Cross-channel marketing has moved beyond the hype to become a reality for marketers. In fact, it’s the new normal. Why? Our online behaviors have evolved – consumers are constantly checking emails, social media apps, and even interacting online via voice technology. To reach them effectively, a marketer must have the message in the right place at the right time.
However, setting up cross-channel marketing isn’t easy – especially when defining what the marketing strategy will be. If marketers aren’t prepared, or poorly set up as a team, budget and time will simply be wasted with no positive impact on the revenue or customer satisfaction.
To ensure this doesn’t happen, there are two fundamental questions marketers need to ask themselves. If they cannot answer these successfully, all the other processes or changes they put in place simply won’t be effective and cross-channel marketing won’t happen.
1. Has Your Marketing Team Shifted its Mindset?
Historically, when marketers need to launch a campaign or communicate with their customers, they look at each channel separately and consider how, when, and what content to use. This mindset needs to shift entirely. Marketers need to consider the entire buyer journey and how channels ought to work together to create a consistent experience. Only then will they be able to design campaigns that will capture attention.
2. Are You Clear on Your Entire Multichannel Marketing Approach?
Marketers need to be 100 percent clear on every stage of the cross-channel approach to ensure it will work effectively. So, take a step back and interrogate the plan. Does your team all agree on how to define cross-channel marketing? Does your team all agree on where it starts? How many channels are included and how will your cross-channel marketing efforts be measured?
Once marketers can answer these questions and have entire team singing from the same hymn sheet, they will be ready to tackle the barriers to cross-channel marketing.
First and foremost, this involves breaking down silos. This is one of the biggest challenges for any brand. Different teams are responsible for social media, ecommerce, contact centers, etc. and usually, each team has a different focus, a different way of collecting and analyzing data, and different processes to reach desired outcomes.
The other biggest barrier to being able to achieve a single view of the customer is technology limitations. Stories abound of external providers who don’t understand their client’s business model and data, or take on a technology implementation project that’s either too big or not big enough.
Regardless of the hurdles to overcome, cross-channel marketing is happening and the choice marketers have is how effective their brand can be in achieving it. Only with buy-in from the entire team do marketers have the strong foundation they need to ensure customers are engaged, building loyalty and generating revenue.