What Does a Multichannel Marketing Mix Look Like?

In the past, brands might have launched advertising campaigns on the radio and hope that they’d catch their target audience at the right time.

Over time, these same brands might have added more channels to their marketing mix by sending direct mail to consumers’ mailboxes, buying ads in newspapers and magazines, and placing commercials on television.

In today’s always-on digital age, having multiple channels is a common and effective way that multi-retailer brands structure their marketing mix, including programmatic advertising, social media, email marketing, mobile marketing, and search, among others.

By building and implementing a robust multichannel marketing mix, brands are able to increase the chances they reach consumers across channels. In turn, this enables each consumer to interact with their preferred brands using the medium they’re most comfortable with.

What Can You Include in Your Multichannel Marketing Mix?

Generally speaking, here are some of the mediums you should consider investing into as you develop your multichannel strategy:

1. Programmatic: Your multichannel marketing mix should include programmatic advertising, which is actually the top source of traffic for many of MikMak’s partner brands. Programmatic presents the perfect opportunity to serve up highly targeted creative to very specific audiences, which enables you to engage the perfect users at the best times.
   
2. Social networks: One recent report found that 3.8 billion people will use social media this year. As such, your marketing mix should include a social media strategy. Set up shop on platforms that your audience is most likely to be on—including Snapchat, TikTok, and Twitter—and post content there to engage your audience and attract new consumers. Keep your strategy agile, and have a plan for when these platforms launch new features such as Instagram Reels, a recent feature inspired by TikTok.
   
   "A healthy mix of marketing channels is better for brands, and MikMak’s top-performing clients use up to 29 media channels to drive engagement and commerce," says Rachel Tipograph, founder and CEO of MikMak. “If brands have the resources to do TikTok and Reels – and if TikTok maintains its presence in the US – they should.

3. Email marketing: Email marketing is an essential part of any successful multichannel marketing mix. Believe it or not, research suggests that every $1 spent on email marketing generates $38. Talk about ROI!

4. Mobile ads: Mobile advertising—think SMS messages and proximity marketing—has been growing rapidly over the last few years. Consider adding this to your multichannel marketing mix, but be careful not to be too invasive.

5. Search: It’s no secret that consumers conduct research online. In fact, one recent report found that 88 percent of consumers research their purchases online before either buying them online or heading into a store to do the same. Since your audience will be searching for information online, you need a robust search marketing strategy that increases the chances consumers come across your creative when they search for relevant terms.

As you can see, these channels play off one another. A well-oiled multichannel marketing mix has content flowing across multiples to target - and retarget - consumers where they are engaging.

How to Select the Right Multichannel Marketing Mix for Your Brand?

When it comes to building the perfect multichannel marketing mix for your brand, there are many options to choose from. Unfortunately, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution either—what works really, really well for one brand may yield no results for another. That’s why it’s important to always lean on data to understand which channels are going to be the most effective and to make sure your brand’s channels are diversified, so they aren’t just relying on one or two sources. 

One of the best ways you can do this is by analyzing purchase intent. By understanding which parts of your marketing mix are encouraging consumers to reach into their wallets, you will know where to spend more dollars and how those investments help your organization accomplish its goals. 

Keep in mind that not every consumer will be influenced by the same content and advertisements, and the expectations the same consumer may have on different channels may be different. By segmenting your audience based on the major drivers of purchase intent, you can identify several different paths to online sales and optimize each of them.

Ready to deliver seamless experiences to your audience?

Being able to build a robust multichannel marketing mix that engages your consumers on the right platforms and at the perfect times is only possible when you have access to the right real-time data.

Schedule a demo of MikMak today to learn more about how you can optimize your multichannel marketing campaigns with a powerful and intuitive platform that brings the insights you need to figure out the best way forward—right to your fingertips.