To get messages into the community, we’ve come a long way from the town crier or Paul Revere on horseback. We’ve even come a long way from when a newspaper ad would reach most of the people you wanted to reach. We now have, literally at our fingertips, the power to broadcast information across the world via a variety of channels.
With everyone shouting out messages everywhere we look, it’s no secret consumers are inundated and quite possibly miss your message. That’s why it is essential to recycle messaging across multiple channels, ramping up chances that they may see your ad on Facebook tonight if they missed it on a billboard this morning.
Here’s an example of a strategy called cross-platform marketing:
For our 2013 holiday message, we created a fun 30-second video, shared it, then reused it as content in other channels. Our tactics included a mix of traditional and digital media:
- Posted it on our website and our YouTube channel
- Used a QR code to link to it from a related newspaper print ad
- Talked about it multiple times on social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+)
- Wrote a blog post about the making of it (which included a second video with behind-the-scenes footage)
- Mentioned the blog post on social media
- Featured the blog post in our e-news as the lead image and article
The results?
Tracking from the date we posted the blog (Dec. 18) until today, the post is the second-most viewed page on our website, behind the home page. Unique page views on our website are up 53 percent over last year for this period.
The number of video views peaked the day we published our e-news, and the link to the blog post received four times the clicks we usually see for other links in e-news.
Take-aways from our cross-platform campaign:
- Content doesn’t have to always start from scratch. Reuse and repurpose a story you’ve already created.
- If someone missed an initial post about a topic on Facebook, maybe they’ll see it when it becomes a blog post or later in an e-news.
- Mixing traditional and digital media works – in fact, it’s essential to catch the most number of people possible, whether they’re looking online, in newspapers or listening to the radio.
- Video spurs engagement and is a good anchor for a campaign.
- Make sure the campaign directs the audience back to a specific place, such as a page on your website – and make sure that place is somewhere you’re proud to have them look!
What did you think of our holiday video campaign?
