Why is A 360-Degree Marketing Approach Important for Startups?
When you start a new business online, you focus a lot on providing the best products and services possible. One thing that new business owners fail to realize is the role of an effective marketing strategy in reaching out to potential customers and clients. One of the primary things you need to decide while starting is whether to stick to a single-channel marketing strategy or adopt a 360-degree marketing approach for startups. This article discusses the benefits of the 360-degree approach and how to implement it in your business.
What is Single-Channel Marketing?
Let’s understand this with an example. Suppose you live out of your hometown, and you have to rely on restaurant food daily. Your friend eats at a restaurant and recommends you to do the same. Since then, you have had your dinner at the same restaurant. Although there are better restaurants that are probably better and less expensive, because you don’t want a change, you continue with that restaurant until you either get sick or financially unstable.
The above example is as bad as the concept of single-channel marketing itself, but it is probably the easiest way to understand its concept. Single-Channel Marketing, as the name and the example suggest, is focused on a single channel or form of marketing. Therefore, any marketing strategy that utilizes only one platform or channel for marketing is an example of single-channel marketing.
What is Multi-Channel Marketing?
Let’s understand this with the restaurant example as well, but his time it will be easier for you to catch up. Suppose you rely on outdoor food for your daily meals, but instead of sticking to one restaurant, you continuously experiment with various restaurants, cuisine, and dishes. You like some, you dislike some, but since you have so many options, if one restaurant suddenly stops working, you can rely on others for your meal.
Therefore, multi-channel marketing or 360-degree marketing is a marketing approach in which a business owner uses multiple marketing platforms to promote a business. For example, a brand like Nike uses a website, YouTube, Social Media, and Paid Advertising for engaging users. We live in the era of the internet, where customers prefer carrying various options to contact the brand. Therefore, single-channel marketing is not enough.
Why Multi-Channel Marketing?
According to a survey, an average internet user uses two to four online platforms to stay connected. And according to The Rule of Seven, “Users need to come across a brand seven times to become “aware” about it.” As a business owner, you need to understand that engagement is a new form of marketing. The more your visitors engage with your brand, the more conversions you make. Let’s discuss some in-detail benefits of a 360-degree marketing approach.
Price optimization and User segmentation
In a single-channel approach, the marketer does not have the luxury to segment user data. Therefore, critical information like average acquisition cost, the best performing channel, and the cause of user retention cannot be utilized. However, in the case of multi-channel marketing, multiple sources can be compared to secure campaign optimization and optimal pricing.
Free vs Paid marketing
Most single-channel marketers stick to paid advertising only, which is not only costly but a volatile form of marketing. In multi-channel marketing, you can utilize both free and paid marketing sources, which not only make your marketing cost-effective but help you achieve better results as well. For example, content marketing generates three times the number of leads compared to outbound marketing. Therefore, if you stick to single-channel marketing and that too paid advertising, you are missing out on significant opportunities.
Better Branding
You must have heard about Redbull. Yes, the company that sells energy drinks only. Do you know Forbes recently listed it as one of the most valuable companies? From sponsoring athletes to organizing various types of events, Redbull has grown massively. But do you know the reason? Before understanding the reason, have a look at these statistics.
Redbull Twitter: 2.07 million followers
Redbull Instagram: 12.1 million followers
Redbull’s Facebook: 48 million followers
Redbull YouTube: 8.91 million subscribers
Redbull.com (SEO): 1.0 million visitors (USA only)
That’s what you call excellent 360-degree marketing, which led to a massive branding of Redbull. This branding helps Redbull sell 6-8 billion cans per year, making it the biggest player in the energy drink industry. Thus, the multi-channel marketing approach provides you with multiple opportunities to engage with your customers, eventually leading to a better brand image. Interacting regularly with your customers on social media makes your brand more approachable and referable to others.
More feedback and reviews
Being active on various channels allows you to gather input from different sources. For example, imagine you have a mobile app that charges a minimal fee to provide Live TV. Your users love the app, and you get positive feedback on the Play Store. However, in the rush of comments on the Playstore, many critical comments might go unnoticed. But, if you use a 360-degree approach, your customers can contact you on Twitter or E-mail with their problems. Acting upon all the feedbacks on the Playstore or App Store might be tedious, but using the 360-degree approach helps you resolve more queries, which eventually leads to happy customers.
