Why do CMOs consider cross-channel automation as a comprehensive marketing solution?
A brand cannot ensure 100% response through one channel of promotion. Usually, customers who respond through SMS, rarely reply to the promotional emails or check offers elsewhere.
That’s the reason, the need for cross-channel automation has come up so as to overcome promotional hassles with in a multi-channel world.
Cross-channel automation proposes a multi-channel messaging capability that lets customers engage in conversations with the brand across any channel they prefer. Effective cross-channel automation inevitably depends on a back end messaging capability that incorporates email, text, IM, push and other messaging formats, providing the business with insight across them.
Now-a-days, customers don’t demand great experiences from brands — they simply expect them.
With cross-channel automation, brands strategize customer engagement in a unified, intellectual way across their channel of preference — email, SMS text and more. Additionally, it also enables an active transformation of messages from one channel to another to support the preferences and circumstances of the customer.
For example, a customer’s engagement was initiated in a text message is later continued in the form on email. With increasing options, now customers expect the brand to meet their anticipations and provide integrated experiences that make their journey easy. To access this for your brand, speak to Helo Marketing Cloud about the ILike. Call @ +91 83 83 83 83 89. They have worked with big brands giving them the access to enjoy fruitful engagement with their customers.
As bands have started incorporating new channels into their marketing models, they realised the increasing need to deviate from informal multi-channel projects and articulate towards a comprehensible multi-channel strategy. That’s the reason, cross-channel automation was formed so as to help brands in streamlining, automating their marketing tasks to deliver effective customer engagement experience. It endures the ability to target cross-channel communications with automated triggered workflows helping the brand to acquire, engage, retain and maximize its reach across target group. CMOs following cross-channel marketing focus on responding to real-time moments, have realistic assessments and make automation a priority for future campaigns.
The main challenge for CMOs in cross-channel automation is to precisely integrate the desired channels so that an effective customer acquisition and engagement campaign can be conveyed. The use of a combination of offline and online techniques through a customer journey helps to create high-touch, optimal post sales customer experiences. These practices come under the principles of cross-channel automation. In a nutshell, the principles can be divided as, unifying the data, engaging audience with analytics and analysing performance. Let us discuss each principle in detail:
- Unify Data:
Potential customers drive business and they want to be understood and valued. That’s how unified view of customer comes in the representation as it involves building a central database of customers and prospects that also contain their extended profile information in terms of demographics, socio-graphic and psychographics. With a unified view, a brand can instantly report on all their customer touch-points and views including purchases, phone calls, email, SMS etc.
2. Engage Audience through analytics:
The next phase of cross-channel automation focusses on seamless customer engagement across all the channels. With increasing marketing options, now customer acquisition and engagement solely concerns about quality over quantity. A brand needs to connect all the incongruent data, people and business processes required to market across-channels. It must be able to analyse customer data in real time to deliver personalised marketing messages. And it needs the ability to adapt quickly as customer demands and business conditions evolve.
3. Analyse Performance:
Performance analysis in cross-channel automation defines the practice of measuring, managing and analyzing marketing performance to maximize its effectiveness and optimize return on investment (ROI). Beyond the obvious sales and lead generations, performance analytics can offer profound insights into customer preferences and trends. However, in cross-channel automation, performance analysis is more lucrative when a customer’s needs and wants are dynamically tailored to facilitate a personalized experience.
A recent marketing research reveals that advanced techniques of cross-channel automation have helped CMOs to discover, define and treat each customer with a personalized touch. For most CMOs, SMS integration was their first introduction to mobile marketing. Although, almost all phones today support other applications but SMS integration still stands out to be one of the most beneficial channel of customer acquisition and engagement (hyperlink to earlier blog). Even today, most of the cross-channel marketing automation platforms are densely linked with SMS integration as it is an effective and efficient way to communicate with customers in certain situations. Let’s dig a little bit deeper and look at some of the advantages of using SMS for mobile marketing:
SMS — One Channel, Multiple Solutions
Unlike other methods of customer outreach, SMS integration will always reach out to customer who either have or don’t have a smartphone. This helps in increasing the reach of a brand’s campaign and improves its success rate in terms of customer acquisition and engagement. What matters is the effective use of SMS integration along with other channels in a cross-channel marketing strategy that can together increase customer engagement and make the campaigns successful. The key is to reach out to the customer at the right time, in the right place with the right information.
SMS integration is not just a part of the marketing pool but an essential element that offers a fast, effective and versatile way for brands to directly engage with their consumers.
98% of all SMS messages are read and 97% of those are read within 15 minutes of being received.
Furthermore, 91% of adults have their mobile phone within arm’s reach 24 hours a day highlighting the significance of this instant access communication channel.
SMS integration used in conjunction with other channels forms an effective and consistent customer journey. It is widely used as a text marketing tool for customer acquisition, cross sell or up sell retail products to existing customers, offer codes and discounts etc.
Similarly a two-way communication strategy is helpful in updating a customer’s preferences or provide feedback. Major brands still use SMS Integration as an effective customer service channel to update customers about their transactions.
SMS Integration can also be used as a cross-channel for marketing by adding a link. It is a smart and easy way to direct the customers to another channel such as mobile website, survey, social site etc. to enhance their engagement. SMS with links are also helpful to measure customer analysis through click and return rates, minutes spent, location of the user, share rate etc. For the most part, irrespective of all other marketing channels, SMS still outshines as the backbone of cross-channel automation.
Hence, SMS integration should be given major priority in multi-channel marketing strategy.
Helo provides one such platform that empower its customers to engage, gratify & analyze their customers across the mobile horizon. It provides an incredible opportunity for marketers to build customer profiles that will help segment mobile users for more effective marketing messages.
Like our founder Mr. Vikram Raichura quotes,
“Helo ensures that you have the lowest cost of customer acquisition compared to any other channel.”
