Understanding the importance of multi channel in B2B marketing is one thing, but understanding what all of the related acronyms, tactics and individual channels actually mean is how you can truly begin to understand this comprehensive topic.
Channel integration is key to a successful B2B multi channel strategy in creating seamless cross channel experiences, hence why recognizing the key terms in this wide area can really help to further inform your strategy and drive your multi channel approach forwards…
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We’ve put together this informative guide to multi channel, including a jargon busting glossary of key concepts that aim to harness B2B marketers with a complete understanding of the multi channel landscape in today’s digitalized world.
What is Multi Channel and How is it Being Used in B2B Marketing?
Multi channel marketing centers heavily on driving engagement and reach with your target audience. It combines various different channels to communicate and distribute your brand’s message, aiming to deliver consistent messaging across all channels.
Each channel plays a key role in achieving this, which is why monitoring channel performance is so important to determine key focus areas such as budget allocation – especially as cost is a top consideration factor when it comes to deciding which channels to utilize according to 60% of US and 56% of UK senior B2B marketing professionals.
Countless channels now exist in light of advancements in technology and changing behaviors, prompting 40% of senior B2B marketers to cite ‘budget spread too thinly across channels’ as their biggest obstacle, while almost a third (29%) find ‘providing a seamless multi channel experience’ a key challenge. The expertise required to fully understand all channels, terminology, and how these fit with the bigger picture is evidently challenging – even for experienced marketers.
Learn the Lingo: Multi Channel Glossary
To help you master the world of multi channel we’ve put together a list of the most common key terms, concepts and acronyms that you’ll likely come across with increasing frequency, as more businesses adopt a multi channel approach in their B2B marketing strategies…
Account-Based Advertising (ABA) – targets best-fit accounts through digital ad campaigns that focus on account level with high revenue potential, rather than individual leads.
Affiliate – an advertising model where businesses reward third-party publishers (affiliates) for traffic or leads to their products or services as a result of the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.
Bidding – in paid search, marketers bid the maximum amount of money they are willing to pay for each click on their ads. Which ad to run is determined by a behind the scenes auction – the outcome of which informs the platform how much each advertiser will pay for their ad to be delivered to their target audience.
Brand Awareness – a heavily debated area within marketing as it is traditionally hard to measure and therefore pushed aside for more tangible results when pressure is applied to demonstrate ROI. What it comes down to, is the extent to which customers are able to recognize and recall a company simply by becoming familiar with their brand.
Channels – the routes used to distribute and communicate a brands’ messaging to reach an audience. This can include email, paid search, paid social, organic social, programmatic display, direct marketing and so on.
Channel Alignment – a true multi channel approach requires all components of your channel activity to align to your overarching strategy. A good place to begin is by analyzing how your individual channel objectives address your primary agenda.
Conversion – the point at which a prospect responds to a call to action from your marketing methods and performs the desired action. The aim in B2B marketing is to drive conversions.
Cross Channel Experience – achieving the optimal, seamless cross channel experience requires the adoption of a blend of best-in-class tactics. The experience itself is based around delivering a consistent message across all channels, so that the experience across all channels is fully integrated and unified.
Direct Display – general advertising on websites, social media and apps via images, video, banners or other ad formats, to ultimately deliver brand messages to audiences.
Direct Marketing – allows marketers to target those with known or potential interest in their product or service offering, selling products or services directly to them. The aim is predominantly for direct response rather than brand building objectives, hence why personalization is a key factor in direct marketing.
Email – a key and powerful communication channel for delivering brand messages (via newsletters, for example) to those in your CRM. A form of direct marketing, this channel is 2nd most critical to strategy according to a quarter (25%) of senior B2B marketers.
Front of Mind Awareness – the first brand that automatically comes to mind when asked about a specific product, service or industry. Achieving this is what all brands aim for.
Mobile – the channel used by consumers to access a retailer’s ecommerce sites or apps, most commonly on a smartphone device – with 4 out of 5 people now using these to shop.
Multi Channel – the combination of various channels to communicate and distribute your brand’s message, aiming to deliver consistent messaging across all channels.
Multi Channel Experience – delivering a fully integrated and unified experience across every channel in your channel mix, to ensure channel alignment and message consistency.
Multi Channel Strategy – we can’t talk about multi channel without mentioning multi channel strategy. It’s all about being flexible, adaptive and innovative – allowing you to readily adjust your channel strategy when required and make it pioneering above competitors.
Nurture – the process of placing content in front of prospective buyers at specific stages in their buyer journey. You are subtly, yet effectively, presenting them with regular doses of key information before they even ask for it.
Organic Social – covers any form of social media marketing without any form of paid promotion activity. It can be difficult to cut through the oversaturated content environment of organic social to get seen on the right people’s feeds – as demonstrated by low reach ratios.
Paid Search – key to this channel working effectively is to master bidding strategies and optimization techniques. Paid search – along with paid social – helps to reach greater audiences while enabling organic content to reach its maximum potential, all through pay per click (PPC) ads or cost per thousand impressions (CPM).
Paid Social – social platforms are swayed towards the monetarization of sponsored posts, hence why paid social is a highly utilized channel and why almost half (46.5%) of senior marketing professionals are intending to invest more in this channel in 2022. Paid social involves displaying sponsored ads on third-party social networking platforms to target specific audiences, paying for the right to do so.
Running both organic and paid social concurrently in your multi channel strategy can help make these platforms work more effectively.
PPC – Pay Per Click. An online advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, with advertisers paying a fee every time one of their ads is clicked. Advertisers bid on click values based on keywords, platforms and audiences.
PR – Public Relations. The set of strategies and techniques determining how a company (or individual) is portrayed to the public – particularly in the media – through the information disclosed.
Programmatic Display – a set of technologies allowing advertisers to place online display ads in front of target audiences while they are browsing publisher sits carrying the ad. This involves automated, real-time bidding in the attempt to place an ad in front of specific, in-market audiences.
Remarketing – customizing display ads to regain people who have previously visited your site. This involves placing ads in other places, including blogs and news websites, with custom messages to attract them back to your site with the aim of converting once on there.
Sales Outreach – the direct or indirect process of reaching out and engaging with prospects, with the ultimate goal of conversion. This can be achieved via a multi channel approach to engage them at multiple touchpoints.
Third Party Profiles – an authorized agency, such as a digital marketing agency, who manages business information about a ‘business profile’ for a company they do not own. They are often utilized for their expertise in a field you may lack the necessary inhouse skills and knowledge of, allowing your valuable time and efforts to be focused elsewhere.
Jargon Buster: Over to You…
As you can tell, multi channel is an area of B2B marketing that has continually evolved over the years and as technologies have developed. It is still widely utilized by B2B marketers in today’s digitalized world, playing a pivotal role in helping them achieve their marketing objectives, increase brand awareness and reach greater target audiences.
Now you’re equipped with all the latest multi channel lingo, see how implementing a B2B multi channel strategy can drive your brand forwards beyond your competitors…
