Properly Adding Multi-channel to the Mix

The most important component, and I cannot stress this enough, is developing a multi-channel strategy that incorporates both marketing and sales. Have your teams work together to establish the bottom line of your multi-channel efforts, and define:

• Who you want to reach; the target audience you want to stay in front of.
• What you want to say; what makes your company the best choice? Why are you different from your competitors?
• When will your multi-channel efforts be most effective?
• Where will your multi-channel efforts be most effective?
• Why are the tactics you have chosen the best path for success?
• How can you establish an execution strategy to market not only your brand and solutions, but also your customers’?

Once you have answered these questions, map out your marketing campaigns with visual charts and calendars. Keep in mind that multi-channel marketing is not a sprint, but rather a carefully executed relay race between sales and marketing, which requires orchestrated and practiced handoffs, that when done right will drive your prospects down the funnel.

Fortunately for MSPs struggling to handle the volume of multi-channel marketing and communications, several technological advances in customer communications management have emerged. In my next article, I will discuss the value of implementing the use of your business’s CRM and other marketing platforms to organize and automate your leading-edge marketing campaigns.

Objects in the Mirror
If you drive a car and even if you don’t, chances are you know the classic warning, “objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.” These words, which we see daily, are a prevalent theme in the problems that printers and MSPs are presently facing. The classic predicament of knowing that something was coming, but not realizing it would approach so quickly, has left many businesses stuck in the dust of the industry leaders racing by.