MultiChannel Marketing’s Essential Online Elements

Multichannel marketing in the age of mobile devices and social media can seem overwhelming at first. Actually, it’s much easier than looks, if you take the time to familiarize yourself with the various elements on the front end.

The following are four of the most important digital channels in a good multichannel marketing campaign. Listed with each is information on why each is important, and what it can do for your business.

Multichannel Marketing through Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

Pay per click advertising is one of the most flexible marketing & advertising channels around. It’s a highly effective way to direct traffic to your site for the purposes of lead generation, email list building, and direct sales.

It’s also a really good way to spend a lot of money without having anything to show for it, if you’re not careful! Integrating PPC advertising into your multichannel marketing efforts requires a combination of good ad-writing skills (these can be learned) and good cross channel integrated analytics.

Multichannel Marketing through Mobile Devices

With more users accessing the Web via tablets, smart phones, and other mobile devices every year, mobile marketing in practically inescapable these days. It’s practically essential that you include mobile in your multi channel marketing efforts.

Efforts here include SMS text messages that alert your prospects to your latest product or development, often with a link to your mobile-optimized website. Mobile applications for Android and Apple’s various pods, pads, and phones make a big showing here as well.

Mobile devices exist in a twilight zone of digital marketing. While they do represent their own marketing channel, they also represent a different way to access other channels and media, such as email, social media marketing, pay-per-click, and Internet marketing/Web channels in general, so mobile marketing is a type of multichannel marketing in and of itself.

Multi Channel Marketing through Email Campaigns

Email marketing is another area where cross channel marketing integration efforts are important.

At its best, email marketing offers an extremely high ROI when coupled with a targeted subscriber list.

Generally, you’ll be using PPC, social media, and Web channels to bring those subscribers to your email marketing list. A huge part of multichannel marketing through email is integrating and tracking marketing efforts across channels so that you can find what kinds of efforts bring you the most valuable subscribers from which marketing channels.

Accurate cross channel analytics can help you figure out when it costs you $5 to get a subscriber from Facebook and $25 to get one from PPC ads! In-depth integration and list segmentation can help you figure out, for example, that each PPC subscriber might spend $100 with you over the course of three months, while each Facebook subscriber only spends $20.

Multi Channel Marketing through Social Media

While technically part of the Web, social media has become such a big deal that it would be irresponsible not to give it its own listing. Even though it operates in the medium of the Web (except for when it operates via mobile apps…which it frequently does!), social media represents a marketing channel unto itself.

It’s also here to stay for the foreseeable future. Any responsible multichannel marketing strategy will include social media marketing. A good strategy will also include integrated analytics so that smart operators can see how much of their traffic comes from social media, what that social traffic costs, and what it is worth in the long run.

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