To market their business effectively and to cover the targeted audience in full, marketers are always on the lookout for new ways to reach them. The term “multichannel marketing” has been around for a long time in the eCommerce sector. In this article, we will explore how this buzzword can be important for online businesses and how it can be digested.
Multichannel marketing is the process of reaching out to potential customers via more than one channel. Among this group are online marketplaces, social media platforms, and online websites.
Businesses can reach potential customers across these platforms.
What Does The Data Say?
Take a look at some eye-opening stats regarding eCommerce multichannel marketing before we get to the main point.
- Over $350 billion was generated by multichannel eCommerce stores in the United States in 2020, and it is expected to reach $575 billion by 2023. Source: Statista.
- The revenue increased by 38%, 120%, and 190% per additional channel with multichannel marketing. Source: Shopify.
- Sixty-two percent of the customers who engage with retailers across ten or more channels purchase at least once a week. Source: Martech
- Business can improve their performance through a variety of channels, as illustrated by these facts. Let’s dive deeper into this.
WHAT MAKES MULTICHANNEL MARKETING ESSENTIAL FOR eCOMMERCE?
Businesses can take advantage of multichannel marketing for eCommerce to reach audiences through multiple channels and online platforms. This strategy has helped businesses reach potential customers through their channel diversification strategy.
Multichannel is critical for eCommerce businesses for the following reasons:
Building Trust: Providing customers with multiple choices of platforms is what multichannel marketing is all about. Some customers might prefer to shop from reputed eCommerce marketplaces such as Amazon, while others might prefer to shop from social media.
Developing the Complete Marketing Funnel: When it comes to eCommerce businesses, it is essential to nurture each stage of the marketing funnel. Different strategies may be needed for different audiences at different stages of the funnel. This is where the use of multiple channels is helpful. Marketing channels can be optimized to accommodate different stages of the funnel, thereby nurturing all stages of the funnel.
Increasing Revenue: With omnichannel marketing, a large portion of the targeted audience can be reached. The more marketing channels you have, the more customers you can reach. Each channel contributes significantly to revenue growth through its unique audience base.
Enhances Branding: Businesses can enhance their branding by using multi-channel marketing. This kind of consistent communication across all channels and platforms can contribute to the long-term development of a positive brand image.
Exact Targets: Businesses are empowered with cross-platform marketing data and demographics that can be used to precisely target the right audience base with the help of cross-platform marketing. Using this approach, businesses can reach their customers at the right time through the right channel, leading to more conversions.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF MARKETING CHANNELS FOR E-COMMERCE
As we live in a digital age, there are many different channels through which you can reach your potential customers. In a multichannel marketing strategy, different online platforms are used to sell products, but what are they?
Below is a list of some of the most common multichannel marketing channels for eCommerce businesses in 2022:
Using Social Media Platforms
Platforms such as social media reach a wide range of audiences. Considering that many customers use these platforms in their leisure time, these are the most favorable marketing platforms.
Many of the most popular social media platforms these days allow users to leverage products and social commerce. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and others are the most popular social commerce platforms.
Using Email Marketing
Despite this, email marketing still works and does so with remarkably high returns on investment. Using newsletters is a great way to remarket and retain customers by keeping them informed about your business. Additionally, email marketing can be used to encourage customers to complete their pending orders and reduce cart abandonment rates.
An e-commerce Website
In combination with SEO and content marketing strategies, an eCommerce website can drive a significant chunk of sales. The purpose of an eCommerce website is to create a professional impression.
Shopping App For Mobile Devices
With the growing number of handheld devices worldwide, it has become essential for businesses to utilize their marketing efforts in this direction.
Marketing using mobile apps is an effective way to reach customers and collect information that can be used to further market to them.
Shopping Comparison Engines
You can improve the visibility of your online store by using comparison shopping engines (CSEs). CSEs allow customers to compare prices between different websites and find the same product. There are some popular CSEs such as Google Product Listing Ads, Amazon Product Ads, NexTag, etc.
