Big buzzwords might be tossed round willy-nilly within the advertising and marketing world. This occurs so usually, in actual fact, that they’ll lose all which means. Sometimes they’ll flip into phrases the place you aren’t totally positive what’s being mentioned. One of those phrases is “marketing channel strategy.” We’ve all in all probability heard it and even mentioned it ourselves, however has anybody actually dissected it to higher perceive what it means?
The sparkly, flashy time period “marketing channel strategy” can imply various things to completely different folks. So to make clear, we wish to do an in-depth evaluation of what a advertising and marketing channel technique is, what it seems like, and why it issues in your model. Let’s get proper into it.
Things to Consider for Your Marketing Channel Strategy
Put merely, your advertising and marketing channel technique is the way you go about optimizing the usage of completely different advertising and marketing channels for your corporation. Maybe you utilize email, SMS, and push. Your channel technique is benefiting from every of those individually and collectively.
But that’s not so simple as it would sound. Here are some issues to contemplate as you get began.
- What channels does your corporation use? Think: SMS, email, push notifications, net in-app, and many others.
- What content material suits every channel’s use? Not all content material works throughout channels.Some require shorter messages. Others may excel in sure sorts of content material—see: SMS for transactional messaging.
- What context suits every channel? The conditions wherein you ship an SMS versus whenever you ship an email can differ enormously. So, a advertising and marketing channel technique goes past simply figuring out the messages which can be despatched, but in addition takes into consideration the context wherein you ship them.
- How usually do you ship messages per channel? With context comes cadence. Consider what number of messages you’re going to ship per channel to enhance the general expertise.
- Where do your prospects have interaction? Based on how prospects work together together with your messages, you may acquire engagement information and alter your journeys (in real-time).
Each of those concerns performs a task in figuring out your optimum advertising and marketing channel technique. This isn’t even contemplating the truth that all of this ought to be individualized.
You know good advertising and marketing whenever you see it. So let’s check out some examples.
How Marketing Channels are Used
When the message kind matches how the channel is used, in order that it feels pure and non-disruptive to the client, you’ve probably applied a profitable advertising and marketing channel technique. Here’s how some manufacturers are benefiting from their channel methods.
Optimized SMS
Take SMS for instance. SMS messages are sometimes used for pressing communications. So, in the event you’re trying to replace prospects on an order or a current transaction (they usually’ve opted in to obtain textual content messages), it’s your decision to ship a textual content.
Grubhub, the meals supply service, makes use of SMS to ship messages related to ongoing orders. The supply drivers can talk with prospects to present real-time updates, making certain that the client will get the knowledge they want, as quickly as doable.
Grubhub drivers use SMS to maintain prospects knowledgeable whereas their orders are within the works.
When a supply is on the way in which, it’s vital that prospects get up-to-date data in actual time. Yes, an email saying the order was confirmed, and many others., is useful too, however for quick data sharing, SMS makes essentially the most sense. Using advertising and marketing channels how they’re natively, intuitively utilized in day by day life might help cut back friction for the client.
Optimized Email
Like we talked about within the Grubhub instance, email might be actually useful for long-term order data or promotional content material. For one, email is well searchable. SMS is searchable to an extent, but it surely’s a lot simpler to search by means of emails. Customers can rapidly scan their inboxes for order data, coupons, and many others.
Luggage firm, Béis, sends a transactional email after a purchase order is made. The email has the order data and a hyperlink to view the order. This kind of message is ideal for email as a result of it helps the client maintain tabs on their order. Now, if they need to view their order, they’ll search “Beis” of their inbox and discover what they’re on the lookout for.
Béis chooses to use email because the channel by means of which to ship transactional messages.
Beis does use SMS as a advertising and marketing channel, however chooses to use email because the channel for sending transactional messages. Like we talked about, SMS isn’t as simple to search and, if the model’s contact data isn’t saved within the consumer’s cellphone, it could possibly be practically unattainable to discover the message once more. But, Béis might decide to use each channels, cohesively, to make sure the consumer has their order information.
Optimized Push Notifications
Push notifications generally is a nice channel to information prospects again to your cellular app. Because push notifications are tied to functions, plus prospects have to opt-in to obtain push notifications, you may nearly assure that the client is, on some stage, actively partaking together with your model.
Wayfair, the net furnishings retailer, makes use of wealthy push notifications and deep linking in an deserted cart marketing campaign. First, they ship a push notification that includes the merchandise left behind. Not solely does the push notification have the merchandise, it has the client’s identify as properly. Then, when pushed, the notification expands to present the complete picture. Lastly, when clicked, the notification takes the client straight to their cart throughout the cellular app.
Wayfair makes use of personalization and push notification options to get prospects again into the shopping for course of.
This is an instance of an optimized push notification motion as a result of it makes the client expertise extraordinarily simple. On prime of the eye-catching individualization, the deep linking removes any hurdles the client could have as they go to buy the merchandise. To take this buyer expertise even additional, different channels might be added to the combination.
Cross-Channel Marketing Strategies
Adding a number of channels that work together with each other and acknowledge the client, no matter which path they select, creates a totally optimized cross-channel expertise. Let’s take one other have a look at Wayfair’s deserted cart marketing campaign.
Wayfair really goes above and past when it comes to these campaigns. Not solely do they use push notifications to lead prospects to their cellular cart, however they use email as properly. Here’s the kicker: when prospects click on on the deserted cart email on their cellphone, they’re taken to the cellular app. When they click on on the identical email from their desktop, they’re taken to the web site.
Wayfair takes into consideration which channel the client is utilizing to view their cart.
These seemingly small modifications can create consistency and cohesiveness within the buyer expertise. Imagine if the client clicked on the cellular email and it opened a cellular browser. It could possibly be barely disorienting and irritating to the client, contemplating they’d simply been utilizing the cellular app.
A advertising and marketing channel technique can apply to extra than simply transactional messages. Channel methods might be optimized throughout quite a lot of completely different content material varieties—promotions, newsletters, academic content material, and many others. Consider the kind of content material and the way it works with the channels you’re utilizing. For instance, possibly a e-newsletter is shipped through email as an alternative of SMS, however order confirmations are despatched through SMS. It’s all about what is sensible for the client journey.
The satan is within the particulars and, when creating advertising and marketing channel methods—each individually and cross-channel—these small particulars make an enormous distinction.
To study extra about how Iterable might help together with your cross-channel advertising and marketing technique, schedule a demo immediately.