A multi channel approach can increase your reach and impact and ultimately your ROI.
I know it can be very tempting to stick to a single channel or the same channels for your media planning as you may have been on them for a while, have probably learned the ins and outs of the platforms and mastered it there.
However, it is worth investigating other channels to see if they fit your audience to help you grow your campaign’s effectiveness. Adding one or more channels to your media mix can already help you increase your media ROI significantly.
Extensive research by WARC has shown that by increasing the channel mix from one to two platforms can increase the ROI by 19%. And it keeps increasing the more channels you add to the media mix. For example, based on the research, running a campaign with 5 platforms has seen an uplift of up to 35%.
But which channels to choose to increase effectiveness?
Reach needs to be build up efficiently to make your media investment work hard for you. A mix of mass reach channels and digital channels have proven to be most effective.
Adding TV to the mix can boost the campaign’s effectiveness by 40%. Adding OOH (Out Of Home) has seen increases of ROI of up to 37% (digital and outdoor OOH) according to WARC research. Even if performance is your key objective, mass reach channels can boost the overall effectiveness as they allow to build up maximum reach to get your brand top of mind and into consumer’s consideration set.
Online video (OLV) can also enhance the media mix and the campaign’s efficiency. If you have the budgets to run TV, adding OLV to the media mix has seen increases of effectiveness of up to 24% (Les Binet and Peter Field).
I appreciate that mass reach channels like TV are not in everyone’s budget realities. But there are other channels to explore.
OOH for example can be bought highly targeted for certain areas and day times (digital OOH). You can focus on specific cities, neighborhoods, streets or single sites even. All depending on what is most relevant to your brand and objectives. And digital OOH screens allow for agility as well. You can react to current events or even the weather forecast, if it is relevant to your product and message, to increase relevancy.
Digital radio, music streaming or podcasts can help drive reach in an environment that is consumed very differently compared to social media or websites. These platforms will allow you to address your target audience in a different mindset which can increase driving cut through of your messaging. On streaming platforms like Spotify or podcasts channels you rarely share the advertisement space with other advertisers which gives you a much higher chance to get the listener’s attention.
Print might fit very well into your target audience’s media consumption as well. Newspapers have proven to contribute to the ROI for brands that I have worked on in the past. And while there is a lot of talk about that print is dead, there are still strong performing titles that can enhance your media mix.
Digital nowadays is key in almost every media mix, be it social or desktop or online video. And while TV and OOH have proven to add significant increase to the effectiveness, digital has also proven to contribute to the campaign's effectiveness. The mix of digital and offline has shown the highest increase in effectiveness. According to iab’s media effectiveness study adding mobile and desktop to the mix can lead to an increase in aided awareness of up to +10% (when running TV, Print and OOH).
What to consider when picking channels?
What is important is to add a channel that is highly relevant to your audience and delivers significant reach among your audience. Make sure you do your research about your audience’s media consumption. Look at how frequently they consume specific channels. In that way you can expand your reach and be there where they are. Each channel plays a certain role in your media mix and defining the roles is key to measure your campaign’s success.
Looking for help to optimize your media mix? I am here to support you.
Sources:
Sue Elms, How to develop an effective multichannel advertising strategy (April 2017)
WARC, Integrating media – why it matters and how to do it well (April 2020)
Les Binet and Peter Field, Marketing in the Digital Age (2016)
iab. Cross-Media Effectiveness Study (January 2017)