A Guide to Successful Cross-platform Marketing

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Digital Matters Blog
blog.act ivat e me dia.com /po st/57605054503/a-
guide- to - successf ul- cro ss- platf o rm-
marketing
Companies like Shop Direct began a trend last
year of aligning their catalogue printing with
their online business through interactive
engagement across different platforms. For
example, in April 2012, one of Shop Directs
magaz ines introduced a very original feature
readers could watch a video of an interior
designer introducing different design items when
pointing their mobile devices at an image of the
designer. Since then, many catalogues and magaz
ines all over the world have continued to
introduce original features aimed at connecting
online and offline marketing strategies. One of
the most successful examples of cross- platform
integration is Canadas leading newspaper The
Globe. At a time when newspapers were losing
readers to the web and online platforms, The
Globe rapidly adapted to this changing scene,
using information collected from their print
editions users to successfully leverage an
intelligent mix of marketing channels. The result
was a multiplatform brand experience that was
greatly appreciated by both online and offline
readers and dramatically increased sales across
all platforms, establishing The Globe as an
unquestioned leader in the modern era of
interactive information. Integrating Online and
Of f line Marketing through Cross-Platf orm
Engagement While experiences like The Globes,
Shop Directs, and many others prove that cross-
platform marketing may be the key to success in
our interactive age, many companies are still not
integrating their marketing efforts across
different platforms. Any advertising campaign
must be tailored with all the possibilities of
its medium in mind. Today, the medium is
everywhere, it has no limits, and anyone who is
not taking advantage of all the possibilities of
online and offline advertising is losing the
greatest marketing opportunity of our time. A
great example of consistent messaging through
iPhone apps, in- store events, TV ads, and a
variety of channels, LCBOs Deflate the
Elephant campaign to raise awareness about
drinking and driving came up with creative ways
to integrate messages through very different
mediums, with enormous success.
Each business is different. For some, print
catalogues are essential, while others do not
need them at all. Street banners offer excellent
conversion for some fashion items, while software
and apps can benefit much more from targeted
advertising for mobile devices. The challenge
today is to understand how each medium can
benefit a specific product, even when it is not
the medium that first comes to mind when
designing a campaign for it. T he Keys of
Cross-Platf orm Integration There are many ways
to integrate cross- platform marketing efforts,
to introduce efficient calls to action, generate
leads and ensure successful conversion. 1.Feedbac
k and Quick Response
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• The marketing experts of the past had very few
  ways of knowing what customers were thinking and
  how a company
• s products were being received. Today,
  websites, social networks, and mobile apps
  offer many possibilities for customers to give
  instant feedback about items or services they
  have purchased. A good example of cross- platform
  integration is including QR codes and Snaptags
  that direct to online feedback sections on print
  ads. Likewise, positive feedbacks can be
  reproduced through a variety of platforms. In
  terms of displaying customer feedbacks, users
  greatly appreciate reliability. For example, a
  company that allows feedbacks to go live on their
  website in real time, even when they are not
  positive, has the chance to develop a higher
  level of trust than another one that carefully
  monitors feedbacks.
• When it comes to feedbacks, it is also important
  to respond quickly to issues addressed by
  customers in their comments. Consumers also
  appreciate companies that offer a quick response
  to different problems. On the other hand,
  feedback can also be used to understand how
  marketing campaigns are working, and a quick
  response is also important in this case. For
  example, feedback forms that ask customers where
  they first heard of the product can be of great
  help to measure campaign conversion rates.
• Target ing
• In the past, marketing was all about identifying
  the audience, today, it is all about knowing how
  the audience behaves. Knowing what a companys
  average customer searches for online and what
  they follow on Twitter and Facebook is very
  important for marketing campaign design. An
  understanding of the audiences preferences and
  interests can not only help design online
  campaigns, but it can also help tailor print
  materials, such as catalogues and magaz ine ads,
  and other types of offline marketing.
• While most companies are well- versed in web
  analytics, many of them are starting to use more
  and more qualitative methods, which, in
  conjunction with numeric data, can help better
  understand the user journey, in order to make
• every interaction with the company easier.
  Companies are currently trying to take
  qualitative insights and transform them into
  actionable data points. As mobile devices keep
  changing the way users interact with marketing
  elements, targeted advertising is becoming more
  relevant each day.
• According to the June 2013 Reducing Customer
  Struggle report by IBM Tealeaf, information from
  customer emails (43), customer service phone
  calls (45), online feedback (35),
  usability/heatmaps (40), and user session replay
  (57) are considered to be the most effective and
  profitable methods to obtain valuable information
  about the users online experience.
• Mast ering Online/Of f line Cross- Promot ion

