5 Ways to Maximize Your Cross-Channel Marketing

0
229

Share on LinkedIn

Solid consumer engagement is the ultimate prize for marketers because engagement improves brand, which leads to greater lifetime customer value (LCV) and loyalty. But an overabundance of bland messages makes it difficult for brands to connect meaningfully with consumers.

The secret to cutting through the noise is to maximize your cross-channel strategy with real-time personalization that will satisfy consumers’ needs. Here are five strategies to increase cross-channel engagement.

Utilize all of your available data.

First-party and zero-party data generate a wealth of readily available insights for marketing teams. However, if marketers cannot access and activate data in real-time, they won’t be able to use it effectively to send better, personalized messages. When stores and brands communicate in personal, relevant ways with their consumers, 81% of consumers report a greater likelihood of making a purchase.

But most marketers’ technology limits their abilities. Legacy solutions, for example, fail to connect to a marketer’s entire tech stack. It’s not unusual for marketers to switch between two or three platforms to send messages. Over 90% of marketers told Cordial they wish it were simpler to utilize real-time data for high-impact marketing campaigns. Working across different solutions makes it difficult to access data and formatting, hindering data orchestration, activation and engagement. Because of the resources and time required to overcome these challenges, marketers struggle to satisfy consumer expectations or reach their personalization goals.

Adapt and anticipate with predictive models.

Cross-channel marketers long relied on open rate as a measure of email marketing success. But the fall 2021 release of iOS 15 rendered the open rate metric obsolete, motivating industry-leading brands to seek alternatives for measuring consumer engagement and interest.

Instead of seeking out another binary measurement like open rate, marketers are looking for ways to capture more specific, valuable information about how consumers engage with their brands and what interests them most. Predictive models that gather and analyze complex engagement data offer a path for marketers to identify and build on consumer behavior to send better messages.

Predictive models enable brands to send more targeted, personalized messages that offer consumers what they’re looking for, when they’re looking for it. Consider scoring consumers based on their touchpoints with your brand: An engagement score algorithm or behavior-based affinity models can facilitate this scoring. From there, your brand can determine, prioritize and market to the consumers most engaged with your brand, in real-time.

Unlock the full potential of your first-party data.

First-party data has become a new currency: 80% of consumers told Cordial they expect to receive some kind of personalized message when they share first-party data. If providing that data improves their shopping experience, 7 in 10 consumers willingly share birthdays and other demographic information to further improve their experience. But brands must meet the expectation to use data responsibly to deliver an enhanced, personalized customer experience.

Putting highly valuable consumer data at the center of your marketing strategy pays off for consumers and brands. According to McKinsey, strategically planned personalization efforts can impact a brand’s revenue by 10-15%. Brands that utilize first-party data during decision-making achieve nearly 25% revenue growth.

Go big with an automations-first approach (1:1 triggers)

Consumers appreciate targeted brand messages, like milestone celebrations (such as birthdays), targeted discounts, promotions and relevant recommendations.

With the right customer engagement platform, marketers can set behavioral triggers for almost anything. Start by building in triggers designed to improve the customer experience and add value. Some popular triggers include:

  • New account onboarding.
  • Cart abandonment and reengagement.
  • Alerts for back-in-stock products.
  • Notifications for price drops on products they like.
  • Loyalty opportunities and rewards.
  • Holiday greetings and birthday celebrations.

Personalized, triggered 1:1 messages satisfy consumer preferences and keep their attention, helping to boost a brand’s bottom line. Cordial found that brands utilizing triggered messages realize greater revenue per thousand messages (RPM) than brands reliant on sending generic “batch” messages lacking personalized recommendations.

Maximizing the effectiveness of triggered messages requires access to real-time data across all platforms. This strategy empowers marketers to send promotions, real-time recommendations and other personalized messages to their consumers.

Stretch your channels.

The benefits of personalized messages extend beyond email marketing strategies. SMS and apps are becoming vital channels for customer communication. Rather than shopping on a brand’s website, more than 85% of shoppers prefer to use a brand’s mobile app. If your customers are moving toward your app, follow them there, and make the experience rewarding.

The steady increase in app use opens up more engaging messaging pathways and new opportunities for brand messaging to resonate with customers and deepen relationships. From more activity within loyalty programs to the power of push notifications, your app represents an enormous potential driver of conversion and increased average order value (AOV). But your app messaging shouldn’t compete with your other channels — it should speak in the same voice, using the same real-time data to broaden the reach of your efforts.

Texting also stands out as a massive, undervalued opportunity for marketers to reach consumers. For example, most Millennials (83%) read a text within 90 seconds of receiving it, representing remarkable potential for your cross-channel marketing efforts. But how your team crafts those text messages matters. You only have a few chances to demonstrate the value of your communication before a consumer moves on. According to consumers who shared their views with Cordial:

  • Nearly 30% will opt out of brand texts after receiving two or three generic messages.
  • 75% report that brands didn’t personalize their messages.
  • 60% report that the messages were not helpful.

What does this mean? More isn’t always better. Better is better. But to replicate your email marketing successes in new channels demands technology that supports a holistic and personalized approach to consumers. Treat the growing app and SMS channels as an expansion of your relationship with the customer, powered by their robust, real-time data. You should be able to reach consumers with the same powerful targeted messages no matter where they interact with your brand. When you personalize your message across channels, you deliver on your promise to consumers: an experience rather than a transaction.

Marketers need to be empowered with streamlined technology.

To improve consumer engagement, marketers must have increased access, activation and orchestration of their data. Maximizing your cross-channel strategy with real-time personalization will satisfy consumers’ needs and maximize engagement. Marketers must be empowered to not only capture consumer data but also utilize that robust data to create tailored experiences on every channel. When you offer exceptional, 1:1 messages, consumers notice, engage and spend more of their time — and money — with your brand.

Jeremy Swift
Jeremy Swift is founder and CEO of Cordial. Cordial is a cross-channel messaging platform that is changing the way marketing & technology teams engage their customers. Before founding Cordial in 2014, Jeremy was a founding member of BlueHornet, a first-gen email marketing SaaS company that he sold to Digital River in 2004. He has spoken at leading industry events including DMA, eTail, Shop.org, OMMA and Mediapost. Jeremy attended Point Loma Nazarene University and lives in San Diego, CA with his wife and four children. He's an avid Husband, Dad, Entrepreneur, Runner, and Advocate of Mental He

ADD YOUR COMMENT

Please use comments to add value to the discussion. Maximum one link to an educational blog post or article. We will NOT PUBLISH brief comments like "good post," comments that mainly promote links, or comments with links to companies, products, or services.

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here