Imagine that you’ve just downloaded a popular fashion retailer’s mobile app and received a welcome email offering a discount for new app users. To take advantage of this limited-time offer, you visit their website, select some items, apply the discount code from the email, and complete your purchase.
This scenario illustrates the power of cross-channel marketing in driving sales.
Cross-channel marketing is a strategy that involves communicating with customers through multiple channels, including email, SMS, mobile apps, and social media. By integrating these channels, brands can deliver consistent messaging and personalized content to engage customers effectively.
In this article, we will explore the value of cross-channel marketing and how it can contribute to your company’s growth. We will cover the following topics:
- What is cross-channel marketing?
- Benefits of cross-channel marketing
- How to build a cross-channel marketing strategy?
Let’s dive deeper into each of these areas.
What is cross-channel marketing?
Cross-channel marketing allows brands to connect with customers across various channels, such as the web, email, mobile apps, SMS, call centers, direct mail, and in-person interactions. This approach enables brands to deliver relevant marketing content through each channel of the customer’s shopping experience. Cross-channel marketing can be employed at different stages of the customer journey, from customer acquisition to retention.
Implementing cross-channel marketing enables marketers to expand the touchpoints in a customer’s buying journey. To learn more about developing a cross-channel marketing strategy and its distinction from multichannel and omnichannel marketing, continue reading.
Benefits of cross-channel marketing
Brands today recognize the significance of engaging customers through multiple communication channels. Here are four key advantages of cross-channel marketing for your business:
- Increases return on investment (ROI): Cross-channel marketing helps businesses achieve higher ROI by identifying channels that are not generating conversions through customer data analysis. By improving underperforming channels, brands can enhance customer retention, resulting in a higher ROI. Marketers who employ at least three channels for their campaigns retain 90% more customers than those using fewer channels.
- Personalizes the shopping experience: A cross-channel strategy allows marketers to identify customer preferences and deliver tailored offers at various stages of the purchasing journey. By understanding the customer’s preferred channels, marketers can provide a shopping experience in the format the customer prefers. For example, if customers prefer SMS, marketers can leverage rich media messaging opportunities. Personalized messages play a crucial role in influencing purchasing decisions, as 80% of customers are more likely to buy from brands that send personalized messages.
- Provides a seamless experience: Cross-channel marketing requires the integration of multiple platforms to deliver a unified campaign. For instance, a receipt from an in-store purchase can be added to a customer’s mobile app, which can then display relevant offers based on their past purchases. Today’s consumers demand seamless shopping experiences across various channels, with 87% believing that brands should invest in a unified omnichannel experience. Cross-channel marketing allows companies to deliver the seamless, multichannel campaigns that customers expect.
- Establishes a strong brand identity: By communicating brand messages consistently across multiple channels, cross-channel marketing helps create a recognizable brand identity and desired public perception. Tangible and intangible elements, such as company name, logo, fonts, messaging, colors, relationships, and experiences, contribute to this brand identity. Analyzing consumer data allows businesses to develop a consistent brand identity that resonates with their target market. Consistency in brand identity across all channels helps customers become familiar with the company’s voice and products, leading to customer loyalty.
How to build a cross-channel marketing strategy
Developing a cross-channel marketing strategy involves more than just creating an app, website, and email campaign. It requires a comprehensive approach that includes several phases, from initial strategizing to ongoing refinement. Here are seven steps to building a successful cross-channel marketing strategy:
- Develop user personas: Creating user personas, which represent your target customers, helps gain insights into their behavior. To cover a diverse range of customers, you may need to create up to four user personas. User personas enable everyone in your organization to understand your customers and determine which products and messages will resonate with each target audience on different channels.
- Recognize your channels: Once you understand what your customers want, it is essential to identify the requirements of your communication channels and assign dedicated teams to each. Each channel may require a unique approach, as a one-size-fits-all approach may not be effective. For example, sending push notifications to loyal app users will require different marketing efforts than onboarding new customers through an email campaign. A successful cross-channel marketing strategy should incorporate a tailored approach for each channel.
- Utilize a customer data platform (CDP): To simplify data analysis, keep all customer information in one place using a customer data platform (CDP). Instead of siloing data across departments, a CDP consolidates customer information under a single management system, enabling brands to create optimal customer experiences based on data. As access to data remains a challenge for many marketers, with nearly one-third reporting this issue when personalizing messaging, a CDP becomes even more critical. It provides marketers with previously inaccessible data, empowering them to develop data-driven, cross-channel campaigns.
- Customize the content: Personalized offers and recommendations significantly influence purchasing decisions, with 91% of consumers more likely to buy from brands that provide personalized content. A successful cross-channel marketing strategy helps businesses develop personalized content by tailoring messages to individual customers. Some personalization tactics include using customers’ names in email subject lines and text messages, offering journey-specific deals, sending remarketing reminders about abandoned shopping carts or recently viewed products, and tailoring marketing messages based on location. Customized campaigns that feel personalized and relevant are crucial in meeting the expectations of modern consumers.
- Test your campaigns: A/B testing allows you to measure the effectiveness of your cross-channel marketing campaigns. By comparing two variations of a campaign, you can determine which one performs better for specific segments of your audience. For example, you could test whether a two-step mobile app tour is more successful than a five-step tour. When conducting A/B tests, it is advisable to include a randomized control group that has not seen your campaign yet. This control group serves as a benchmark for evaluating the success of your strategies.
- Invest in customer service: Quality customer service plays a vital role in building brand loyalty. According to Microsoft’s 2017 report, 96% of respondents stated that customer service influences their brand loyalty, and 90% expect companies to offer online self-service options. Therefore, it is essential to incorporate customer service into your cross-channel marketing strategy. Prioritize both offline and online customer engagement to provide excellent service. While in-store employees can address questions immediately, questions submitted through your website or social media may require more time. Ensure that support staff is available across all channels to answer customer queries promptly.
- Continuously refine your approach: Building a cross-channel marketing strategy is an ongoing process that requires constant refinement based on customer data analysis. Tailor your strategy to keep users engaged across channels. If you observe a decline in active users on your app, devise a re-engagement strategy by increasing personalization, soliciting feedback, or sending exclusive offers via email or SMS. The most effective cross-channel marketing strategies leverage personalized data and are continuously fine-tuned to meet evolving customer needs.