Three ways to be a multi-channel marketer

I'm no fan of buzz speak but right now there's one phrase floating around the internet ether that I'd recommend paying attention to - 'multi-channel marketing'. Or in other words, taking an integrated approach to all your online promotional activities.

It's easy to think of email campaigns as being quite self-contained. But developing an awareness of the way all your different online activities feed off and complement each other is essential.

Even if you're already combining your email promotion with a wider internet marketing strategy, the chances are you could be missing a trick or two.

Whether you outsource your emails or handle them in-house, here are three key ways to integrate your email promotion with internet marketing activities that will maximise the effectiveness of your campaign.

It's all about your web content

One of the most common mistakes made by email marketers is the assumption that a newsletter needs to be packed full of information. They are forgetting the main point - that email newsletters are merely a taster - they are portals to your website, not vehicles for long-winded communications.

This means you need to think carefully about the content you publish in your email promotion and internet marketing mail outs. Make sure it works in tandem with your website in terms of structure and audience. When planning a campaign always ask yourself - will this information fit on my website? Is it really valuable to my audience? If the answer's no, don't include it.

Optimise, optimise, optimise

Optimisation is pretty much the central theme of online marketing. Whatever your product or service, if you want people to find you online it's almost always worth optimising all your copy.

If email marketing is all about driving traffic to your website make sure your landing pages are optimised. And here's a handy hint: to help boost your rankings, use the same keyterms in your email link that you've used on the optimised landing page.

Where else should you be visible?

So now you've developed your email promotion with an internet marketing strategy in mind, you're driving traffic and boosting your search rankings - but don't stop there. You've produced all this content - why not spread it as widely as possible?

Think about where else you could make it available that would be helpful to your target audience. Could it be seeded out to some of the places they already frequent online, like social media networks, blogs or forums? People are asking questions online all the time - has your editorial content got the answers they are looking for?

Get integrated

Email promotion and internet marketing strategies are (as the old adage goes) so much greater than the sum of their parts - so don't limit yourself. Multi-channel marketing requires broadmindedness - it's about accessing your audience wherever they are. Whether they're 'Googling' a product or service, joining a group on Facebook or looking for advice in an online forum, you can make sure that at every relevant point, you're always close at hand.

About the author:
Nigel Cooper is Operations Director of integrated web marketing agency Qube. A successful writer and editor, Nigel is also an expert in search engine and social media marketing.