Ideally, online resources should be used to bring
people to a companys print items, and a call-
to- action that brings them to the company
website or a sales page must be included in print
materials. Printed brochures that point to an
online promotion and online campaigns that prompt
users to enter their address to receive free
samples and brochures are good examples of
successful integration. At Digital Cream London
2013, experts identified many problems of cross-
channel marketing integration. In fact, according
to eConsultancys last Cross- Channel Marketing
Report, only 32 of companies rated themselves
as excellent or good at driving cross-
platform/cross- channel campaigns. Survey
respondents also revealed that the channels most
easily integrated were email marketing and web
platforms. This means that true cross- platform,
integrated online/offline engagement is still far
behind, even for some of the companies with the
most advanced marketing departments. How top
companies view their marketing channel priorities
Graph According to this graph, website, email,
and social media marketing are marketers top
priorities.
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• Social Media Int egrat ion
• Social media sites and apps offer countless
  possibilities for campaign integration. The
  budget spent on brochure printing can be maximiz
  ed by the inclusion of links and prompts to
  access different promotions via social media,
  thus getting new online fans for a company or
  product, through an offline strategy.
• One of the keys of successful integration between
  social media and print marketing has to do with
  communication between the teams handling each
  type of marketing. The people working on print
  campaigns should be working together with social
  media teams to create cohesive campaigns that
  present a unified appearance to the public. The
  aim of this integration should be to provide an
  engaging and entertaining interactive campaign
  that keeps users interested throughout all the
  different channels.
• Social media sites are also a prime source of
  information to help determine whether a print
  campaign has been successful or not. Comments,
  feedback forms, messages, likes, and follows can
  help companies quickly
• assess the reach of their print campaigns, for
  example, at the time of launching a new catalogue
  or running a new print ad.
• While integrating social media and print is a
  must, the shape this integration takes is also
  important. For example, a URL can be hard to
  remember, and it is important to keep social
  media web addresses short and clean, to ensure
  conversion. Printing the F icon for Facebook
  followed by a customiz ed Facebook page address
  is a very popular way of keeping social media
  URLs clean when printing them on catalogues,
  magaz ine ads or brochures.
• Personaliz at ion
• While users are sometimes reluctant to sign up to
  new websites, they greatly appreciate it when the
  sites remember their preferences. For example,
  someone who owns a certain model of a Mac Pro
  laptop and is looking for parts
• and accessories, can greatly appreciate a sites
  ability to remember what model he or she has, in
  order to establish compatibility. Likewise,
  parents who have a 10- year old kid would be
  pleased to receive only suggestions for books or
  games that are age- appropriate, instead of
  having to scroll through listings of products
  that do not interest them.
• A great way of personaliz ing the user experience
  is creating PURLs or personaliz ed URLs. Users
  appreciate the time it saves to have content
  tailored specifically for them, and PURLs can be
  a great way to keep them engaged. Including a
  call- to- action to create a personal URL on the
  company site on printed materials can be a great
  way of integrating personaliz ed online marketing
  with print marketing, while also adding a touch
  of personaliz ation to the latter.

In conclusion, companies are faced with the
challenge of telling a transmedia story that can
engage users and convert sales whatever the
initial contact medium or platform may have been.
Integration between online and offline marketing
strategies is key, and it involves changing the
ways marketing departments have worked till
today. Qualitative and quantitative data about
user behaviors and actions can be a great tool to
help companies design more effective cross-
platform marketing campaigns. While online
advertising rules in the marketing landscape of
today, companies that master cross- platform
integration can achieve results that are
virtually impossible without it.
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• Image Credit - Jason Howie
• About the author
• Writer and film producer born in Uruguay.
  Veronica holds an MA in Creative Writing and a
  Marketing Diploma. She has a travel blog at The
  Wander Life and she is the head of Néktar Films.
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