Developing a hybrid marketing approach will help you maximize your reach, form better connections with your customers, and improve your ROI. How? Read this article.

Deloitte recently reported that the average US household has a total of 25 connected devices, including phones, laptops, tablets, and smart home units. And this number is only growing with 38 percent of Americans reporting having more devices now than they did at the start of the pandemic. 

These devices represent a new channel for connecting with your customers and attracting new ones. However, many businesses — especially smaller to midsize organizations — tend to stay within the parameters of their current marketing programs, abiding by the adage, “don’t fix what’s not broken.”

While I’m not here to tell you what you’re doing is wrong, I do want you to think about how you could be missing out. Putting all your resources into only a handful of marketing avenues means you’re less likely to get in front of your customers at a time when they’re becoming more distracted. Consequently, your competitors who expanded their marketing mix are getting those valuable relationship-building opportunities instead.

The Answer? Hybrid Marketing

Developing a hybrid marketing approach will help you maximize your reach, form better connections with your customers, and improve your ROI. Also referred to as multichannel, at its core, hybrid marketing combines traditional and digital marketing tactics into one all-up strategy.

This mix of offline, such as mailers, flyers, billboards, live events, broadcast ads, and online approaches, like retargeting, social media, emails, and search engine marketing, make for a cohesive customer experience. Offering multiple ways to connect ensures they can research, purchase, or get in touch quickly and seamlessly. 

What to Include in Your Hybrid Marketing Strategy

On the surface, your hybrid marketing strategy should contain the same fundamental elements as a traditional one: identifying your key messages, audiences, and the channels and platforms where your customers are most likely to engage with you. You’ll also want to determine your desired outcomes and how you’ll measure the success of your program. 

With that said, omnichannel campaigns come with additional challenges since they’re more sophisticated. Expanding your mix will bring in an influx of data and customer touchpoints, and depending on the maturity of your current program, this can be a lot to decipher and manage.

For example, let’s say you’re connecting with your customers five different ways via YouTube and Google ads, a direct mailer, TV ads, and through your Facebook page.

At the same time, you enable them to respond in four different ways through calling, emailing, texting, or visiting your website. All the above now represent 20 different customer journeys, when before you may have had one or two. 

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The Key to Pulling off Your Multichannel Initiatives

To provide multiple consumer pathways at scale and cost-effectively, you’ll need access to a solid tech stack so you can manage and track results in real-time. But, with so many solutions on the market, it’s easy to be unsure or even invest in too many platforms you won’t use.

When you’re evaluating solutions, keep these questions in mind:

• Can you connect all your channels to a central portal?
• What kind of automation does it have? 
• Is there a training dashboard or representatives that can assist you 24/7? 
• What are the measurement and reporting capabilities? 
• Can you manage both organic and paid activations for all channels?
• Does it cover the entire customer journey from channel execution to response data? 
• Do you get access to market data beyond your campaigns?

As our society becomes even more connected, a hybrid marketing strategy will be paramount for building brand awareness with less effort, lowering customer acquisition costs, and getting a holistic view of trends. Be sure you’re investing in a robust tech stack that’s right for your needs so you can reap all these benefits and more. 

[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]