Back in the days when print advertising dominated the marketing scene, size and placement were everything. If you could invest all your publicity dollars on a prime spot in a popular daily, you would see your money pay off the next day.
Now, in the platform era, there is no single source of information, no square of media that is guaranteed to be visited by a majority of your audience. To succeed in the modern era, your strategy needs to mimic how consumers are moving around online — they flit, they float, from one channel to another, picking up bits and pieces of information, some of which they will use later to make a purchasing decision.
We call this strategy channel diversification. A diversification marketing strategy means meeting customers where they are, rather than setting up camp in one popular spot and hoping they’ll come to you. Channel diversification means appearing in three or four different channels, knowing that the average consumer will need three or four exposures to your brand to trigger some kind of response in return.
How Do Omnichannel Marketing Campaigns Aid Growth?
The first way that channel diversification aids growth is simply by lowering risk. If you entrust all your campaign power to a single third-party platform, you’re banking on that platform catering to your audience consistently and maintaining the rules you agreed to. Marketing risk management is a vital step toward growth because it makes each dollar you invest in marketing count.
Channel diversification gives your brand the opportunity to move up the funnel and catch people before they’re ready to buy, many days before an algorithm may signal that this customer is hot. Marketers who stick to Google Ads alone may mistakenly believe they’ve done all they can to attract buyers. Fortunately, a new channel could open up a whole new audience that missed their Google Ad strategy. As such, a diversification marketing strategy goes hand in hand with a marketing growth strategy.
Additionally, in the world of online content marketing strategy, data reigns supreme. The way we write marketing copy is not that different from the days of catalogs, the difference being that we now have data to help us make informed decisions and spend our money wisely. Different channels will bring different collections of data, and depending on your campaign goal, one channel will bring more helpful data than another.
Without this kind of channel diversification strategy in place, companies leave themselves vulnerable. If you put all your marketing efforts into Facebook, for example, your ad campaign is at the mercy of that one company, whose algorithm will change whether you like it or not and whose own business needs and goals will always come before yours.
What Makes a Great Omnichannel Marketing Strategy?
The benefits of omnichannel marketing are clear, but should you try to land on every platform and channel out there? Rather than spreading your marketing efforts too thin, consider following these best practices to see channel diversification work for your unique marketing goals.
- Go hard or go home.
Channel diversification works as a strategy by lowering the risk of a single platform and giving you many more chances to reach members of your ideal audience at the time they’re able to act. If you don’t fully embrace the idea of omnichannel, your ad campaign won’t take advantage of these benefits. A good diversification strategy will look at paid, earned, and owned media and will use data to refine what balance of those three pillars works for your business and brand.
- Invest in online word of mouth.
Many brands avoid asking for reviews or referrals. In fact, 42% of companies say they don’t stop to collect feedback. Consider that a staggering 93% of consumers read reviews before buying a product, and you can see what’s wrong with that equation. Word-of-mouth marketing channels like email and referrals are often overlooked and untapped. Look at your Net Promoter Score, reward your raving fans, and watch them spread the word. Investing in word-of-mouth marketing strategies will allow consumers to purchase your products while simultaneously gaining trust in your brand.
- Plan for your future ROI.
Working in a wide range of marketing channels means you will be able to shift your attention and your investment from one to the other and back again when your audience or your needs shift. Having an omnichannel marketing approach allows your business to respond and act on what online environment trends are saying. It will also allow you to develop an understanding of what is working now and what may work better in the future. Channel diversification will add incremental value to your ROI over time, ultimately allowing for future success.
An omnichannel marketing strategy isn’t just an option anymore; it’s a necessity. In an age when consumers move seamlessly across platforms throughout the day, marketing efforts must meet consumers where they are by preparing for buying decisions in ever-changing ways. To learn more about omnichannel marketing and how to diversify your business’s marketing efforts, contact us today.