It's Time to Take a Fresh Look at Your Digital Strategy
Connecting Channels & Data to Achieve Success
Over the course of the past decade, more and more businesses and organizations have added digital components to their media plans. In some cases, investments in digital advertising have surpassed that devoted to traditional print, radio, television, point-of-sale, direct mail, out-of-home and other media. While using a mix of digital and traditional media is ideal to deliver broad exposure, budget constraints often dictate the need to consolidate efforts.
It’s important to effectively allocate available funds. Spread yourself too thin and you risk achieving the consistency and repetition needed to achieve awareness and drive action. With that in mind, many companies are taking a hard look at where it’s best to spend and taking notice of the fact that the audiences they wish to reach are spending more time online.
With new and improved options being introduced faster than we ever imagined, harnessing the power they represent becomes even more important. A core component of that power lies within the ability to harvest the data that’s collected and use it to build brand awareness and loyalty through optimizing the customer experience. Many companies regularly pull analytics into their customer management systems and extract information that will help guide future business development and marketing strategies.
The Benefits of an Omnichannel Digital Strategy
The options available today in the digital realm should be viewed not as an overwhelming menu of disconnected platforms, but as an opportunity that is both holistic and organic. An effective omnichannel marketing strategy doesn’t simply employ multiple platforms; it connects them in a manner that allows them to leverage the data each is collecting and use that data to continually refine, refocus and retarget.
Even on a limited scale, the data from a campaign that employs website advertising, email outreach and blogs can be used to gain insights on those reacting to your outreach. It can then be shared across platforms to optimize results while the campaign is in process as well to use for planning in the future. In addition, the ability to capture and track inbound traffic to your website, campaign landing page or call center that originated from a campaign is extremely beneficial in terms of assessing overall performance.
Synergy = Success
The synergy inherent in omnichannel marketing comes from the ability to engage with audiences through multiple touchpoints; encourage interaction; and extract data that allows you to segment audiences and personalize conversations to match their interests. Rather than being confined to delivering generic messaging to a universe that’s too broad, you can shift to a strategy that is focused on delivering information, products and services that are tailored to specific targets.
When you sit down to plan your next campaign, begin with an assessment of past results by media platform and what you want to achieve this time. Look at all the data you’ve collected — through your website and social media analytics, CRM database, email openings, anecdotal feedback, call tracking and other internal sources — to identify patterns and determine the best way to capture and house that information so it is easily accessible. Knowing what drives interest is the first step in driving business; it allows you to craft an effective message, select the most appropriate digital channels to deliver it, and integrate those platforms to achieve the greatest synergy.
Ready to get the most from your next campaign? Reach out to Herrmann Advertising’s Chief Business Development Officer John Albert at john@herrmann.com.
