Marketing today is a holistic endeavor that requires attention to every platform so brands can interact with their audiences wherever they are. After all, consumers are looking to work with brands and service providers they trust, and much of that trust is built on clear, consistent engagement across all channels. They’re looking for brands whose communication—online, in their mailboxes, and in stores—provides consistent messaging, up-to-date information and personalized value.
For businesses with limited resources and already-busy marketing teams, and particularly for businesses with storefronts across the region or country, creating multichannel marketing strategies to ensure the brand is everywhere at once can seem like a daunting prospect. To ease the overwhelming, we’ve broken it down into four key areas of focus.
Tackle the Planning & Organization
The more complex a marketing campaign, and the more people involved in its creation and execution, the more important it is to get organized upfront. Otherwise, you’re liable to end up with conflicting messages from channel to channel, along with collateral that “bends” brand guidelines — or ignores them altogether.
That’s why the first essential element of a successful multichannel marketing strategy is setting up a brand hub and collateral management platform. A brand command center like OneTouchPoint’s U.Connect keeps approved assets at every marketer’s fingertips so nobody ever has to spend time hunting down the latest assets or requesting them from a single marketing leader (who’s likely stretched thin as it is). Additionally, and even more importantly, nobody feels the need to reinvent the wheel, creating their own collateral because it’s easier than finding the approved version.
Instead, local and national marketers can simply log in to the command center, grab what they need, customize the details as needed based on pre-approved templates, and publish digital content or order printed materials. No more concerns about brand integrity, message consistency, or regulatory compliance, and no need for any one marketer to micromanage the process for every team member.
Print Outreach
From postcards announcing sales or grand openings to brochures and catalogs highlighting new offerings to the critical communications and sensitive material industries such as healthcare and financial services
often send customers, print outreach is a significant piece of a multichannel marketing strategy. However, if not managed effectively, print production and distribution can lead to high costs, significant waste, poor quality materials, and, sometimes, data privacy or compliance breaches.
To ensure printed materials accurately represent your brand’s quality and standards, savvy companies partner with trusted production vendors who can manage production, distribution, quality assurance, and compliance with strict regulations. Many companies turn to third-party print procurement brokers in an effort to streamline processes and minimize costs, but more often than not, this option is too good to be true.
The better alternative is to identify a single-source partner who can cut out the middle-man and centralize print marketing execution, managing print projects from a single platform and ensuring lower costs without compromising quality by producing materials on their own equipment rather than outsourcing to the lowest bidder.
Online Engagement
While print outreach is a critical piece of the multichannel marketing puzzle, brands that want to engage consistently with their audiences must embrace digital outreach as well, as customers want to interact with their favorite brands on the go. And, as we all know, consumers spend a lot of time on the go. In fact, recent surveys from SimilarWeb found that social media users spend an average of 58 minutes per day on Facebook, 53 minutes per day on Instagram, and 49.5 minutes a day on Snapchat. In between status updates and news articles, they’re primed to hear from countless brands and learn what they have to offer.
Furthermore, online marketing works well in conjunction with direct mail to build the familiarity and trust that ultimately lead to purchase. In fact, one OneTouchPoint client who combined their direct mail and Facebook campaigns saw a marketing ROI increase of more than 200 percent.
The In-Store Experience
Finally, with retailers and service providers still working to bring customers back into their physical locations after initial COVID-19 lockdowns, in-store engagement is another critical piece of a robust multichannel marketing strategy. This includes everything from floor stickers and window clings featuring local or seasonal promotions to directional signage making onsite, in-person navigation easier. And, of course, these in-store marketing pieces must adhere to the same quality standards as every other communication in every other channel. The goal is to use point-of-sale (POS) and point-of-purchase (POP) materials such as product displays, shelf-talkers, and in-store signage to design a vibrant, unique, and sensory customer experience that can’t be replicated on a screen. (Learn more about how to do so here.)
The challenge is even greater for brands whose products are distributed through large retails such as groceries or home improvement stores, where research shows brands have just three seconds to make an impression on shoppers. Powerful in-store marketing, including end caps, shelf talkers display stands, and more, is the key to ensuring your brand stands out from the rest. (Find more strategies for making your brand stand out in a large retail environment.)
There are a lot of moving parts to a multichannel marketing strategy, but when done well, the benefits—in brand reputation, client attraction and retention, and the bottom line—far outweigh the investment. And at OneTouchPoint, we pride ourselves on making it easy. We give clients control of their brand by simplifying access to branded materials through our U.Connect platform, and we manage the entire digital and physical marketing supply chain, from creation to distribution. Learn more about how we work with clients in a wide variety of industries to create and implement multichannel marketing campaigns, and when you’re ready, we invite you to contact us or request a quote on your next project.