In the digital age, CRM Marketing has evolved far beyond just sending a few emails and hoping for the best. With customers interacting with brands across multiple touchpoints and platforms, relying solely on email marketing for engagement is no longer enough. To build strong, lasting relationships with customers, brands need to adopt a multichannel approach that reaches their audience wherever they are.
Using multiple channels in your relationship marketing strategy enables you to provide a more personalised, seamless, and consistent experience across all stages of the customer journey. In this blog, we’ll explore why it’s essential to go beyond email and how you can effectively incorporate a range of channels to engage customers, drive loyalty, and improve your overall marketing performance.
1. Understand the Power of an Omnichannel Approach
Today’s customers expect a consistent experience across every channel they interact with. Whether they’re browsing your website, engaging on social media, or making a purchase in-store, they want a seamless journey that recognises their past interactions and meets their preferences.
An omnichannel marketing strategy goes beyond just using multiple channels in isolation; it integrates them to provide a unified experience. The goal is to meet customers where they are and provide them with the right message at the right time, no matter what channel they are using.
Why it’s important:
• Consistency: Customers expect consistent messaging, promotions, and service across channels.
• Convenience: Offering a range of options makes it easier for customers to interact with your brand on their terms.
• Increased Reach: You can reach your audience wherever they spend their time, whether it’s email, social media, web chat, or in person.
2. Utilise Social Media to Build Personal Connections
While email remains a staple in CRM Marketing, social media has become a key channel for engaging with customers in real time. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn provide brands with a direct way to communicate with customers, answer questions, and promote loyalty initiatives.
Social media allows you to build more interactive, personal relationships with your audience. It’s the perfect platform for engaging with customers in a conversational way, responding to comments and messages, and making them feel heard and valued.
How to make the most of social media:
• Engage in conversations: Respond to comments, tag customers in relevant posts, and participate in relevant discussions.
• User-generated content (UGC): Encourage customers to share their experiences with your brand and feature their posts on your feed. This builds community and trust.
• Run exclusive offers: Promote special discounts or early access to sales exclusively on social media to create a sense of belonging.
3. Leverage SMS and Push Notifications for Immediate Engagement
Another highly effective, yet often underutilised, channel in relationship marketing is SMS marketing and push notifications. These tools offer real-time, direct communication with customers and have an extremely high open rate compared to email.
SMS marketing allows you to send personalised messages, discounts, or reminders directly to customers’ phones. Similarly, push notifications can be used to deliver instant updates on promotions, new products, or even cart abandonment reminders.
Best practices for SMS and push notifications:
• Be concise: With limited characters, your message must be clear and valuable.
• Personalise your messages: Use customer data to send offers based on past purchases or browsing history.
• Timeliness is key: Take advantage of time-sensitive promotions, events, or flash sales to create urgency.
These channels are especially effective for time-sensitive information, such as limited-time offers, new product launches, or back-in-stock notifications, which can prompt immediate action from your audience.
4. Incorporate Web and Mobile Personalisation
Personalising the customer experience across web and mobile channels is crucial for keeping customers engaged and fostering a sense of loyalty. By tracking customer behaviour and preferences on your website or app, you can tailor the content they see based on their interactions with your brand.
How to leverage web and mobile personalisation:
• Dynamic content: Display personalised recommendations, offers, or content based on what customers have previously viewed or purchased.
• Behaviour-triggered actions: Use triggers, like when a customer abandons their shopping cart, to send a personalised follow-up email, push notification, or even a special offer to encourage them to complete the purchase.
• Location-based offers: Use geolocation features on your mobile app to send tailored promotions when customers are near a physical store.
By providing customers with a more personalised web and mobile experience, you’ll be able to increase engagement, conversions, and long-term loyalty.
5. Invest in Customer Service Channels for Better Relationship Building
Good customer service is one of the most powerful ways to build lasting relationships with your customers. Traditional customer service channels like phone support and email support are still valuable, but live chat, chatbots, and social media messaging have become increasingly popular.
Offering live chat on your website, for example, allows customers to quickly get the answers they need without having to wait for an email response or make a phone call. Chatbots can also be integrated to provide instant responses to common questions, making the customer experience more efficient and seamless.
How to enhance customer service channels:
• Integrate chatbots for 24/7 support and instant responses to FAQs.
• Offer multiple contact options: Some customers prefer live chat, while others prefer email or phone calls. Offering multiple channels ensures you meet your customers where they are.
• Personalise your support: Use customer data to deliver tailored support, recognising their past purchases or previous interactions with your brand.
By providing high-quality, accessible customer service across multiple channels, you enhance the customer experience, improve satisfaction, and ultimately strengthen your CRM Marketing efforts.
6. Use Direct Mail for a Personal Touch
In today’s digital-first world, direct mail might seem like an outdated tactic, but it can actually be an incredibly effective tool for relationship marketing—particularly when it’s used in conjunction with digital channels. Receiving a personalised piece of mail can feel more special and memorable than an email, making it a great way to stand out.
You can send targeted postcards, birthday cards, or exclusive offers that align with the customer’s preferences or behaviours. Combining physical mail with online tracking means you can follow up with a digital campaign (e.g., an email or SMS) after a piece of direct mail is sent to keep the conversation going.
How to incorporate direct mail:
• Personalise mailings: Use customer data to send tailored content, offers, or incentives based on their purchase history or preferences.
• Integrate with digital campaigns: Use direct mail as a part of an omnichannel campaign, following up with emails or SMS to reinforce the message and encourage action.
7. Measure and Optimise Across All Channels
To truly excel in multichannel CRM Marketing, it’s crucial to track the performance of each channel and understand how they interact with one another. Use analytics tools to measure the success of your campaigns across different touchpoints, allowing you to optimise your approach.
Key metrics to track:
• Engagement rates: Track how customers interact with your messages on each channel (clicks, opens, likes, shares, etc.).
• Conversion rates: Measure how effective each channel is at driving sales or actions (sign-ups, downloads, etc.).
• Customer satisfaction: Monitor feedback through surveys or reviews to see how well customers are responding to your omnichannel experience.
By continuously measuring and optimising your campaigns across all channels, you can create an ever-improving customer experience that drives stronger relationships and better results.
Conclusion: Embrace a Holistic, Multichannel Strategy
While email marketing remains a powerful tool in CRM Marketing, relying solely on it means missing out on the opportunity to engage customers through the many other channels they use daily. A multichannel approach—incorporating social media, SMS, push notifications, live chat, direct mail, and more—allows you to provide a more personalised, seamless, and engaging experience that resonates with today’s consumers.
To succeed in relationship marketing, businesses must meet customers where they are, speak to them in ways they prefer, and make sure they’re offering value and relevance across every touchpoint. By building a holistic, multichannel strategy, you’ll not only improve customer engagement and loyalty but also create lasting, meaningful relationships that drive long-term success.
