Creating The Company You Have Always Dreamed Of

How Channels Factor Into Multi-Location Marketing

8 September 2022 by Ana Weaver

Connecting with audiences in multiple locations is a critical part of marketing strategies. A typical multi-location marketing system accomplishes this by using what are known as channels. Let's look at what channels are in this context and how you might build a strategy around them using a multi-location marketing platform.

What Are Channels?

In the online marketing world, a channel is a specific class of apps or websites that follow a strong theme. Social media, for example, represents one channel on most models. Video sharing is another channel. Email marketing, blogs, and other presences are channels in their own right.

Generally, the user's behavior dictates what an in-between channel might be considered. For example, TikTok is a short-form video platform, but users tend to use it for quick social reactions more than they do intense viewing sessions like video sharing on YouTube.

Localization

A multi-location marketing platform should allow you to build hundreds or even thousands of localized campaigns. Suppose a sports apparel company wants to connect with football fans in all of the major NFL and NCAA markets. They can use localization to quickly deploy campaigns aimed at every customer profile. If there's a college campus near a pro team, the localization level could drill down to the college neighborhoods to leverage the distinction.

Asset Repositories 

A multi-location marketing system will also tend to centralize repositories of assets. The apparel company from the earlier example might employ a standardized jersey and then impose the team details on it. Keeping an asset repository will make it easier for channel managers to piece together campaign elements because they won't have to develop everything from scratch.

Central Brand

Notably, creating highly localized campaigns on a multi-location marketing platform can make a brand unbalanced if you let it run for free. This is especially true if you're using machine learning and automation to create campaigns on the fly. Consequently, you have to install some guardrails for the central brand. Particularly if you have a strong national or even regional brand, there may need to be some hard-coded limits in the campaign structure that ensures logos, color schemes, and tag lines remain consistent.

You should also have brand standards to guide the local channel managers. If a manager needs to generate a social media post, they should base it on a set of brand standards regarding energy levels, demographics, and tone. A wealth management company probably isn't going to be as playful in its college football morning social posts as a burger chain might be. The tonal difference should appear in written brand standards.

To learn more, contact a company like Irio.

Share  

Search