Maximise your ROI with multi-channel marketing

Want to know how to maximise your ROI with multi-channel marketing? As a business owner it’s important to keep an eye on the return-on-investment (ROI) you are getting from your marketing. And there is no doubt if you are just using one marketing channel you won’t be maximising your ROI. You might think that adding in more marketing channels will mean more work for less reward but the opposite is true. For numerous reasons, a multi-channel marketing approach will help you to get an even better ROI. Keep on reading to find out how to maximise your ROI with multi-channel marketing.

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HOW TO MAXIMISE YOUR ROI WITH MULTI-CHANNEL MARKETING

What is multi-channel marketing?

Multi-channel marketing is where a business uses multiple channels to market a business. Some examples of a marketing channel are:

Social media marketing
Email marketing
Search engine optimisation(SEO)
Content marketing
Affiliate marketing
Digital advertising (search, social, display and PPC)
Influencer marketing
SMS
Webinars

So if a business is running multi-channel marketing they’ll be using a number of marketing channels at the same time to market their business.

Why many small businesses start by relying on one marketing channel

A lot of small businesses are ran by people who are not marketers. They love what they offer and marketing is just something they have to do in order to make sales. This results in small business owners looking for the simplest, and what they perceive as the easiest, way to market their business. This often leads to small business owners focusing on one marketing channel. They worry that about trying to do too much and spreading themselves too thin so they find one marketing channel they believe will work and then ‘double down’ on that.

In the beginning, it makes sense to start with just using one marketing channel. There is no doubt that by only focusing on learning one marketing channel it does makes life easier for the business owner. And it will also enable the business owner to see if sales are possible and ensure they’ve got a viable business before investing more time and money into other marketing options.

However, whilst focusing on one marketing channel makes life easier for the business owner there is no doubt that is means sales are being missed out on and marketing opportunities aren’t being maximised. So once the viability of the business has been proven and a business owner is confident selling on one marketing channel the focus should move to diversification and having a multi-channel marketing approach.

Why multi-channel marketing will help you to maximise your ROI

There are a number of reasons why multi-channel marketing will help you to maximise your ROI. But here are 3 you should definitely be aware of.

Reason 1: More opportunities to interact equals more sales

It’s a well-known fact that people need to interact with a business multiple times before buying. The exact number varies across studies, but you are looking at 7+. And if you are using just one marketing channel it can mean that it takes someone a long time to get that number of interactions with your business. For example, if you are just using social media it is likely that less than 10% of your followers will see a post. So to keep the maths easy I’ll stick with 10%. So if you post Monday to Friday that means a follower could see 1 post from your business every fortnight. That means it will take 14 weeks for them to see 7 posts from your business. And that was based on 10% reach, which was generous to say the least.

Whereas when you use multi-channel marketing people will have the opportunity to interact with your business multiple times in a week, or even a day. For example, I help business owners to use the content marketing trifecta (you can find out more about the content marketing trifecta here) and in that scenario, it is easy for someone to see a social media post, read an email and consume a piece of long-form content all within the same day. All of a sudden you go from those 7 interactions taking 14 weeks to happening within a week or two. This means more sales and a shorter buyer journey.

Reason 2: More usage out of your content

There is no denying that creating content is a time-consuming activity, and if you aren’t making the content yourself then there will also be a financial investment too. And if you are just posting content on one channel the likelihood is that you’ll post it once and then it will never be posted again. It might be that you do have a repurposing strategy and that content will make another appearance, but there is no denying the life of that content will be limited.

Whereas when you use multi-channel marketing, and you carefully think about the combination of channels you use, you are able to repurpose content across the channels. This means one piece of content can be used multiple times on each platform. Naturally, by being used more times your content should give you a better ROI than just one appearance on one marketing channel.

Reason 3: More channels equals exposure to more people

For every marketing channel for your business uses it will have the ability to be seen by different people. There will be a crossover of course but there are definitely people who will see marketing on some channels but not others. For example, if you are relying on any social media platform there are people who don’t use social media or don’t use your specific platform.

