The most important thing about any approach going with a go-to-market technique is usually the buyer and the buying process. It is the seller’s responsibility to adapt its strategy in such a market space; it’s not the market’s responsibility in changing to any company. Buying can now be termed as a continuous and dynamic process in almost every industry; it’s an on-going motion picture and not a selfie or snapshot in one channel.
With technologies and research that facilitate all the easy price and product comparisons, a prospect and an order touch multiple points as a part of the distribution channel for most of the products and services.
To build the multi-channel marketing dimension first, you must always avoid a false dichotomy. In many such companies, a lot of time and energy is wasted on debating whether to go with the sources of being online or in-person.
Multi-channel marketing is the current required norm, and that means it will work effectively with partners who are influential in various other streams of the journey of customer buying from search to purchase and even to post-sale service.
In most multi-channel marketing industries, the competitive strategy involves a rivalry between all the competing channel systems, not only between particular individual firms.
Choosing and managing the various channel partners is essential in a multi-channel marketing system because they align with your strategy and selling efforts. In the past decade, the good news is that the tools for such channel management have broadened widely, and they are now coming down in price with increasingly user-friendly behavior.
Companies with multi-channel marketing now have even more options and a bigger space for the playbook. Depending upon the category, it can include social media, influencers, paid search as well as distributors with the addition of value-added resellers, other partners, and marketing vehicles.
The bad news can be that the managerial complexity in the multi-channel marketing aspect of the business has increased so much, and many of the Sales outsourcing, in particular, are not adequately trained or equipped in dealing with certain new realities and opportunities.
There are certain principles on which multi-channel marketing usually works on, and they are:-
- No channel is capable of managing itself, even if the partners have many complementary products with the right incentives. It has to be actively managed on an on-going active basis. However, some big firms go with the process of really decentralized collections of branch offices or vertically-focused units. Channel management occurs when branch-by-branch and unit-by-unit nurturing happens, and then the joint success is promoted at the next branch or unit.
- Even when you have the best of incentives, the on-going market changes need increased market access for growth, which typically means that there is some conflict in a multi-channel marketing approach. Too many managers believe that this principle is present to avoid any kind of disputes.
That’s not right because, in the end, the key is to manage any possible conflict profitably. A multi-channel marketing approach should always work towards increasing the size of such a pie, and then still, the argument focuses on how to divide the pie. The managerial principle lies first to concentrate on making a pie as big as possible and then arguing over something worth discussing!
A multi-channel marketing approach involves a trade-off between control and resources. There is usually a trade-off between abilities to control all the vital channel functions and keeping in mind the financial or human resources required to exercise that control.
The other and more channel partners as and when gets involved in getting your product to the market and the less power you can generally apply over the flow of that product through the particular channel, the way it serves and is presented to the customers, along with the levels of post-sale service or delivery and provided information.
The principle identifies here all those functions where all the highest standards of quality control are majorly required versus all those where “good enough” can sufficiently suffice.