Let the Numbers Persuade You: The Success of Multi-Channel Campaigns is Indisputable

In today’s digital-focused world, multi-channel marketing is important for the simple reason that you must be able to reach your customers where they are.

The number of devices per user is growing and it is important to have an orchestrated strategy of offers sent through several channels, so you won’t miss any potential touchpoints.

The following research comes to show exactly how effective multi channel campaigns are compared to single channel. For this research, we looked at over 20 gaming and e-commerce brands from around the world and measured the percentage of multi and single-channel type campaigns with statistically significant results. Then we tested the best combination of email, SMS and mobile push notifications, and which single channel leads to a higher percentage of campaigns with significant results.

Go Multi-Channel Already

Before we get to the part of measuring the percentage of significant results, we first examined the role of multi-channel campaigns in the entire marketing plan.

On average, the percentage of multi-channel campaigns represents only 15% of the entire marketing plan; a surprisingly low number given the fact that these multi-channel campaigns yield more significant results. In terms of the most common combination – the email & push combination won with 60% of the multi-channel campaigns observed in the research:

Significant Enough for You?

Next, we looked at the difference between multi-channel and single channel in terms of the percentage of campaigns with statistically significant results – It’s important to note that determining whether the campaign is statistically significant or not indicates how likely it is that the marketing action was responsible for its recipients’ behavior. The numbers speak for themselves: On average, 24% of all multi-channel campaigns ended with statistically significant results, while only 12% of the single channel campaigns ended with significant results:

We also looked at specific channels for single and multi-channel campaigns. We checked different combinations for multi-channel campaigns and saw which ones have the highest percentage of campaigns with significant results.

While none of the single channel campaigns passed the 15% mark, we can see an obvious leader from the multi-channel combinations chart. A third of all campaigns sent through email and SMS resulted in significant results:

When checking the biggest difference, comparing email only to email and SMS, we see that the addition of the SMS channel increased the % of campaigns with significant results by 250%.

What You Should Do?

Here are three key components to succeeding at multi-channel marketing:

1. Create and maintain a single customer view: Customers often interact with your brand in a variety of ways that involve more than one touch point. Create a single customer view with a centralized marketing data hub that consolidates your customer data in one place. This data must be dynamic and constantly refreshed and updated.
2. Launch a multi-channel marketing platform: Multi-channel campaigns involve synchronizing your messaging across different channels. By establishing a multi-channel marketing platform, you will simplify the creation and execution of cross-channel campaigns. Here are the capabilities you’re looking for:

• Multi-channel campaign management, including capabilities for segmentation, workflow creation and campaign execution
• Advanced analytics, including predictive analytics and campaign optimization
• Advanced execution, including capabilities for event triggering, real-time messaging and full multi-channel support

1. Generate consistent customer experiences across all channels: The quality of the customer experience is greatly influenced by its consistency. By managing campaigns across multiple channels, you’re creating a presence for your brand in your customers’ life. If you treat each channel separately, you will fail to deliver consistency and damage the customer experience. Gone are the marketing days when a single message through a single channel sufficed to reach your complete customer base.

Conclusion

This research again shows why you should invest resources into multi-channel campaigns, either by making an integration with a certain type of channel or by creating the right strategy that will send the right content through all the channels together. The benefits of applying multi-channel strategy are great and could help substantially increase campaign uplifts.

Advancements in data and technology these days will help you achieve this goal quite easily, and there’s little choice but to join the new game. Luckily, tools like Optimove are designed particularly to help you win. Your customer base is out there, waiting for you. The right technological platforms will make your brand’s voice louder and much clearer.