Whereas when you embrace multi-channel marketing you are able to reach a wider percentage of your target market as for each channel you’ll be able to reach a certain percentage and whilst there will be some crossover there will also be some new people in there. And as explain earlier where there is a crossover that will help with more interactions in a smaller period of time, which is good for business anyway.

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How to maximise your ROI with multi-channel marketing

1. Select the right mixture of marketing channels to strengthen the buyer journey

There is no denying that adding in more marketing channels means more work so in order to maximise your ROI with multi-channel marketing you need to choose your additional marketing channels carefully. You want to add in marketing channels that are going to strengthen the buyer journey.

If you’ve never come across the idea of the buyer journey (also referred to as a customer or client journey) before this is the process people have to go through to first become aware of your business, be nurtured and then buy. It’s very common for a small business to start their business on social media and be using social media for awareness, nurturing and converting. So when looking at what to add in I’ll ask them to think about which of those three steps is social media performing weakest for and then the next marketing channels needs to address that step. In some cases businesses find it easy to gain new followers and nurture them, but find conversion hard so adding in email marketing, which is a great channel for conversion, makes sense. Or if they feel successful using social media for nurturing and conversion then they could add in search engine optimisation or affiliate marketing, which are both great for building awareness.

2. Choose the right mixture of marketing channels to enable easy repurposing.

In addition to strengthening the buyer journey you’ll also want to think about how you can repurpose content across your proposed mix of channels. One of the reasons I recommend using the content marketing trifecta is that it is easy to repurpose ideas and content across long-form content, email and social media. It is a combination of channels that has been used over and over again. You can concentrate on creating strategic long-form content (whether that be a blog, podcast or YouTube channel) and then the topic or focus of that content will then be used across email and social media with some of those posts directly leading people to consume the long-form content and sometimes not.

I go into more detail about repurposing content across multiple marketing channels here.

3. Include a marketing channel that enables you to be targeted with your marketing

Another way to maximise your ROI with multi-channel marketing is by ensuring that at least one of your marketing channels enables you to be targeted with your marketing. With some marketing channels all you can do is create one thing for everyone and then blast it out knowing that it will only resonate with a percentage of people. Whereas with some marketing channels you have the ability to be able to target who you are contacting. For example, you can do this with email marketing and digital advertising.

Both of these channels offer you a level of targeting. With email marketing it could be that you’ve segmented your list based on how they joined your mailing list or interactions they’ve taken in your emails. With digital advertising you could be targeting based on a specific phrase they’ve searched for or a webpage they’ve visited. In both cases this knowledge about current or previous actions helps you to be more targeted with your marketing, which in turn will help with better conversion and an improved ROI.

4. Focus on marketing channels where marketing has a longer life span.

Different types of marketing has different lifespans. A social media post can last from a few hours to a week, whereas a piece of long-form content that is optimised for search can continue to be consumed years after it is originally created.

In order to maximise your ROI with multi-channel marketing you will want to make sure that at least some of your marketing channels will enable you to create content that lives for months or years. This doesn’t mean you have to pick a specific marketing channel. There are a number of options and there are ways even within a specific marketing channel that your approach could mean the marketing has a short or longer lifespan. Some ways you can have marketing that has a longer lifespan is by creating automated email sequences, or long-form content that is optimised for search, or via digital advertising.

That’s it! You now know how to maximise your ROI with multi-channel marketing.

I’m fully aware that deciding to start using more marketing channels and have a multi-channel marketing approach might feel daunting, but hopefully now you can see why it is worthwhile.

But if you are serious about using multi-channel marketing to maximise sales and ROI then I would love to help you – and can do so inside of SALES BEYOND SOCIAL.

BECOME A MULTI-CHANNEL MARKETING MASTER BY JOINING SALES BEYOND SOCIAL.

Sales Beyond Social is a marketing accelerator where in just 6 weeks you’ll learn how to master using a multi-channel marketing approach that will increase visibility, clients and total revenue.