A beginner’s guide to cross-channel engagement

Seventy-one per cent of customers expect personalization, while 50% of customers ignore messages that aren’t relevant to them. Connecting with them where they are already spending their time is crucial. This means creating strategies that are not only effective but also engaging, and that allow your target audience to easily understand and relate to your message, no matter where they read it. 

This is where cross-channel engagement shines. If you’re not familiar, don’t worry. This beginner’s guide will explain everything you need to know. We’ll also show how it can enhance your engagement strategy even further with a deep understanding of consumer behavior. 

First up: What is cross-channel engagement?  

At its core, cross-channel engagement is about interacting with customers through the many channels they use. Whether it’s social media, email, content marketing, or paid advertising, the aim is to create a unified and seamless experience for your customers. By integrating various communication channels, you can deliver personalized and consistent messaging that resonates with your target audience throughout their customer journey. 

Why you should try it 

A cross-channel engagement strategy offers many benefits beyond expanding your reach. In 2019, marketers who used three or more channels in any one campaign earned a 287% higher purchase rate than those who opted for a single-channel campaign. When implemented effectively, it provides personalized experiences, boosts brand visibility, establishes consistency, improves campaign effectiveness, and enhances customer lifetime value. Let’s take a deeper look: 

1. Personalized experiences 

Cross-channel engagement enables you to create personalized experiences by analyzing customer behavior and preferences across platforms. Using this data, you can deliver highly relevant content and campaigns tailored to individual needs. This personalized approach not only captures attention but also leads to higher engagement and conversions. 

2. Brand visibility 

Staying at the forefront of your customers’ minds is more important against the plethora of competition and options available to them. Maintaining a strong presence across multiple platforms ensures that your target audience encounters and engages with your brand more frequently, driving awareness and ultimately, growth. 

3. Consistency 

A well-executed cross-channel engagement strategy ensures consistent messaging across all customer touchpoints. When your customers see the same messages from you, you establish credibility and trust with your audience, making them feel more confident when engaging with your brand. Consistent messaging also reinforces your brand identity, making it more memorable and recognizable. 

4. Campaign performance 

Consolidating the data you are gathering from your cross-channel engagement can provide deeper insights. From there, you can refine your strategy as you gain a deeper understanding of what resonates with your audience. This allows you to adjust your approach for better results, driving more of your desired actions. 

5. Enhanced Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) 

A seamless, consistent, and personalized experience, cross-channel engagement can boost customer loyalty. Loyal customers tend to purchase more frequently and are more likely to refer friends and family to your brand, increasing your reach and exposure. With more than 1 in 3 U.S. customers stating that they aren’t loyal to brands, prioritizing CLV is going to be key to keeping customers choosing you. 

Where to begin: Creating a cross-channel engagement strategy 

Now that you understand what cross-channel engagement is and why it’s important, here are seven of steps to get started: 

1. Look at your data 

To implement a cross-channel engagement strategy, you must start with data. If you don’t yet have a tool that looks at your various engagement channels, and the metrics and insights, it may be time to invest. Or if you have a variety of tools, how can you merge that data to see behavior across platform to gain a deeper understanding of your customers. Using this data, you can begin mapping out a journey that makes sense for your unique customers. 

2. Map your customer journey 

Analyze your target audience’s entire customer journey, from initial awareness to post-purchase interactions. Identify engagement touchpoints and areas needing improvement to streamline the process and create positive customer experiences. This can even be done through some simple, short customer surveys to gain deeper insight. 

3. Segment your audience 

Divide your customer base into well-defined segments based on demographics, behavior, interests, and preferences. This approach enables you to create customized messages and tailor your offers to resonate with specific audience groups, ultimately leading to higher engagement and conversion rates. 

At Symend, we have developed playbooks based on millions of interactions and more than five billion behavioral-based attributes to create segments that understand the unique experiences of the individual. Learn more about how that works here.

4. Set your objectives 

Define your specific goals and objectives so that you can design your cross-channel engagement campaigns in line with your overall objectives. Are you aiming to increase brand awareness, drive engagement, boost recoveries, or increase sign-ups? By setting clear targets, you can measure success and optimize your campaigns accordingly. 

5. Select your channels 

To choose the right channels, go back to your data. Especially with a consolidated view across all your channels, you will be able to easily identify the preferred channels of your customers. Now combine that with your goals, and you can select the right channel to meet them.  

6. Create your content 

By incorporating web and dynamic personalization into your cross-channel engagement campaigns, you can deliver meaningful and customized content that captures attention and drives engagement. Look at creating personalized offers, messages and product recommendations that are considerate of their behavior, past purchases, browsing habits and other relevant data points. Then use that content across your push notifications, SMS, email, website and many other channels. 

7. Monitor, optimize, and adapt 

It’s important to monitor, optimize, and iterate your cross-channel engagement campaigns to continue to drive success. More importantly, to ensure they stay relevant and engaging to your customers. Keep track of metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) then assess what’s working and what’s not so that you can continuously refine your cross-channel strategy. 

Getting started 

Cross-channel engagement is a highly effective strategy that can help you connect with your customers and create memorable and consistent customer experiences. The following steps can help you reach your customers through multiple touchpoints and create messages that resonate with them while delivering value. By implementing these steps, you can keep your customers engaged and provide them with a seamless experience, regardless of where they are in their customer journey.