Edge over competition
Let’s talk about websites. Imagine you have an online business of herbal products. You will be astonished by the fact that the internet consists of 1.5 billion websites, more than 200 million of which are active. Taking this number into consideration, you can expect intense competition in all niches, especially popular niche like herbal products. However, instead of relying only on your website (which most businesses do), you can use the 360-degree approach to beat your competition with ease. You can use channels like Pinterest to get more exposure, or a mobile app to provide a better user experience for mobile users.
Customer loyalty
Do you know the secret of retaining customers? No, it is not giving better service or providing high-quality products. The secret to customer loyalty is recognition. For example, if a customer buys a product from your herbal store and tweets with that product, you can simply retweet that tweet saying, “Thanks for your vote of confidence, Mr. XYZ.” These small steps not only help you gain more customers but retain them as well, thereby promoting customer loyalty. These strategies, however, are only possible in a 360-degree marketing approach.
How to Perform 360-degree marketing?
Since you know the benefits of 360-degree marketing, let’s discuss how to implement a multi-channel marketing model. If you are in the beginning phase of your business, you can start by utilizing these easy yet effective sources for multi-channel marketing.
Social Media
The most crucial aspect of multichannel marketing, social media allows you to engage with your customers directly. Social media also acts as a great source of word-of-mouth advertising, an effective marketing uplift that most businesses ignore.
Paid Advertising
Paid advertising, if used as the only source of marketing, can be disastrous. However, if used along with other channels and strategies, paid to advertise can do wonders for your business. Paid advertising is ideal for investing in Product Listing Ads (PLSAs), an effective marketing strategy for e-commerce businesses.
Blogging
Even in the era of social media, you cannot look over the good old blogging. Social media and paid advertising are cool, but nothing matches the organic traffic you receive from search engines. Not only is the organic traffic is free, but it is also one of the highest quality and targeted traffic sources. However, to achieve significant results, you need to be blogging consistently to get that SEO advantage.
Applications
Mobile applications are one of the best sources to engage with mobile users. According to a report by Google, more than 50 percent of internet users are on mobile. Therefore, mobile apps are one of the hottest business ideas, and you should get your feet wet in it too.
You must have used Paytm, an online transaction platform founded in 2010. Paytm has an annual turnover of $520 million, making it the leading online wallet in India. But what is more interesting is the fact that out of its 150 million active users (approx.), less than one million users use the website. The remaining users use the mobile app. Moreover, the Paytm mobile app is the primary reason for the growth of Paytm.
And not only Paytm, but companies like Zomato, PhonePe, Uber, and many others have also reached success because of their mobile apps. Therefore, mobile applications, if developed and presented correctly, can provide a major boost to your business.
Email and Direct Mail
The old-school way of marketing, mass mail, and direct mail marketing still produce excellent results. Always prioritize capturing emails of your customers (without being pushy), and send them a mail whenever you upload a new blog post, launch a new product, or have a good offer for them. In the case of high ticket products, direct mail marketing can turn out to be the most effective marketing strategies.
Video
Another popular marketing model is video content marketing. Why all big brands like Nike, Amazon, and Apple have YouTube channels? Because video content has recently emerged as one of the most preferred types of content by the users. Moreover, none of these brands use their video channels for self-promotion. They aim at providing value, and that’s what you should do as well. According to a famous saying- “Provide value to your customers, and they will pay you forever.”
Conclusion: How can Einfach Digital Help?
A 360-degree marketing approach, although beneficial for your business, is tricky to implement. A strategy working for someone else might not necessarily work for you. An effective multi-channel marketing strategy requires appropriate, in-depth research and market analysis to figure out what will work best for your business.
We at Einfach Digital carry more than three years of experience in successfully implementing 360-marketing strategies for numerous businesses all over the country. We run a comprehensive analysis of your business, including what is your target market and what your competitors are doing. Based on that information, we lay out a proper marketing blueprint for your business.
