Multichannel marketing involves interacting with customers using both indirect and direct communication channels, such as websites, retail stores, mail-order catalogs, mobile, direct mail and email. This spurs customers to action, whether that means they purchase your product, sign up for your service, or just seek out more information — all via the communication channel they prefer. The whole premise of multichannel marketing is giving the consumer a choice.
Importance
So, why is that so important? You as the business owners should know where your customers are and where they’re coming from. Hint: they’re pretty much everywhere you look. And here’s the interesting stat: multi-channel users spend up to four times more than single-channel users do. According to Search Engine Land, the channels that are most likely to get multiple touches (i.e., comparison shopping engines and email) have the most potential to be impacted by changing allocation from last touch to something much more advanced. Customers are the ones in control of the purchasing process — more so than marketers ever could be. With the advancement of so many options at the fingertips of customers, more choice = more buying opportunities. If you’re not already embracing multi-channel marketing, it’s time to start.
Attribution: a Big Piece of the Puzzle
Attribution is a critical part in the puzzle to quantifying the multi-channel marketing process. Google sees attribution as the rules of figuring out how credit for sales and conversions will be assigned to touch points in conversion paths. The goal of any attribution model is the ability to offer a simple mathematical equation to measure each method of communication along the path of conversion. You can’t do this alone. There’s software out there to help you on this, as well as advanced analytics tools that help you identify transnational trend data and sub-performing trend data that can help optimize your ad spend on the right channels or components within a channel. Consequently, this also helps with predicting ad spend, unaccounted-for opportunities and future budgeting. You can also hire a firm like Aqaba Technologies to handle all of this for you.
Let’s take a look at an example of attribution in motion. Let’s say a customer got an email, viewed a TV commercial, clicked on a paid listing, and utilized a coupon code within a few days of buying your product. Using the attribution model, you can assign a number to all those touch points, using those results to implement an effective cross-channel multi-touch marketing program to boost your conversions. The end goal is to gain a higher return on investment.
Consistency is Key
The customer experience is a tenuous one, constantly at risk from competitors trying to jockey for position. Yes, boosting the quality of the customer experience is critical, but consistency is even more so. When your customers think about your company, they look at your brand as a whole entity, not just a series of events that occurs through online, phone or in-store interactions. You’re not going to get far with a customer who has a positive experience purchasing from you online yet a negative experience in one of your stores. Approaching each channel as its own entity opens you up to losing customers when you can’t provide consistency in their overall experience.
Need help with attribution as part of your multi-channel marketing approach? Call us at Aqaba Technologies to help. We’ve been developing digital web strategies, building online brands and managing online campaigns for clients since 2004.
