Mihir Karkare, Co-founder & EVP at Mirum India exemplifies what is a marketer’s multi-channel orchestration.
Marketers have several channels available at their disposal, from email, SMS and social to chat and kiosks. the pros and cons of each, and how marketers choose the channel keeping these in mind.
- SMS: Immediacy is its biggest strength. However, increasingly, it is considered intrusive (especially if used indiscriminately, as it often is)
- Email: It has the ability to tell a story and build a long-term connect. However, younger audiences don’t pay as much attention to it as older ones
- Push: Immediacy, coupled with rich, personalised information, is what sets push (especially app push) apart. At the same time, it is getting increasingly cluttered, what with every app on your phone and website in your browser competing for your attention
So, what is multi-channel orchestration and what place does it have in a marketer’s arsenal?
A consumer’s relationship with any brand transcends any one channel. Equally important is the fact that consumers today interact with most brands on multiple channels. If a brand does not tailor its communication to one channel keeping in mind what interactions have happened on others, it risks giving the consumer a completely disjointed experience.
Examples abound:
- A consumer has logged a service issue over the phone but continues to get promotional emails and texts from the same brand, causing a further negative rub off
- Someone who has just purchased a product keeps seeing remarketing ads as he or she surfs the web
- Despite having expressed an interest in a product, say via an app, the customer sees a different one on the website
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Multi-channel orchestration (typically done via marketing automation tools) allows brands to avoid such situations. Every message the consumer receives, irrespective of channel, is customised and keeps in context the previous communication with the brand irrespective of the channel. This leaves a decidedly better impression on the consumer and, as case after case shows, it’s good for business.
There are other advantages:
- Channel preference: We can track relative performance for every consumer across multiple channels. The platform can then be configured to reach out to the consumer on the best performing channel
- Capping the number of times you reach out to a consumer: Since we can now get a holistic picture of how many times we have reached out to a consumer, we can make a better decision about whether a message should be sent or not
- More responsible marketing: Related to the above point, knowing how a person is responding to our communication on all channels allows us to market to them in a more responsible manner
While each channel or platform individually has great strengths (like Thanos’ Infinity Stones), multi-channel orchestration, ie, using them all in tandem can have an even more
significant impact.
