channel to channel but at the same time heading in the one direction.
Let’s skip the jargon.
Imagine you send your customers a marketing piece, such as an email with an offer. Different customers will make different decisions. Your customers could:
- Choose to ignore the email
- Click on a link in the email that takes them to your website
- Make a purchase
- Put something in their cart but not purchase
- Send you an enquiry.
You need to be ready to react to what the customer does and lead them back to hopefully make that purchase, by allowing for all options.
Cross-channel marketing clicks in.
For example, if they don’t react to your email, you could send them an automated follow-up email the next day. (You wouldn’t send that email to someone who made a purchase).
If they make a purchase, you could send them a receipt by email with an offer on the next purchase.
If they put something in their cart but didn’t make a purchase, you could send them an email with an extra discount to entice them back to finalise the purchase.
Cross-channel marketing doesn't exclusively involve online marketing. Any form of communication can be used, depending on where your customers' eyes could be.
At Icon, we have a number of clients in the building game. The cross-channel marketing we do for them includes creating a consistent message while maintaining their website, ensuring their SEO is getting them on the first page of Google, preparing and sending eDMs, looking after their social media, and creating videos for their YouTube channel.
This is just one example. We look after other marketing channels for other clients as well.
The important thing is connecting the dots so our clients' customers are led on a streamlined, cohesive journey with consistent messages that are on-brand.
It's about meeting your customers where they are with a message that's integrated across the board.
Increased engagement with cross-channel marketing
Streamlined use of cross-channel marketing can increase customer engagement and increase your results. It makes the customer journey a personal experience, which is an ideal goal for any marketer. Customers who feel as though the business is speaking directly to them will be more likely to continue shopping with them.
That’s one of the great strengths of cross-channel marketing. It can feel like it’s on a very personal level with the customer. The customer feels like the brand knows them, cares for them and their needs.
The importance of connecting
At Icon, one of the words that drives us is ‘connecting’.
- Connecting with your audience;
- Connecting with your customers; and
- Connecting with your staff.
Cross-channel marketing is very much about connecting. Read our blog on Social Selling and the importance of connecting post-COVID.
Cross-channel marketing takes strategic thinking. You need to consider the customer journey and the messages the customer will receive at each stage. If you don’t have the time or the know-how to create this very effective customer journey, it might be time to speak to us at Icon Digital Marketing, because we do that sort of thing every day.
One of the great benefits of good cross-channel marketing is that it is measurable. And you can collect data on your customers to improve their journey. First Party Data is some of the most valuable information you as a marketer can possess.
Using Icon for your cross-channel marketing not only gives you access to your First Party Data, but we will analyse it for you and recommend further strategies to take based on the data.
Cross-channel marketing is different from multi-channel marketing and omni-channel Marketing.
Multi-channel marketing
Using different channels independently to capture your audience. For example, producing a brochure, Instagram Reels and eDM all independently promoting the same thing, directing people to your website.
Omni-channel marketing
Integrating various channels which all communicate with each other so that no matter at which stage the customer is at, the online and off-line store knows the customer pattern and journey. For example, a customer searches for an appliance at an online store and can check availability at the local bricks & mortar store so they can collect same day.
How can Icon help with cross-channel marketing?
At Icon Visual Marketing, our marketing experts can develop a cross-channel marketing strategy to reach your audience. We simplify the complicated, amplify voices, measure results and help make the clients we partner with understand and make decisions backed by data.
Read more about the work we do for our clients, drop us a line or call us on 1300 138 984 for a free audit of your cross-channel marekting.
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