Why Your Ecommerce Brand Should Invest in a Multi-Channel Strategy

Multi-channel branding is a marketing strategy that involves promoting a brand through multiple channels or platforms, such as social media, television, print media, radio, and digital advertising. The goal is to create a cohesive and consistent brand image and message across all channels, while also tailoring the message to fit the specific platform.

By using multiple channels, businesses can reach a wider audience and increase their brand exposure. This approach can also help to reinforce the brand message, as consumers are exposed to the same messaging through different channels.

Multi-Channel Marketing Benefits

Multi-channel marketing is a great way for brands to grow and build their visibility and sales. Over the last several years, the concept of utilizing a multi-channel strategy has become much more popular, with 87% of retailers stating that having a multi-channel approach is important to their brand’s success. As can be seen in the graph to the right, multi-channel ecommerce sales have grown by 103% since 2019, and by the end of 2023, multi-channel ecommerce is expected to make up 45.6% of retail ecommerce sales in the United States. On average, brands are utilizing at least 3 different channels to reach their target audience, but some use up to eight different online and offline channels in their marketing strategies. The more channels your brand uses, the greater potential reach your brand can have to the desired customer audience.

Multi-channel marketing is a great way to increase your sales. Gartner Research found that companies whose campaigns utilize at least 4 different channels will outperform those that only use 1 or 2 channels by 300%. By growing your presence across channels, you will be able to grow faster and surpass the competition while appealing to your target audience on their preferred media channels.

Additionally, using multiple channels to market your brand gives you access to more customer data to analyze in order to optimize your marketing spend and make sure you're spending the right amount on the best channels. 42% of retail executives are spending at least half of their marketing budget on multi-channel efforts. With so many financial resources backing this strategy, it is vital that marketing dollars are allocated to the best channels in order to ensure the best potential for conversion and return on investment for a brand. With access to more information about customer trends, purchasing behaviors, and general industry trends, you can make better forecasts and adjust your strategy to allocate resources effectively.

A multi-channel approach can also help increase engagement with customers, providing multiple touchpoints and opportunities for them to interact with the brand. This is crucial to brand success because approximately 72% of consumers state that they interact with a brand multiple times through different channels prior to making a purchase. Additionally, these customers on average spend 3x - 4x more than customers who only utilize a single channel to shop. By creating a seamless cross-channel shopping experience for customers, they are more likely to make larger purchases and provide more revenues for your brand. Offering multiple channels to customers also improves their experience with your brand because it gives them the opportunity to shop on their preferred channel, rather than one they may be less familiar with just to reach your brand. To have the best chance to reach your target audience, investing in a multi-channel strategy is vital.

A diverse marketing approach is a healthy approach. Many online sellers start with Amazon, and that is typically a good start based on market share and volume opportunity. But what happens if your main (or only) selling channel decides to change requirements or raise fees so you are no longer profitable? What if a new competitor forces a price drop or unexpected discount to be able to compete? It takes time to build up sales history, listings, reviews, fulfillment services, etc., and doing that under duress is not an ideal approach.

Multi-channel diversification is a must for savvy and successful sellers who are focused on long-term growth. Brands must understand where their consumers are and meet them in their places of research and purchase. Channel expansion should be a thought-out process, with considerations around capabilities (operations, inventory requirements, fulfillment, and technology), knowing your competitive advantage, ad spend requirements and financial impacts, and how you’ll differentiate or keep consistency across channels with pricing, product lines, and more.    

More About aiCommerce

aiCommerce is a global digital marketing agency with a focus on retail and ecommerce marketplaces. aiCommerce is primed with decades of digital marketing experience and backed by our 90-day growth and know guarantee, we can help your brand grow across ecommerce channels to gain brand awareness and increase sales. Now is the perfect time to utilize our ecommerce experts to help grow your business.