Is Your 2021 Channel Mix Truly Integrated? Your Customer Experience Depends On It.

By: Georgeann Pizzi, President of MassMedia

There are tried and true channel mixes for all industries. Real estate companies have relied heavily on direct mail and email marketing, while home service companies typically leverage more digital and PPC to capture users while they are online searching for a solution to an immediate need. In 2020, the pandemic forced all of us to be online even more than we already were, and it forced many companies to rely heavily on digital to reach their customers. And it will take some time to truly discern what the new post-pandemic normal is, and how customers will continue to engage with brands online and offline in the future.

We know digital usage will continue to grow but it is still important for B2B and B2C companies to maintain an integrated, holistic approach to their marketing to ensure they are reaching their customers with consistent, relevant content on the right channels. Every touchpoint is an opportunity to enhance the customer experience and their perception of your brand. On the flip side, having a poor presence or no presence at all on a channel your customers use and expect you to use creates a broken experience and a missed opportunity.

Here are a few trends/best practices for integrated marketing that will help to enhance your customer experience in 2021.

Update your channel mix. With more customers at home, some traditional channels are on the rise again. Case in point – direct mail has become an important touchpoint once again. More of us working from home means we are checking the mail more frequently and paying closer attention to what we receive. Audit your channel mix strategy to make sure it aligns with how your customers want to hear from you and where they will turn when they are ready to engage. You want to make your brand easy to find and omnipresent.

Make sure your messaging is interconnected. Ensuring your messaging is unified across all channels is key. Then tailor that message to make it conducive to the specific channel. Make sure your creative takes the same approach and is presented in a way that fits within the channel. Tik Tok is a great example of this; often you won’t even recognize you are being served an ad because the delivery perfectly aligns with the platform.

Track your customer journey and preferences. Leveraging tracking tools like an ad server will give transparency into your digital channel mix, showing you where people saw you online and how many touchpoints it took before they engaged. Layering on additional tracking tools such as call tracking, Google Analytics and a CRM will help connect the dots between your customer’s online and offline  behaviors and the path to conversion. It will also show you where lost prospects fell off so you can make optimizations. Remember that effective marketing is part science and part art form. Don’t be afraid to test your channels, messaging and creative to find the optimal mix.

Ready to enhance your channel mix in 2021? For 23 years and counting, MassMedia has helped businesses deploy effective integrated marketing campaigns. And we’re happy to help you too! Contact us anytime for a complimentary strategy session.