Retargeter

How to Use Cross-Channel Marketing to Drive Conversions: Part 2

 Last week, we discussed a few examples of how you can use cross-channel marketing to increase conversions.  To get the most out of cross-channel marketing, it?s best to start with the marketing campaigns that are consuming the most of your budget. Expanding those campaigns across other channels can help you improve exposure, reach more of your target audience, and increase returns.  This next example comes from my personal experience managing an event marketing budget that absorbed over half of the annual marketing budget.

Event Marketing: Let?s say your budget allows for over 30 events over the course of the year, including a variety of trade shows, sponsorships, and hosted events.  Just planning the event itself and showing up in the hopes that you?ll meet your top prospects won?t ensure a high return on investment.  Try these additional techniques to make sure you get the most out of every event.

• Email Marketing: Dissect your email list and CRM to find customers, cold leads, or prospects who are in the same region as the event.  Invite them to stop by and enjoy the festivities.  Some fun incentives in an email invitation could include a giveaway for the first 50 attendees, a special guest or a raffle promotion at the event.
• Paid Search Advertising: Work with your PPC advertising team in the months before the event and allocate some budget to run related campaigns.  If you?re exhibiting at a convention, for example, you can target keywords that are related to the trade show name and advertise your promotion or giveaway, trade show booth, and/or an exclusive meeting with a product consultant.  And, don?t forget what you learned from Part 1 about how other cross-channel programs can enhance your paid search campaign.
• Social Media Marketing: Depending on how public the event is, you can go big with your social media channels.  Blog about the event in the weeks or days before the event, promote it through Facebook or Google+, and tweet the details to generate a bigger buzz.  Taking photos and posting them during the event doesn?t hurt either.
• Product Marketing: Events are great opportunities to get face time with your top prospects.  You may have an exhibit at a trade show, for which you’ll need your own quality trade show display for attracting customers. If you are in need of trade show displays Houston for your marketing campaign, be sure to select something in line with your budget and that can be used in all trade show locations. You could also be hosting an educational event for your target audience. Either way, be sure to bring copies of your latest product marketing materials.  Ebooks, white papers, studies, or data sheets about your recent releases are great to have handy at your events.
• Communications: Get your event covered in the news! Reach out to your press contacts and invite them to your event so they can either take photos and write about it or write about your company in the future. If you?re speaking at an event, make sure to let the local journalists know by inviting them directly to the session.

Keep these tactics in mind when launching your next large marketing campaign. Everyone in marketing does have their own specialized role, but there are always higher returns when your marketing initiatives are in sync with one another. Do you have any examples of how you used cross-channel marketing to drive conversions?  Tell us in the comments section below.

About the Author

Jana Fung is the Marketing Manager of MixRank. She has managed successful demand generation programs for over 5 years. She is optimistic about the growth of online advertising and has a passion for helping online marketers with their campaigns. If you?re a MixRank fan or just want to say hi, she?s interested in connecting with you! Follow her on Twitter @jana_fung

About MixRank

MixRank.com is a spy tool for contextual and display ads. With MixRank you can see exactly where your competitors are buying traffic and which ad copy is performing best for them across over 100,000 sites. You can use MixRank to watch your competitors spend money testing different ads and traffic sources, see which ones worked best, and use that data to build your own campaign.