I am a huge football fan. Watching a team’s offense fully execute a play is one of the most beautiful things in the world to me. It is important to have balanced play calling that includes inside runs, outside runs, short passes, long passes, and the occasional trick play. A good offensive coordinator notices trends and will adjust his game plan accordingly, but still maintains a sense of balance.
As marketers, we can take a hint from the gridiron. In marketing, it is very easy to fall into the trap of more, more, more. More Website Pages. More Blogs. More Social Media. More Email marketing. Here lies the hint: The above channels are very easy to use and blast out content, but more content and messages does not always equal positive results (running up the middle every play does not work very often unless you are Marion Barber). So think about how you can Integrate these cross-channel activities to work cohesively in promoting the company’s objectives, tracking each channel’s effectiveness, and adjusting your game plan according to results is hard work indeed.
One way to ensure effective integration is to align the matrices of all the different channels to a single point. This not only ensures cohesiveness, but also makes it easy to track your efforts. For instance, assign a specific campaign code for each social media event, email campaign, webinar, or other promotional activity. Furthermore, create a specific landing page for the campaign, where the results can be recorded and monitored so you can measure your success. Do you think Twitter is your best friend? Set up a landing page for your upcoming webinar and track the referral source for all page visits, you just may find something surprising!
Having integrated the results from the various channels and activities, a comparison should be made using a common cross-channel metric. The metric, at its core, needs to define how much customers engage with the brand. Maybe Facebook drove the most visits to a certain landing page, but the LinkedIn paid advertising visitors converted at a much higher rate. Does this mean you should invest more in LinkedIn advertising? Should you narrow your Facebook targeting?
Again, it is important to weigh the value of each score. For instance, assigning the same value to a request for a quote from a B2B wholesaler, who came through a direct presentation, and a quote request from an ordinary individual, who came through a Facebook page, is ineffective. Consider the effort, channel, and value of each lead.
Need to engage customers and increase revenue? Using multi-channel marketing is a good place to start. Tracking your results to continue to grow and improve is great. Think back to my beloved pigskin: sharing content may get you the occasional first down, but tracking your results and continually evaluating your campaigns will lead to your team consistently moving down the field and scoring! If you would like to learn more about the importance of engagement and tracking that engagement, check out our newest eBook, Customer Lifecycle Marketing 101 eBook, for tips and tricks at every customer stage in the lifecycle!
