Omni-Channel Marketing: Here’s Why It Matters

July 20, 2020 | EveryAction Team
Omni-Channel Marketing: Here's Why It Matters

Meeting your supporters where they are has increasingly become a moving target in the last decade, as technology has rapidly advanced and a multitude of new communication channels have arisen. Omni-channel marketing acknowledges that your supporters are likely not all in one place, and not only in one place. Communicating your message via multiple channels at once not only increases your reach, but compounds the effects of each individual channel. In this blog post we’ll cover some of the benefits of an omni-channel marketing strategy, and how it can be used effectively in the nonprofit world.

What is omni-channel marketing?

Omni-channel marketing is a strategy based around consistent messaging and branding across digital applications – email, website and forms, and social media – while also working in conjunction with direct mail, telephone, and other types of offline contact.

These days, omni-channel marketing now also includes mobile or SMS messaging, which has recently seen significant growth in popularity.

It is ultimately the integration of the who, what, what, and where: the audience, the message, the timing, and the channel, respectively. This means there is intentional, strategic coordination in what message your organization is telling its selected targeted audience across the different communication channels they are consuming. An omni-channel marketing strategy can provide supporters with a holistic experience centered on their preferences and behavior.

How effective is omni-channel marketing?

Taking an omni-channel approach to your existing campaigns, such as direct mail, can result in even greater success. Mobile is also an emerging communication medium that nonprofits should pay closer attention to, especially when incorporating into a comprehensive marketing strategy. Here are some stats and case study data points reporting on its effectiveness and why nonprofits should look to adopt an omni-channel marketing strategy if they haven’t already.

  1. Direct mail with digital ads yields a 28% higher conversion rate
  2. The combination of one or more digital media with direct mail leads to a 118% increase in response rate compared to using direct mail only
  3. View-through revenue (donations from supporters who have been served an ad but arrived at the donation page through another means) accounted for 43% of all digital ads giving in 2019
  4. The Smithsonian saw a 12-29% boost in direct mail performance after sending a leader email before performing a major direct mail campaign
  5. Mercy Corps saw a 5.4% increase in the number of new monthly donors and a 3.8% increase for credit card monthly donor revenue after incorporating an omni-channel strategy

As we’ve mentioned before in our 10 Steps to a Modern, Omni-Channel Direct Mail Program content offer guide, although fundraising is increasingly taking place online, direct mail is still an integral part of nonprofit fundraising. It’s time to stop pitting online and offline channels against each other, and instead use them to complement each other. When online and offline channels are used in tandem, the results speak for themselves.

Your fundraising is more effective when all of your channels are aligned, and they’re easier to run when they’re all together in one convenient, unified CRM.