Cross Channel Marketing

When it comes to marketing, the point is always to acquire and retain a customer. That’s what Peter Drucker taught us, and that’s what I believe. Back 15 years ago when I first played on Prodigy, a single email was all it took to pique my interest about a specific product or service, and a call to action like “Call our office line at:” was enough to make me take action. Fast forward a decade and a half and we have too many marketing channels to count. From emails, to Facebook mini-feed posts, to Twitter retargeting slated to be released on AdRoll in Q1 2014, to video ads on YouTube; there are exponentially more advertising platforms, or “channels”, to reach a prospect. What’s important is to figure out which channel talks to the prospect when they’re most receptive, and what messaging qualifies them appropriately.

Further, marketing to multiple channels will increase the probability that a prospect will turn into a customer. In a simple example, if you just relied on email marketing to get prospects to hear about your product or service, they could have a spam blocker that deletes your offer before it ever enters their inbox. Having another channel to market to them, for instance a custom Facebook audience with their email address in, would allow you the added benefit of getting the message to them at least once.

When I work with our clients here at Tech Guys, I am looking for what Dan Kennedy calls the “Message Market Media” triangle.

ccm-diagram

This triangle is similar to a photographers triangle for proper exposure of an image – all the elements need to be dialed in correctly to get the desired effect.

The messaging, as far as I’m concerned, is dependent on the market AND the media. The messaging needs to speak to what the prospect is doing, what they’re searching for, what website their on. For instance, if you’re marketing on Facebook using Mini Feed ads, you can’t assume the prospect is actively searching for your product or service. Instead, they’re looking at pictures of their ex on the beach, with their new significant other. Their mentality, their actions, are not sleuthing for a specific remedy to a problem they have.

If, instead, you’re running Google AdWords Search Network ads, you know the exact search query someone is typing in. If they are looking for “home remedy back pain relief”, you know exactly what they want, and can provide an ad that has copy to talk to a potential solution. On Facebook, it’s impossible to know these people suffer from back pain, but you could run a specific demographic of an age range during cold months, in the northern states, who also like Dr. Oz, or some other healthcare professional. That might get you closer to finding your prospect and offering a solution to a problem they were not actively searching for.

Every other marketing channel has a specific and unique market; the people who you can target through these cross-channels are there for a reason. Once you know what problem your product or service solves, you’re able to figure out what traffic source would find your prospect. Then, you develop marketing messaging around the problem and qualify the prospect. “Do you suffer from back pain?” would be a great headline on Facebook, but on Google AdWords, something like “A 5-minute exercise to reduce back pain” would perform much better. Get your Message Market Media triangle figured out and test your conclusions. If you did it right, the numbers will show you.

As a final caveat, if you’re doing a marketing campaign that doesn’t yield results, the best time to stop running it, or to tweak it to see if you can improve on it, is yesterday. The second best time is today. Don’t keep pouring money into campaigns that don’t turn results, but don’t be too quick to make an assessment until statistical significance is realized. Your job as a business owner or as a marketer is to spend money skillfully on marketing, to continue to test new ideas and strategies, and to abandon those that offer no ROI. A good Message Market Media match will help you get there.

If you have any specific questions about the triangle, or different cross-channel marketing approaches, please comment below. I’d love to help!