Today’s digital environment requires a little different ‘farming’ strategy than the old silo approach, where you needed to focus on quality at every aspect of a specific sale process, from initial awareness to ordering to a satisfied, engaged customer.

Putting all your energy into only one particular product, audience group or social media channel may pay off, but only for that one. Since today’s online audience can now potentially connect from any channel or device, the smart move is to offer something for all of these areas.

The modern marketplace can now be thought of as a whole farm full of smaller silos that are all connected, where you can reach more customers and potentially boost interest, site visits, orders, or other metrics for engaging with your product or service.

Besides the basic strategy of “more united ways for people to connect,” here are some other reasons this approach makes sense.

Learn more about your customers.

If customers arrive from different channels, they can provide different details about themselves, including basic info like age, location and gender. Your marketing team can find other ways to collect more info, maybe by offering incentives for Facebook quizzes, entering Instagram photo contests, or providing online registration. You’ll receive a more comprehensive look at your customer’s demographics and interests rather than from one channel – and your customers may enjoy these active promotions.

Improve search indexing

Google recently changed how it indexes pages, with higher attention to mobile-friendly sites and apps. This is excellent news for companies who have invested in mobile-friendly sites and apps along with their traditional desktop sites. Plus, customers might like being able to find you easily with a variety of searches.

Cultivate active, loyal customers

Josh Manion from Marketingland declares customers who take the effort to download your app to be “the best.” They may be closer to buying than casual customers on other channels, and can serve as unofficial brand ambassadors elsewhere. If word gets out that cool things are happening on the app, or any channel for that matter, people will find you.

Make things easier on your staff

Instead of asking team members to “interact with everyone all the time everywhere” and wait for the grumbling, you can find a single multi-channel platform that keeps track of interactions, campaigns and analytics taking place on all of them. This also can help you make sure your message is consistent, even it may look different and require different interactions on different channels.

Provide better returns

Omer Minkara, for CMOEssentials, said that a multi-channel approach doesn’t have to be complicated – his research shows that customers of businesses that offer at least four channels are more likely to visit your main site and remain loyal. But he said just adding more channels won’t automatically increase engagement – he suggests creating better content. But the results can be higher profits and higher retention.

Current digital marketing methods can be tricky, especially since customers are so fragmented due to the popularity of so many different devices. But a unified strategy to lure in potential customers wherever they connect with you can be smart and effective.

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