Multi-channel marketing refers to using a variety of marketing channels to attract customers by thinking carefully about the unique strengths of each marketing channel – whether it be email, websites, social media, video or print – to communicate the value of your brand.
Multi-channel approaches are said to increase the effectiveness of your marketing. An Australian-first report by Kantar found that digital advertising works best when used in marketing campaigns that include multiple digital channels and traditional advertising methods, such as print.
The report also found that the success of these advertising campaigns was not driven by increased campaign spend, but instead driven by thoughtfully designed advertising creative tailored to each marketing channel and careful management of the frequency of the campaigns.
Understanding the strengths of each marketing channel
To create a successful multi-channel marketing strategy, it’s helpful to understand the strengths of each marketing channel. Here, we’re going to focus on three key marketing channels: print, digital and social media. We’ve listed out the strengths, weaknesses and audience attitudes common to each channel to help you define the best tactics to use with each.
Print campaigns, including magazines
Strengths:
- Best for brand awareness – content and advertising is positioned in front of an intentional, targeted audience that has often paid to receive the publication (and therefore very engaged)
- Provides an immersive experience for the reader, free from digital distraction
- Typically has a long shelf life, particularly bi-monthly and quarterly publications. This means they are re-read and advertising purchased spans a long period of time
- Strong aesthetics which allow for more creativity and expression within your advertising campaigns – think great imagery to depict your brand or product
- Information published in print tends to generate trust.
Weaknesses:
- Harder to measure ROI – no instant gratification (metrics dashboard)
- No direct link or click-through to your website (QR codes can be used)
- Best results are achieved via magazines with highly targeted audiences relevant to your product, rather than generalist or mainstream titles.
Audience attitudes:
- Tactile, like to feel something tangible
- Have a desire to be outdoors
- Want to reduce or minimise screen time
- Want a ‘lean-back’ experience where information can be digested thoroughly.
Digital, display and native advertising campaigns
Strengths:
- Good for lead generation and retargeting campaigns by linking directly to your website
- Easy to measure your return on investment via impressions and click through rates
- Best results are achieved within the right context
- Advertising should be animated to attract attention and have a clear ‘call to action’
- Lends itself to articles that are helpful or educational – explaining your product with a call to action to view more details.
Weaknesses:
- Digital display advertising provides a disruptive experience for the user.
Audience attitudes:
- Researching options
- Looking for quick information.
Social media campaigns
Strengths:
- Good for lead generation and retargeting campaigns by linking directly to your website
- Easy to measure your return on investment via impressions, click through rates or pay-per-click options
- Marketing is dynamic and can be updated quickly/based on your immediate needs
- Video is king – short, fast-paced brand information delivered often and in a fun way (calls to action can vary with each post).
Weaknesses:
- The experience is disruptive for the user
- Limited control over brand positioning on the platform, sponsored posts and advertising aren’t placed in relevant context
- Lack of trust in information circulated on social media
- Marketing campaigns are typically short-term
- Can be expensive.
Audience attitudes:
- Looking for connection or recommendations from their friends, family and community.
Always think about context and the channels your ideal customers engage with
Regardless of the marketing channels you decide are best to build your multi-channel marketing campaign, it’s important to remember two things:
- Context matters
- Your target audience needs to engage with the marketing channel.
The context in which your brand appears helps a customer decide whether you’re truly committed to your ethics and whether they want to buy from you. Being seen in the right context helps to build trust with your brand. This is particularly important when you’re aiming to develop meaningful relationships with eco-conscious consumers.
Look for marketing channels and media brands that are seen as authentic, trusted sources and share the same values as you. Aligning with an authentic media brand that focuses on your area of interest also gives you more control over how your brand is positioned, and can improve brand recognition and purchasing intent.
But you’ve also got to make sure that your ideal customers engage with the marketing channel that you choose. You can get to the nitty gritty of this by creating ‘buyer personas’ that outline each type of prospective customer you want to attract. See our tips here for creating buyer personas.
These buyer personas will also help you to craft marketing messages that work to the strengths of the marketing channel you choose – and the type of buyer persona that uses the platform.
For example, this might mean focusing on a particular social media platform over another, or changing your marketing message to suit the demographic that you’re looking to reach on each platform.
When looking at other forms of digital and print media, choose a media brand that focuses on the topic most relevant to your products and your ideal customers’ interests. The media brand that you select should be able to give you a detailed breakdown of their audience demographics and interests before you commit to your campaign with them. This is usually called a media kit – as an example, Pip’s media kit can be found here.
Pip supports environmentally friendly, ethical brands by providing opportunities to connect with its eco-conscious community across its entire media ecosystem.
We have opportunities across all of our media platforms, including in our print magazine, website, social media and e-newsletters, reaching over 50,000 Australians.
Find out how you can engage with an audience who are looking to live more lightly on the earth by making better choices about the products they buy and the businesses they support. View our media kit, or contact Publisher Robyn Rosenfeldt.
