Where Does Multi-Channel Marketing Fit into Your Strategy?

Think about your tech habits in a given day. You might wake up, stretch, and check your phone for messages. Then when you get to the office, you’re on your computer…except when you have meetings and you switch to your laptop. Then when you get home, you hop on your tablet for a little downtime.

We live in the era of multi-screens. As digital consumers, we choose the device that best fits our needs. A phone for being on the go. A tablet for entertainment. A computer for work.

But if we put on our marketing hats for a moment, we also have to consider this multi-channel phenomena. On the one hand, it makes it harder to reach consumers because each tool offers a slightly different experience visually and functionally. On the other hand, if harnessed, a multi-channel marketing approach can provide a ton of benefits.

Do You Know Where Your Customers Are?

Part of intimately knowing your audience includes knowing which devices they spend time on, and how they use each one. This may require some market research specifically into your customer base. While in general, the statistic that 60% of all digital time is spent on a phone is true, it might not be the case if you are catering to an audience aged 60+.

It’s worth the time and financial investment to understand your customers’ habits in how they use mobile, tablets, laptops, and desktops. This is the foundation for you to begin building your multi-channel marketing strategy on.

Create a Cross-Device Story

With the right technology and strategy, you can seamlessly provide an experience for your audience that follows them from device to device. For example, leveraging Google’s cross-device retargeting tools, you could ensure that if a potential customer interacts with your branded content or ad on one device, that action will follow them to other devices and continue to recommend your products or services.

You need to connect the dots between devices so the experience isn’t disparate between them but more cohesive. If you are promoting a contest on your mobile website, make sure you’re also promoting it on your main website as well as social media and other avenues.

Pay Attention to Results

As analytics get more sophisticated, we’ll be able to identify from which devices people are interacting with our brands best. This information is hugely helpful in shaping future marketing campaigns, so stay abreast of the data.

The future involves consumers being on more than one device — sometimes at the same time. Understanding this as marketers, we have awesome potential to connect with them.