Ready Set Send Challenge Week 4

[Nick_S]

For those of you who missed Week 2, allow me to reintroduce myself! I’m Aaron Wesley Means, founder of ACTIVATE Business Solutions, based in Asheville, NC. ACTIVATE has served clients of all shapes and sizes from local to national for 12+ years, has trained thousands of businesses through seminars, webinars, and conferences, and is a multiple award-winning solution provider.

In this week’s Ready, Set, Send challenge we’ll address the value and impact of a multi-channel marketing strategy. Instead of thinking of your marketing as a single approach using a single channel, you’ll want to use different channels together (think email + social + texts) to create a coordinated plan that greatly increases awareness, visibility, interest, engagement, and sales. 

How you use these channels together can be explained by what we like to call the “party principle.” And who doesn't like a party? Plus, at this one, you’ll have help from Constant Contact’s own party planner Campaign Builder. So let’s dive into week 4 and discover how to use multi-channel marketing to your strengths and own the party principle to become campaign connoisseurs!

Throw a Multi-Channel Marketing Bash

You’re not always in your inbox, are you? Well, neither are your contacts. Using multi-channel campaigns is a smart strategy that reaches your contacts where they are and offers several benefits:

• It increases reach by catering to different channel preferences
• Improves engagement by building trust and familiarity
• Ensures consistent branding across all touchpoints
• Provides better data for informed decisions
• Drives higher conversion rates
• Enhances the overall customer experience
• Optimizes marketing spend for better ROI

So how can we leverage all of this information and make it work for you and your customers? We throw a party! *Not literally* but at Constant Contact we have what we call the party principle.  The goal is to foster a positive, enjoyable, and memorable connection between your brand and your customers. There are three different types of parties to the party principle: The big party, the after-party, and the VIP party. 

Social Media - This is your “big party” where you may not know everyone because friends of friends of friends may have been invited. But, this is an irreplaceable channel for marketing your business: it allows many people to discover you. Use this channel to engage your followers and nurture them to become true fans of your product or service.

Email Marketing - Think of email as your “after-party” where the people you know will hang with you after everyone else has left. You know who these people are because you have their email address – and you can see what they like based on what they open and click on. (In Week 6 we’ll talk about how you can reward these fans with segmented offers).  

Text (SMS) Marketing - Text marketing is your “VIP party.” It’s typically a smaller list than your email list, because people only give out their phone number to businesses they trust. And it’s a channel that delivers a 98% open rate. This is an opt-in list, so be strategic - share only the most valuable updates or incentives to keep your subscribers feeling special. 

Once you throw your first party, you’ll see the results in real time - in increased awareness and email subscribers, more engagement with your emails and texts, and more of what you set as your goal in Week 1. So let’s try it out by using Campaign Builder!

Work Smarter, Not Harder with Campaign Builder

Constant Contact's most impressive feature to date is undoubtedly the multi-channel Campaign Builder. When paired with BrandKit (which we introduced in Week 1) it creates entire multi-channel campaigns for you - from copy to the different templates. Obviously you’ll want to choose the channels that make the most sense for your business.

Take Campaign Builder for a spin 

Let's have some fun!

Now that we’re in a party mood, let's dive into Campaign Builder and explore which channels resonate best with your audience. Has Campaign Builder made you think differently about your marketing approach? Has it inspired you to do something different – and hear me out – something like marketing bingo? Heck yeah, it has!

Each square in our marketing bingo sheets challenges you to create multi-channel campaigns that work best for you, such as enhancing your email (think back to Week 2), creating a landing page (hey, we also did that in Week 3!), hosting an event, or scheduling a post to your social channels.

So, what are the rules? Well, this isn't your typical bingo, this is ~marketing~ bingo. So technically, there are no rules when it comes to creativity, but I suggest starting by selecting squares of actions you already do in your marketing day-to-day, and then challenge yourself by choosing squares you’d like to try. Mark off five squares in any row, column, or diagonal and you win!

Your Assignments

• Use the Bingo Card and mark off what you’re already doing and try to implement a few more, for good measure!  Bonus points if you get BINGO!
• Be sure to use BrandKit, if you haven’t already. This is like getting the décor for the party you’re about to throw!
• Create a multi-channel campaign with Campaign Builder.

How you’ll earn your badge

Download the Bingo card and check off any features or actions you're already doing, or implemented this week. Then, share your bingo card in a reply below.

Resources

• Handout: Multichannel Marketing
• Blog: How to Create a Marketing Campaign: A Step-by-Step Guide
• Community: Broaden Your Marketing Mix

TL;DR

• Use multi-channel marketing (email, social media, SMS) to increase awareness, engagement, and sales.
• The "party principle" involves three types of parties: social media ("big party"), email ("after-party"), and SMS marketing ("VIP party").
• Multi-channel marketing boosts reach by appealing to diverse channel preferences, enhancing engagement through trust and familiarity. It ensures consistent branding, elevates the customer experience, and drives higher conversion rates. Furthermore, it delivers better data for informed decisions and optimizes marketing spend for improved ROI.
• For your assignment, use the Bingo card to mark which strategies you use in your everyday marketing and try a few new squares to really see the benefit of multi-channel marketing while using our Campaign Builder.