A multichannel strategy is the best way to reach the modern consumer, using data as a guide
Is your marketing strategy taking advantage of the different methods available? Connecting with consumers over multiple channels gives them more opportunities to engage, while giving marketers more insight into their behavior, and thus, more important data.
What drives purchasing decisions isn’t always an easy thing to determine. When dealing with a wide range of people, all with different motivators and desires, it’s even more difficult to know where they are in the buying journey at a given point in time. A report from Episerver showed that 61% of businesses don’t know where a customer is in their journey and don’t have the ability to recognize it.
Because a customer’s buying journey may start with a traditional ad and end with an online purchase, it’s crucial that these methods of outreach are combined in any marketing strategy to create a holistic experience for the consumer, while also giving the business even more important data about behavior and preferences.
Combining digital and traditional marketing
Another way of defining an approach using both digital and traditional marketing is with the term multichannel marketing. Using multiple strategies means you’re trying to reach customers through multiple channels, via traditional methods like direct mail and billboards, and through digital channels like social media and email. Omnichannel marketing is a term that takes this a step further; it means your strategy uses these efforts to combine all touchpoints and data to create a customer experience that’s consistent across channels.
So why does this approach to marketing work? Because it conveys an important recognition: that your customers are everywhere, and you must be too. And with all the available channels out there in our current digital climate, it’s important to take advantage of them all.
But it’s also important to remain traditional with strategies like direct mail. The truth is, direct mail is still relevant and effective. A USPS survey showed that 79% of consumers think mail is more convenient than going online, and data from the Data and Marketing Association (DMA) showed in 2017 that direct mail had a median ROI of 29% (which was more than paid search or display).
You can combine online and offline by putting out a traditional advertisement, for example, like a commercial or magazine ad. Include with this marketing campaign a call to action for the consumer to then get online and visit your website. This can be a great way to engage a consumer in both environments, allowing you to create a more personalized message to customers.
Why use a multichannel marketing strategy?
The benefits of using both digital and traditional marketing methods are many. They include but aren’t limited to, the following.
1. More customer spending
A study conducted by Harvard Business Review (HBR) showed that omnichannel customers those who engaged with a brand in a combination of ways and places spent an average of 4% more in the store and 10% more online than customers who were single-channel. And, for every additional channel they used, they spent more money in-store.
2. More personalization
As mentioned above, engaging with consumers across online and offline channels gives marketers even more valuable data about their demographics and behavior patterns. They can then use this more advanced data to create more targeted messages, better connecting them to the right people at the right time.
3. Loyalty
The same study from HBR revealed that omnichannel shoppers were more likely to exhibit brand loyalty, as, after six months of an omnichannel shopping experience, customers exhibited 23% more repeat shopping experiences in stores, and they were more likely to make recommendations to friends and family.
4. More people
When companies engage with more channels, they’re engaging with more potential customers. They’re taking advantage of those direct-mail impact numbers while also recognizing that the majority of people have a smartphone and see ads on their mobile devices. Pew Research says 96% of Americans now have a cellphone and 81% have smartphones.
When you combine marketing approaches, you ensure that all of your bases are covered, and you can use behaviors and responses to broader messages to then home in on more personalized messages for your ideal audience.
Why BDEX data?
Data from the BDEX Data Exchange Platform (DXP) helps you use real-time data signals to drive your messages and thus your connections with consumers. We have over 1 trillion data signals on customers in the U.S., over 6 billion unique IDs, and over 5,500 different categories for you to choose from. We also have the ability to match customer IDs with over 800 million connections between email and mobile IDs, and cookie and email IDs.
Ready to learn more? Contact BDEX today to learn how our data can help.
