Multimedia marketing can build awareness for your brand in a powerful and unique way. Since different segments of your target market may require different marketing approaches and tactics, you may find you have to mix social media with television and print in order to reach as many prospects and customers as possible.
What is Multimedia Marketing?
Multimedia marketing is exactly what the name implies – it is a method of combining different forms of media to reach your audience and build brand recognition. The approach uses traditional media such as radio, newspaper ads, and direct mail, as well as digital channels such as email, mobile, and social media.
Many businesses that have done well using only traditional media are reticent to adopt a multimedia marketing approach that incorporates digital channels, but this is asking for trouble. According to a 2012 Survey by Pew Research Center, 62% of U.S. adults used their smartphone to get information or help them make a purchasing decision in the last month. Specifically, 30% used their smartphone to decide whether to visit a business.
This tells us single channel marketing is a thing of the past. Those businesses that want to stay ahead of the competition and thrive in all market conditions will adopt a multimedia marketing approach. With that in mind, here are seven golden rules to multimedia marketing:
1. Know Your Customers and Prospects
In order to determine which types of media will be needed to reach your entire audience, you’ll first have to take a little time to understand who your target market really is and break your entire audience down into segments. You may find your audience is mostly made up of women, but ¼ are single, ¼ are married with no kids, ¼ are married with kids and ¼ are retired empty nesters. Now, that is nice and neat math but hopefully you understand you’ve got to dig a little and come up with the personalities that make up your audience. Once you know your market segments you can uncover their characteristics to find out how they spend their money and what their preferences are for engaging with media. This will give insight into the best channels to use to connect with them.
2. Know the Right Way to Use Your Media Choices
Now that you have a firm grasp on your market segments and their media preferences, you can start to creatively develop your campaign. It’s not enough to know your audience’s preference; you’ve also got to know each media you’ll be working with. In this way, the various media are like ingredients to a dinner 
you’re preparing for guests. You may know all your guests love pasta, but if you don’t know garlic can be delicate, you may sauté it for too long and burn it, giving your dish a bitter flavor.
If you’ll be using direct mail marketing, you’ll have room for longer headlines and chunkier paragraphs. If you’ll also be using email marketing to reach a segment of your audience, you’ll want to keep the subject lines and message body brief and succinct. And, while a hard sell may be a good fit with this medium and crowd, it’s not a good fit with video and Millennials. Know your ingredients and how best to prepare them.
A final thought: Even if your aim is to market to only one segment, you most likely would benefit from a multimedia approach. Let’s say you’re targeting Baby Boomers and want to advertise in newspapers (a good choice if you want to reach this affluent bunch). You could utilize print ads mixed with digital options also offered by that newspaper publisher like placing a banner ad on their website or via their mobile app.
3. Get the Support of Senior Management
In order for any new business endeavor to succeed it must have the support of upper management; multimedia marketing is no different. Make sure management clearly understands the benefits of this advertising approach.
4. Use a Brand Book
The trick with implementing various media in your campaigns is to ensure your brand stays consistent across all channels and messages. This is why it’s a great idea to employ a brand handbook so everyone can maintain common visual standards for the use of logos, typefaces, colors, etc.
5. Have Clear Communications Objectives
You know your audience and what media they prefer, you know exactly the right way to use that media, you’ve got management on board and you have a brand book so your look stays consistent – great. Now what the heck are you going to say to customers and prospects?
With any marketing campaign, whether you’re using one medium or many, it is imperative your communication objectives are crystal clear in your mind. Make sure all of your messaging adds value to your brand’s image instead of diluting it. Most importantly, what action do you want your audience to take when they see your ads? Do you want them to visit your website for more information? Print a coupon and bring it in to your store? Sign up for a webinar? Once you know what you want your content to do for you, you can actually begin crafting it.
6. Be Customer-Centric
Take a look at your audience segmentation again to identify their needs, emotions, interests, and activities, so you can make sure your content is relevant. Your campaigns will see much more success when you wrap your communications around your customers’ and prospects’ buying process, and create a sequence of messages that move prospects through each stage.
7. Test Test Test Test and Test Again
The biggest most golden rule of multimedia marketing is you have to be committed to constantly testing your campaigns to discover an optimum communications mix. Learn from past campaigns and integrate new tools and channels to see if you can improve your ROI. Multimedia marketing is a marathon, not a sprint.
Many business owners are overwhelmed by the amount of media and channels available to them. But we say, there’s never been a more exciting time to market yourself because this diversity of solutions means you can create campaigns that fit your budget, your audience, and your business objectives.
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Image credit: Alan Cleaver
