Selecting the right communication channels for your business
There are so many different digital and offline channels that you could choose to communicate with you customer groups that it could easily become overwhelming. Here are a few tips to keep you on track.
Goals and Budget. Define your goals - what do you want to achieve; brand awareness, customer engagement, lead generation, e-commerce sales etc. and how much budget are you planning to allocate to your marketing activity across each communication channel.
Create a highly engaging website. A highly engaging, modern website that clearly communicates what your business does, what products or services you offer and how someone should engage with your business is essential.
Identify the communication channels your customers are using and focus on these channels to engage your customers and maximise your effort.
Social media Pick the channels that your customers are using. If your business is B2B, there’s a very high chance that your customers will be on LinkedIn, so make sure you have a strategy for engagement on LinkedIn. Social media can be a very cost effective channel as it is free to use and paid for advertising is relatively cheap.
Email Research indicates that 99% of us check our emails daily – some up to 20 times per day. Consumers only engage with brands they trust via email as they have ‘opted-in’ to receive their communications and personalisation makes email more compelling for a consumer to open it, so create personalised, highly engaging email campaigns that catch the attention of your customers.
People engage with moving content much better than still images so ensure video is part of your marketing strategy. Using video in campaigns results in revenue’s growing 49% faster than campaigns that don’t use video. It is easy to create and share video content as most of us have smartphones these days. But don’t forget to edit those videos to add your brand imagery and a strong call to action message.
Analyse your activity. Analyse your data regularly to determine which campaigns get the best engagement and meets the goals outlined in point 1, and on which communication channels. Once you work out where your customers are engaging and where most of your leads are coming from, you can focus your activity in this area to maximise engagement and really boost your brand awareness.
This is the third blog in a series written for the Women in Innovation programme from KTN. #WomenInnovate