1. Data is king.

Everyone says content is king and while this is true, data is probably like a King Junior. Marketing automation has a lot of move parts, but they all act on data. Customer information that you have stored in a CRM is what decides who gets what and when. Without this kind of data, multi-channel marketing will not work. Every company whether they know it or not has vast amounts of client data to leverage. So by bringing all that data into an environment that offers multi-channel communication, the skies are the limits on how to connect with customers. Multi-channel marketing takes data and amplifies it to a greater level than ever seen before.

2. Anyone can do it.

Yes, that’s right. You don’t need to understand programming or know what Photoshop is. All the easy-to-use tools are provided for you when you switch to using multi-channel marketing. The reason, it’s not something you should take on by yourself. You need to find the right software to help you. There are several multi-channel marketing software providers out there that stake their reputation on making it easy to do. Basically everything is taken care of for you except the actual content you want to share.

3. Single channel communication does not cut it.

We are not saying that anyone just doing email marketing isn’t have success. We mean, you will be missing out on a lot of potential growth and scalability because you are only using email marketing. Now there are audiences who just want to be contacted on their mobile device, there are those who live on Facebook and there are those who want voice message reminders. Your mother used to always say, you can’t please everyone, but with multi-channel marketing, you can.

4. The options are limitless

. You can take your contact lists and target people based on different methods of communication. Depending on what data you have gathered and what opt-in requirements you have, it is easy to contact people via email, SMS, voice and social media channels. The best part is, you can combine them all to really bring your message home. If the message is not opened in an email, then maybe it was read on Facebook. If you cover every area your customers are going to be online, then your message will be received. Some platforms even offer less used channels like fax and online surveys.

5. It will help you speed up conversions.

In the business, we like to call it nurturing. But whatever you call it, it is key to stay top of mind with your clients. Even if they have not converted or bought, you want to remain relevant, so when they do need your service, your name pops in their head. You can set up triggered messages on multiple channels to engage and nurture a customer automatically. It does take a lot of preparation work, but in the long run you will save a great amount of time. Instead of your sales team contacting a potential customer pretty much cold, the process will move much quicker if all of the questions have been answered previosuly. This all leads to quicker sales and a shorter sales cycle.

6. Everything is in real-time.

There is no waiting to find out how you did when it comes to multi-channel marketing. All the sending, reporting and sweating is done in real-time. That means you do have the flexibility to change on the fly and fix what maybe is going wrong. If you see email is not reaching your audience as you want it to, you can quickly put together a mass SMS blast or reach out on social media. Without being able to see the good and bad as it happens, will put limits on what you can do. It is a great way to recover and turn lack of engagement into something positive. If you put all your eggs in one basket, there is nothing you can do but hope for the best.

7. Everything is multi-device optimized.

Are you focusing on the fact that more and more people are checking emails, Tweets and more on a small screen. It could be a mobile phone, table or other device that is not at their desk. You need to think small for a change. When using multi-channel marketing, this is already taken into account as you have the tools to target the tablet users and reach people on several channels.

8. Everything is flexible to your needs.

There is not one right way to use multi-channel marketing. Especially when you think of it in the broader sense of overall communication. You could be reaching out to internal employees, or shareholders or voters, or even the people who live in a town. It’s not necessarily marketing. The point is, by switching to multi-channel marketing, you can use it for whatever purpose fits your organization.

9. Allow you to take advantage of new technologies.

Multi-channel marketing makes it easy to add a new channel of communication to your mix without having to build anything. This is most obvious when it comes to social media. Everyone wants to do more on social media but spend less time doing it. Multi-channel marketing software allows you to manage and automate quite a lot of it. This is preferrred to manually doing it on each account, especially when there are several high-profile sites you want to have a prescence on. Let the software providers do the hard work by adding these new technologies to their platforms. It certainly helps you speed up the process of being active on it.

10. Expand your reach.

There are so many benefits when switching to multi-channel marketing but overall, the biggest is the results it will bring. This would be extending your reach, your foot print in the industry, your overall brand and of course, the amount of people willing to share and resell your product. Unless you are on the giants, it is hard to keep up with the costs of marketing. By connecting with people over several channels, you make it easy for them to share and create a word-of-mouth buzz that is so critical these days.

Now do you see why it’s time to switch to multi-channel marketing ?-for more info please click on the above epic banner This is my #1 recommended internet marketing resource-I am very surprised on how many people have chosen to ignore it-they are high quality tool and resources at extremely affordable prices-in fact some of the modules won't cost you a cent !

Multi-channel marketing is here to stay. Regardless of whether you think it is right for your business, it is the future of how you will market and connect with your audience.

The good news is, there are several multi-channel marketing platforms that make it easy to create, send and manage campaigns ranging from the most basic, to highly complicated works of art.

The benefits of multi-channel marketing platforms are plentiful. Like mentioned, they make it easy for the non-technical to run comprehensive marketing campaigns that would otherwise be put forth by giant corportations.

Automation does not have to be robotic. In fact, if you do it right, marketing automation can up your game and actually explode business.

Here are 5 benefits of multi-channel marketing platforms.

1. They are all-in-one

Yes, that’s right. Everything is under one umbrella or account. No more using this software to do this job and having to hop over to another vendor to do something else. Now, most marketing platforms include email, SMS, social media and many other ways to connect with customers. The creation process, delivery standards and reporting are all taken care of for you. All you need is the content and the strategy. It sure makes it simple when you don’t have to worry about how things will happen.

2. Consumers are changing.

Well, they are not changing literally, but they are changing how they digest messages from companies they follow. It used to by flyers in the mail, TV ads and radio spots. Now everything is interactive. Emails, texts, Tweets and more allow the customer to control how they connect with you. There needs to be some two-way communication these days. That is what multi-channel marketing platforms specialize in. You can use one, two, three or even more channels of communication seperate or in unison to reach customers and learn how they want to be connected with.

3. The messaging is trigger-based.

Yes, again, it empowers the customer to get the information they want based on their actions. If they sign up for something, an automatic message is sent. If they respond to a text, an automatic reply is sent. If they had signed up for a free whitepaper, a new one will be sent at the specified time. It’s all set it up once and let it go kind of marketing. This saves a great amount of manual work and planning.

4. Reduction of resources.

When you have access to powerful multi-channel marketing, the amount of people needed to do it reduces greatly. We are not saying marketing automation replaces people. That is far from the case. We are just saying marketing automation makes it easier for a single person to do a lot more. With a platform full of automated tools, a single person can create, send and manage a number of campaigns and over a number of channels. The amount of manual time is certainly reduced, so your team does not have to worry about being available 24 hours a day.

5. Planning ahead.

The movement to marketing automation has already begun. The days of using just email marketing to reach customers is slowly coming to an end. There are far to many options and if you are only sticking to one channel, you are losing out. Take a look at the brands you follow personally. How are they contacting you? Probably by email, text, social media and more right? Consumers are becoming very educated on technology, more so than ever before, so by adding one new channel, you will easily extend your reach over night. Think about where marketing is going in one year, five years and ten years. Be the stand out among your industry and move to a multi-channel marketing platform today.

Again, the benefits of multi-channel marketing platforms are plentiful. They make it easy for the non-technical to run comprehensive marketing campaigns that would otherwise be put forth by giant corporations. By making the switch sooner rather than later, you are positioning your organization to be a winner instead of one of the masses.