A Strata YouTube Channel Original
Figuring out your multichannel campaign workflow can be difficult (at first). At its core, a workflow should be a living, breathing thing, and you most likely won’t come up with the optimal flow right from the get-go, and that’s alright, you’re not really supposed to. When building a workflow, your goal should be getting to a point where you’re tweaking it throughout the campaign, not reengineering it. That said, in our most recent YouTube video of our Multichannel Marketing series, we go over best practices for creating this flow, and the ways in which you can make it work well for you and your company.
Are All Workflows the Same?
The answer’s no. Look at the construction of your workflow as an iterative process. Something you sit down with, leave, come back to, leave for another cup of coffee, come back to and test out, make calculations for, leave, come back to, leave for more coffee, etc. Go in with the expectation of optimizing it a handful of times. Remember, it’s personalized to you and your company’s goals.
Its Importance
Having the most effective campaign from the get-go is one thing, but building a workflow and truly thinking through a theory for that workflow is another. It allows you to better test and evaluate your campaign’s goals. If you begin to see a disconnect between your campaign goals and what you currently have after constructing a workflow and calculating your multichannel KPIs, you have a problem. But, the good news is that you can work to solve it before spending money, and possibly disrupting your reputation. This is one of the main reasons workflows are important to have – so you can catch any kinks before launching your campaign.
First Steps
When starting to create your workflow, there are a lot of framework options you can build upon. The video that we’re referring to in this blog is for building a ‘base’ workflow, but, for information on how to tweak your ‘final’ workflow, check out this video when you find some time.
A commonly used workflow strategy formulation starts with defining the highest and lowest levels of the marketing funnel that you want to address. You can have as many ‘funnel buckets’ as you want, and they’ll vary based on your industry and business model. Here are some basic ones that can be used:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Evaluation
- Purchase
We recommend laying these out as lanes in a flowchart. It helps to visualize the different stages of engagement for your campaign members.
To see next steps for building your multichannel workflow, click on the video below. You’ll hear our Director of R&D, Harrison, go through best practices and tips and tricks for getting yours set up. Or, if you’d like to discuss this concept with one of our multichannel experts, contact us today.
A Strata YouTube Channel Original
Creating a personally relevant multichannel campaign can be difficult without proper preparation and guidance. Luckily, in this blog, featuring our most recent YouTube video of our Multichannel Marketing series, we go over some marketing personalization statistics, how to create a personalized, cohesive, and seamlessly relevant journey across multiple channels, and ways to better know who your buyers are.
The key to starting is to understand who your audience is and their specific buyer journey. Once you collect this data, it’s time to personalize and make sure the content you’re putting in front of them is relevant.
Map Out Your Customer Journey
When creating the perfect multichannel campaign for your audience, take a look at who your buyers really are and then work backwards to figure out how they became a customer. What high-value acquisition channels did these customers use? Which customers have strong LTV (lifetime value)? Talk to your customer service team and your customers. Once you organize and map that out, you’ll have a much easier time figuring out where the problems are, and where objections are coming from. And finally, discover where customers dropped off in the funnel. Put all of this together, and you’ll have a clear look at the journey your customers take and how you can improve your connections with them.
Establish Your Data
When we say establish your data, we’re talking way more than first names and company names. While those are important – that’s not the personalization customers are looking for these days. You’ll want to start partnering with a company (or using software) that can help you gather info like real-time, on-site behavior, online and offline conversion history, geographic location, product affinities, and device activity. All of this will help you develop a strategy that’s consistent and relevant from one channel to the next.
Ultimately, there’s no one-size-fits-all personalized experience – that’s why customers crave it so much. To see what steps are next in establishing your personalized approach, click on the video below. You’ll hear our Marketing and Social Media Coordinator, Bridget, go through best practices. Or, if you’d like to discuss this concept with one of our multichannel experts, contact us today to get your next (or maybe even your first) multichannel campaign started.
A Strata YouTube Channel Original
We’ve all heard the saying “know your audience” before, but what does it really mean, and how will it help you plan your next multichannel marketing campaign? In our most recent YouTube video, we dive into some tips & tricks for targeting your perfect multichannel campaign audience.
Really Know Your Audience
Before you even start your campaign, you need to nail down who your audience is and why you’re targeting them. Recent surveys show that 74% of consumers get frustrated when they receive content that has absolutely nothing to do with their interests, which is the main reason companies are quickly switching to multichannel marketing campaigns – designed to be customer-centric, provide a top-tier experience, and drive high ROI. But success still comes down to how well you know your audience, which is why it’s so important to create accurate customer personas. A persona is simply a fictional character that represents the ideals and motives of your target audience. Some common (and extremely useful) research tactics to create correct customer personas are researching buying habits, consumer preferences, search behaviors, and communication methods. Don’t limit yourself to just one persona if it’s useful to create more! You can utilize several different personas depending on how diverse your target market is. It’s important to think beyond your “classic customer,” and diversify your buyer profiles.
