One of the biggest trends shaping businesses’ marketing efforts is consumer demand for “intimacy” with the brands they buy from and stores they frequent. Today’s customers want to feel as though they’re building relationships with the businesses they support through consistent, personalized communication across every channel, online and off. While this need for customer intimacy is especially acute in times of crisis and uncertainty — it’s a critical business advantage even in the best of times.
Of course, communicating consistently with customers, meeting them where they are to offer them relevant information and personalized value, is easier said than done. These initiatives require significant time and resources — time and resources national brand leaders don’t have to spare. While local brand representatives — franchises, retail managers, or distribution partners — can take on some of this burden, handing over the reins isn’t exactly a perfect solution. After all, these local reps have full plates, too, and their skill sets don’t always extend to marketing.
Because the stakes for consistency and quality are so high, national marketing leaders can’t afford to risk brand integrity by turning over campaign creation altogether, but micromanaging local marketers would be its own full-time job. So, to create customer intimacy through consistent, localized, multichannel communication without spreading themselves entirely too thin, savvy marketing leaders are turning to Through-Channel Marketing Automation technologies.
What Is Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA)?
Through Channel Marketing Automation (also known as “distributed marketing”) refers to technology solutions that help brands centralize their marketing efforts, enabling retailers, distributors, agents, franchisees, and any other local brand representatives to quickly access approved marketing collateral and resources 24/7/365. To put it simply, a Through Channel Marketing Automation platform provides local marketers with the resources and support they need to operate like a CMO. Think:
- Centralized access to preapproved collateral templates
- Customization capabilities (within the bounds of corporate-sanctioned design and messaging)
- Authorization to order and distribute print marketing materials through approved vendors
- For national teams, full transparency into finances, inventory, success metrics, and more for every local marketer
With the right Through Channel Marketing Automation platform, local marketers will never feel the need to “reinvent the wheel” and risk diluting the brand with campaigns that don’t meet national standards, nor will they need to reach out to the executive team for materials and support. Further, national leaders no longer have to worry about oversight and micromanagement. Instead, they’ll be able to use that time and energy on what really matters: marketing strategy.
How Does Through Channel Marketing Automation Foster Customer Intimacy?
While automation of any kind tends to evoke the opposite of intimacy — rather, ideas of impersonal engagements that are devoid of human connection — the reality is that Through Channel Marketing Automation is actually a powerful way to enable brands to build those relationships with customers. That’s because what we’re automating is not the message or the substance or the value a brand brings to customers. What we’re automating are the logistics: the coordination, the supply chain management, and the other minute aspects of marketing that, when handled manually, only add complications and obstacles to campaign creation.
With a TCMA platform supporting those aspects of marketing, however, local and national marketers are free to focus on what really matters: building customer intimacy through messaging and materials that will be eye-catching, informative, and entertaining whether customers encounter it in their newsfeed, in their mailbox, or at the grocery store cash register.
The right Through Channel Marketing Automation platform empowers digital marketing (including paid search, display advertising, social media, email marketing, and more) as well as physical channels like direct mail, in-store marketing and POS/POP , helping brand representatives create end-to-end campaigns that integrate every approach for a truly immersive — and personalized — customer experience.
How OneTouchPoint Can Help
We understand that producing and distributing consistent, effective, localized content to build customer intimacy across a variety of print and digital channels is easier said than done. That’s why, at OneTouchPoint, we’re dedicated to providing our clients with a world-class Through Channel Marketing Automation platform that powers your brand communications across every channel, for every customer.
To learn more about how OneTouchPoint can help you deliver a seamless, multichannel brand experience, we invite you to contact us today or request a quote on your next project. Our experts will provide insight and ideas to deliver phenomenal results at a great price.