The most common model of marketing in associations has inherently been multi-channel marketing. Nearly every organization and association practices multi-channel marketing, interacting with users on different digital channels and devices. Multi-channel marketing has a distributional approach of sending out information to users in a multitude of ways. Multi-channel marketing, although a traditional method of marketing, does not allow organizations to understand how the user connected, how to measure each interaction, or if the user had multiple touchpoints. Because of these shortcomings there has been a fundamental shift in mindset to focus on the user, also known as the U.
The shift is otherwise known as omni-channel marketing. Omin-channel marketing is transforming organizations to be designed around the user, comprehensively user-driven and user-centric. Unlike multi-channel marketing, omni-channel marketing orbits around the U. For this mindset shift to occur, an organization needs to do these five things;
Omni-channel marketing also has a different form of metrics. Unlike multi-channel metrics that track operational and discrete measurements such as click-thru rates, open rates, and page views, omni-channel metrics provide a comprehensive, all-inclusive measurement focused on user experience. This metric is known as conversion. Conversion at the organizational level is; this person took this series of steps and took the action we wanted them to take - now we have what we are looking for and can go back and study the interactions to produce the same result over and over. Therefore, conversion is tied to revenue because the information is there to understand what had to be done to get them to convert.
In order for organizations to adopt the mindset shift to omni-channel marketing, there must be a strong focus on the U, the organization must be willing to shift to a user-centric business approach, and conversion must be understood as the new form of metrics.
*Information courtesy of Asae Lunch Learning Webinar: Omni-Channel Marketing: How To Layer Your Channels To Increase Leads
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