People become increasingly saturated with information, and the online world is flooded with offers and options. As a result, customers are becoming more selective about the channels they use and the information they receive.
Conceived with this understanding in mind, multi-channel marketing has been around for a while, and that’s probably because it has proven to be effective at targeting and connecting with clients on a medium they prefer.
Let’s discover the latest trends in multi-channel marketing for 2019 and find out how you can implement them in your business to drive success.
5 Tips for Succeeding in Multi-Channel Marketing in 2019
1. Personalize It
That’s probably the most important point to keep in mind. Forget about cookie-cutter campaigns, AI-powered customer analytics opened the door to targeted advertising and this trend will only continue to develop with the improvement of analytical tools.
2. Be Creative, Diversify, and Connect
Don’t just repeat the same thing that’s been done for years, be creative and find new approaches. Diversify your content across different channels to make sure it is unique and focus on building a connection with your clients.
3. Be Appropriate
In recent years, there’ve been plenty of brands that went awry in their marketing efforts—don’t be one of them. Carefully plan your strategy and check ALL marketing releases with a second or third person for approval before release.
4. Boost Your Technical Skills
2019 is the year of tech, take time and boost your technical marketing skills by learning something new. Consider taking courses on GoogleAds, Hubspot, or focusing more on data analysis, so you are better positioned to assess your marketing efforts.
5. Automate
Why do something yourself if you can automate the process. Consider employing or creating marketing automation software for your projects if your budget allows it. This can optimize your time, so that you can focus more on the important stuff.
Bringing in other areas of ecommerce development can improve your marketing efforts by upgrading your current systems. For example, you can optimize your CRM and analytical systems and even connect with your customers better through your call centers.
5 Top Marketing Channels for 2019
1. Website
When creating your company’s website, one of the first things you probably considered was functionality—sales functions, information, etc.—not necessarily marketing potential.
However, you should. This is 2019, and your customers will Google you, at the very least, so there are two very essential things you need to do:
- Audit your website—someone to go through your website to discover its shortcomings is the first place to start when looking to boost your marketing efforts. Find out what is missing, what isn’t clear, and what you need to improve; remember a professional-looking website with great content will always play in your favor.
- Be SEO-ready—Your potential clients need to be able to find your website, and one of the ways is through SEO content, which brings us to the next point.
2. Content
In 2019, content remains king. Today’s audiences are seeking more and more information to validate their online purchases and activities, ensuring the companies they are using are legitimate. These are two rules for content in 2019:
- Quality matters—And quality means not only perfect language and appropriate style but also topics that are relevant, informative, and easy-to-read.
- Optimize it—Like your website, quality content needs to be SEO optimized. So, get an SEO specialist involved at the beginning, helping you to hit your targets.
3. Social Media
Nowadays, most people visit their social media pages at least once a day—3/4 Facebook users visit the site daily, 6/10 Instagram users do the same. While this is somewhat generational, overall social media is becoming integrated into daily life. The 2019 year will see businesses adopting a number of tactics for their social media presence.
- Allow for variety—If a customer is signed up to your Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn pages, you don’t want to be presenting them with the same information across all platforms. Adapt and adjust for each.
- Keep it consistent and appropriate—That said, while you should change up your content, ensure at all times your brand has a consistent voice, and avoid unnecessary slang. This has proven to be a turn-off to customers, unless you’re Buzzfeed or specifically working with a teen audience.
- Don’t be afraid to focus on one medium—If your resources are slim, concentrate your efforts on the channel your brand and clients prefer. Don’t spread yourself out so thinly that your social media content isn’t worth reading at all.
4. Email Marketing
Despite the introduction of the GDPR in the EU in 2018, email marketing continues to be one of the top marketing channels in 2019. But, gone are the days of spam, your customers really only want to hear from you when you have something great to say.
- Personalize it—Forget those “dear customer” emails, 2019 is all about tailoring your email to the customer. First of all, include their name, and second use analytics to ensure the email you’re sending is relevant to that particular customer.
- Create interesting emails—Make sure the content speaks to your clients, employ all the usual techniques including tone of voice, etc. Ensure your emails are short and to the point, your customers are busy and have little time to read a Shakespeare-like mailout in their lunch break.
5. The Human Touch
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: 2019 is all about personalization and the human connection. Customers like to choose brands that present the human touch and care about their clients; be one of those brands.
- Connect with your customers—Now, we don’t advise making cold calls to see how your clients are doing, most likely they’ll think this is creepy. However, interactions on social media, messaging services, and other channels help promote a positive brand image.
- Affiliates and influencers—If it’s suitable for your brand, you may consider working with affiliates or influences who will promote your brand at a local/national level in their sphere. However, choose wisely; an ill choice can reflect badly on your brand.
2 Marketing Channels Losing Popularity
While you should never rule any channel out of your marketing strategy, these two channels are becoming less commonly used.
1. TV
The at-home shopping experience has evolved from catalogs to TV shopping channels, such as QVC, to online shopping, meaning products are more likely to sell online than through the TV.
Aside from that, the increase in online streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc., and digital TV boxes, means people are spending less time watching TV ads.
That said, if you are driven to go the TV-route, interactive solutions that combine online streaming or TV with your brand via social media have proven to be creative and effective.
2. Billboards
Having your name in lights just isn’t what it used to be. The fact of the matter is that businesses using billboard marketing simply have no way of knowing just how effective their campaign has been, and especially if it was worth the cost.
Personalization Is the Future of Marketing
In recent years, multi-channel marketing has sought to keep up with customers’ needs for personalization and relevancy, and that trend is set to continue this year. Accordingly, marketing channels that allow for personalization gain popularity while those aimed at a wide faceless audience quickly become obsolete. Following this trend and other major tendencies in multi-channel marketing, you’ll be able to create a campaign that lives up to customers’ expectations.
