The Importance of Multiple Channels

Spending money, time, and energy on your website won’t lure new customers to you.

Pretty bold statement from someone who builds websites, right?

But, while your website can be an incredibly flexible vehicle for sharing your message at the lowest cost, merely having one isn’t enough.

Or, to paraphrase the famous line from Field of Dreams: If you build it, they may not come.

Here’s why: There are over 1.5 billion websites out there today…200 million of which are active. Each hustles to get customer attention using social media, blogging, direct mail, sales promotion, publicity, collateral, email, and newsletters.

Add to that conferences, public speaking, networking events, signage, advertising specialties, broadcast advertising, billboards, and packaging, and you’ve got lots of folks giving a full-court press to drive attention to their site, where they’ll provide a more comprehensive sales pitch.

Meaning anyone who wants to communicate with their own sales prospects needs to follow suit, building a plan with as many of these tools as can logically fit within the budget.

Judy Neuman, former VP at Eddie Bauer, said; “I want my customer to shop in the store on Saturday, receive a catalog on Thursday, and shop on the web Friday night after the kids are in bed.” This suggests you’re not actually seeking a web-based customer, but one arriving via multiple channels.

Get started by determining what makes your current customers happy, and duplicate that success every day. Loyal customers translate into lower defection rates, reduced costs, and improved profitability.

Then, with good customer service and a satisfactory website, become more effective by:

• Promoting it everywhere. From shopping bags to email signatures, brand every communications tool with your URL to familiarize people with your name and tagline

• Use email to broadcast offers and news, and lure them to the website

• Offer website specials to help change customer behavior

• Utilize public relations to expand awareness

• Budget in TV, print, and digital advertising

Finally, don’t forget sales promotions, optimizing your website, and hashtags for your social media. Create an affiliates program and some alliance partner marketing and you should have the formula for a successful effort.

One final reminder: Marketing is an investment, NOT an expense! Adjusting that mindset can deliver to you a fatter bottom line.

With that said, I wish you a week of profitable marketing.

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Get help with YOUR marketing strategy at www.marketbuilding.com.