Effective Multichannel Marketing Strategy: Increase Sales and Reach Potential Customers

As a business or store owner, you obviously want to make as many sales as possible. A good marketing strategy can help. Through multichannel marketing, you reach more potential customers through a variety of channels, allowing you to be more responsive.

In the old days (before the Internet existed), there was hardly any reason to adopt a multichannel strategy. Simply because customers always went to stores with a good reputation or stores that sold a specific product not sold anywhere else.

These days, that’s completely different. With the advent of the Internet, social media and other online channels, competition has increased. But what exactly is multichannel marketing and how is it different from, say, a cross-channel or omnichannel strategy?

What is multichannel marketing?

Multichannel marketing is a marketing strategy that involves reaching potential customers through a variety of channels. This includes both physical and online channels. Consider, for example, creating a product catalog or advertising on social media.

The rationale behind multichannel marketing is that potential customers will buy more when they can do so through their preferred channel. A good example is a company that sells its products both online and in a physical store.

With a multichannel strategy, it is important to determine which channels you will use to reach your target audience. For example, if you want to reach older people, newspaper ads or advertisements on TV might be an option. For young people, on the other hand, it is better to use social media channels.

Why choose a multichannel strategy?

An important reason for a company to choose a multichannel strategy is to promote sales. By stretching the strategy across various channels, your business can reach multiple potential customers, which equals more sales.

In addition, a multichannel strategy will also help identify and fix problems faster. Because you are active on multiple channels and reach more people, you also receive more feedback.

What is the difference between multichannel, omnichannel and cross-channel marketing?

The terms multichannel, omnichannel and cross-channel marketing are often confused. Not surprising since they are quite similar. Yet there are clear differences between different marketing strategies.

The goal of the different strategies is the same, which is to reach and serve potential customers through multiple channels. The big difference, however, is in how the channels are connected.

• Multichannel: in multichannel, the channels are completely separate. All campaigns are set up in their own way and with a different purpose.
• Omnichannel: an omnichannel strategy uses multiple channels to reach more people. However, all channels are linked to each other.
• Cross-channel: with a cross-channel strategy, you try to serve potential customers across multiple channels with the message and purpose aligned for each channel.

As you can read, the marketing strategies are quite similar, only the links between the different channels used differ from each other.

Setting up multichannel marketing strategy, how do you do it?

Setting up a multichannel marketing strategy does not happen overnight. There are many things to consider so that the strategy actually bears fruit.

So we’d like to tell you a bit more about the most important things to consider when setting up a multichannel marketing strategy.

1. Know your target audience

It is important to know who your target audience is that you are trying to sell to. Therefore, it might be wise to create a simple survey asking customers about which channels they use most often. If you know who you are selling to, you also know where to sell.

Then you can create different buyer profiles so you can tailor your message accordingly. Just be careful not to tailor the message too specifically to a particular profile. After all, you don’t want the message to be too different for each channel, which can cause confusion.

2. Don’t take on too much.

When you start setting up a multichannel marketing strategy, you have to keep in mind that you are not directly responding to all possible channels. When you know that your target audience barely uses certain channels, it makes no sense to invest a lot of time and money in them.

For example, start with 3 or 4 channels that you are sure will reach and serve your target audience. Once those channels are running, you can choose to slowly expand into other channels.

3. Ensure connection between channels

The goal of multichannel marketing is not to open up as many channels as possible to potential customers. Instead, you want to make sure that the channels you use are properly connected to each other.

By properly aligning the channels, you ensure that customers can easily switch between them. As a result, potential customers always have the opportunity to be served in the way they prefer.

4. Align ads

Advertising across multiple channels is almost a “must” these days to compete with other businesses. In a multichannel marketing strategy, therefore, you look for the channels through which you can reach a specific target audience.

In doing so, however, it is important to coordinate ads across channels. Various strategies can be used per channel, but it is important to align the narrative of each individual campaign.

When potential customers come across several of your company’s campaigns with a different story each time, there can be confusion. Instead, you want the message to be imprinted by conveying the same message over and over again.

Setting up multichannel strategy with e-tailize

Want to take your multichannel strategy to the next level, without putting a lot of time and effort into it? If so, e-tailize’s platform can be the answer.

With the ability to link more than 100 integrations to your dashboard, you manage, centralize and automate various sales channels in one convenient platform.

From e-tailize’s platform, you can manage and automate products, inventory and fulfillment for all channels. This allows you to always maintain an overview of the offerings on different marketplaces.

You also have the ability to create and manage ads for multiple channels with the advertize and analyze module. In doing so, you will receive useful data to optimize ads by channel.

Curious about all the possibilities with e-tailize? Then schedule a free demo to work with one of our Growth Experts to see what e-tailize can do for your business.