The Buyer Journey
Outlining and creating a framework for your buyer’s journey will dramatically affect your sales. Some key questions to ask yourself to understand their journey are:
- “What purchases are being made?”
- “Where are the purchases coming from?”
- “How are they making purchases?”
These questions will help you build a premium customer experience from campaign start to finish. The more data you’re able to acquire on their buying habits/decisions, the better you’ll be at mapping out their customer journey. After narrowing down your audience, you can better source all imagery, content, and workflows they’ll come across throughout the campaign.
Want to learn more about perfecting your multichannel marketing audience? Click on the video below to hear more on this topic from our Marketing and Social Media Coordinator, Bridget. Or, if you’d like to discuss this concept with one of our multichannel experts, contact us today to get your next (or maybe your first) multichannel campaign started.
A Strata YouTube Channel Original
When building a multichannel marketing campaign, one of the first steps is to build a cost structure to set the direction of the project. If you don’t plan ahead, costs can add up quickly, so to help you out, our most recent YouTube video goes over the different costs behind a successful multichannel marketing campaign and how to make your next campaign both cost effective and impactful. Let’s go ahead and take a look at the first cost of a multichannel campaign.
Platform Cost (Managed Service Cost)
Picking a strong technology platform is a make-or-break decision that will determine how successful your multichannel campaign will be. Effective and coordinated multichannel marketing is only made possible through technology, so it’s essential you have access to it. A recent survey revealed that 52% of marketers utilize 3 to 4 marketing channels in one campaign, so the correct platform that can properly track and execute a campaign on many channels is imperative. If this is your first rodeo, pick a vendor to coordinate and manage these campaigns. Doing so will essentially convert the majority of the upfront costs to variable execution costs and will make the campaign easier to manage. Make sure the platform you choose properly aligns with your business strategy, as only 16% of marketers claim they have this alignment. Generally, your company should budget between $20k and $40k for a solid, multichannel-capable platform that will get the job done.
Want to learn about the two other costs associated with multichannel marketing campaigns? Click on the video below to hear from our Research & Development Director, Harrison. Or, if you’d like to discuss this concept with one of our multichannel experts, contact us today to get your next (or maybe your first) multichannel campaign up and running.
A Strata YouTube Channel Original
Throughout your workday, you might hear the term “Multichannel Marketing” being thrown around casually, and not have the slightest clue of what it’s referring to. That’s okay! We understand that it can sound like an intimidating subject. While up to 95% of marketers say they understand the importance of multichannel marketing for targeting, only 73% say they hjave a multichannel strategy set in place. At its core, Multichannel Marketing is a simple concept that can help your company’s overall marketing campaigns and execution excel. Read along as we walk you through this falsely intimidating marketing concept.
What is Multichannel Marketing?
In a nutshell, multichannel marketing is a strategy that uses a combination of indirect and direct communication channels. With these channels, you’re able to reach all of your clients, prospects, and customers with a multifaceted campaign that can do wonders for your company. Multichannel campaigns are all about distributing the right content to the right people at the right time. Whether it’s by direct mail, digital ads, social, websites, or brick and mortar stores, multichannel marketing can be anywhere and everywhere so that your customers can take action and respond to the channel of their choice. You basically open a window of endless communication possibilities, and let your customers respond on their own terms. There’s no forced communication, because the advertising experience is controlled by the pace of the customer.
98% of Americans switch between multiple devices in one day. If that statistic isn’t enough to make you believe in multichannel marketing’s power, then we don’t know what is. Traditional marketing tactics work, but multichannel marketing is unique because it meets customers where they are along their journey instead of at one single spot. For this reason, multichannel marketing is never a “one size fits all” approach. It requires marketing readiness on multiple channels, especially since 86% of shoppers regularly channel-hop across a minimum of two mediums.
Ready to Learn More?
If we’ve piqued your interest and you’re ready to enhance your multichannel marketing knowledge, check out our YouTube channel or click the video below. Our Marketing Manager, Caitlin, will give you a quick three-minute explanation on this ever-popular topic, or if you’d like to discuss this concept with one of our multichannel experts, contact us today to get your next (or maybe your first) multichannel campaign started.