The Online Marketplace
Online marketplaces such as Amazon are preferred by many customers. By listing your product on these popular marketplaces, your brand will be able to reach a wider audience.
E-COMMERCE MULTICHANNEL MARKETING TIPS TO BUILD A SOLID STRATEGY
Perhaps you now understand why eCommerce businesses need a multichannel marketing strategy. Now, it’s time to implement multichannel marketing the right way – here are some tips.
GET TO KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS
The goal of marketing is to bring value to the customer. This is especially true for multichannel marketing; it is necessary to understand the targeted customers first. Before moving forward with multichannel marketing, it’s important to determine which marketing channel works best for your target audience.
As an example, if your business is a SaaS business that targets professionals, LinkedIn is an excellent platform to use for marketing. However, if you’re in the fashion and clothing industry, social media sites like Instagram and Facebook will prove to be more lucrative for you.
Additionally, it is essential for multichannel marketing to understand the buyer’s journey. The marketing funnel should be implemented in such a way that it nurtures a full audience base.
UX IS KEY FOR YOUR STORE
Online businesses rely heavily on user experience to determine their success. You can strengthen your brand and business on third-party platforms such as social media, online marketplaces, etc. through multichannel marketing. As time passes, these third-party marketing channels may boost traffic to your main eCommerce site.
A user-friendly interface and an unforgettable shopping experience are the perfect opportunities to impress visitors in such instances. Magento store owners can make their store more beautiful by showing Instagram posts using Magento 2 Instagram Feed.
A few key features to make sure your store provides an optimal user experience for your customers are:
- Faster Page Loading
- Multiple Payment Options
- Simple Checkout Process
- Responsive & Intuitive UI
- Synergizing multichannel marketing with an excellent user experience can bootstrap your business for more profitability and returns.
AN ACCURATE CHANNEL-WISE CATALOGUE
After you have captured the attention of your target audience through marketing, it is time to pull them towards conversion. Each market segment has different shopping preferences. You may not be able to create a catalog that works on all platforms. For this reason, businesses may need to curate multiple product catalogs to accommodate multiple platforms.
Presenting catalogs for products must consider who the customers are and where they are located. Providing the customer with inappropriate or irrelevant products would only increase friction along the sales process. Make sure that each platform offers the products most suitable for its audience base. To determine which products are best for different platforms, A/B testing will be required.
The creation of channel-specific catalogs can boost conversions and sales across all platforms for different demographics.
MAKE SURE MULTI-CHANNELS ARE CONSISTENT
When it comes to multichannel marketing, consistency is key. It is important to ensure the same flawless customer experience across all channels.
Multichannel marketing can be negatively affected by negative customer experiences across any marketing channel. As a result, it is crucial to maintain a consistent, flawless, and customer-driven experience. By integrating Magento 2 with Facebook Shop, Magento store owners can provide a consistent shopping experience on Facebook.
A satisfying customer experience across marketplaces can help gain positive ratings, leading to more sales. Here are a few tips for maintaining consistency:
- Payment & Shipping Facilities
- Good Customer Service
- Brand Consistency
- Inventory Management Streamlined
BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH CUSTOMERS
Relationships with customers are invaluable for online businesses. Managing customer relationships becomes even more important when you go multichannel. Growing your customer relationship will increase your average order value, boost your brand reputation, and increase repeat sales.
Nurturing and maintaining good relationships, whether they are prospects, customers, or existing customers, is critical for online businesses. As important as marketing is, remarketing and customer retention are equally important to eCommerce businesses, and no eCommerce business can ignore them. When it comes to multichannel marketing, managing a customer’s relationship across different platforms can end up being a complicated task. Because of this, the use of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool becomes a necessity.
By utilizing a CRM tool, you can better maintain, assist, and nurture relationships across all platforms, which will result in a higher customer retention and satisfaction rate.
FINALLY…
Marketing across multiple channels is increasingly important for eCommerce businesses that want to scale and establish a brand. Your marketing efforts can be propelled to new heights when you utilize an omnichannel strategy.
With a 360-degree digital reach and multichannel management strategy, you can maintain a competitive advantage.
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