There is a fundamental shift happening in the way that people consume content. The increasingly “on-the-go” buyer is influenced by a 24×7 flow of information, creating a much more complex environment for today’s marketer.
Social media and mobile devices have changed the way we consume content and interact with businesses and people. For example, according to the Email Experience Council, less than 60% of people read e-mail messages exclusively on a computer screen. And as hundreds of millions of people interact and share content across social media sites, organizations are increasingly working to understand how to optimize engagement in the social and mobile realm.
In today’s marketing environment mindshare is captured through more impactful engagement across a number of channels. Most marketers understand this and want to integrate e-mail with new channels such as social and mobile to engage audiences, but they are not sure how to start and are unclear as to how to make a business case for integrating channels.
This is where tri-messaging comes in. Simply put, tri-messaging is the proactive integration of three complementary marketing mediums (or three pillars of tri-messaging) that deliver more powerful results together: e-mail, social and mobile marketing. Tri-messaging is about ensuring that messages are written, packaged, orchestrated and unleashed for e-mail, social and mobile channels.
Tri-messaging is not just about crafting short messages that make people curious. Instead, it is about understanding how audiences prefer to engage, interact with and discuss your brands. An example of tri-messaging is a subject line, tweet and mobile text. All three have common denominators: they’re easy to consume, they pique interest and they stimulate action.
Marketers can use e-mail to develop mobile opt-in lists to reach new targets and expand their overall subscriber base. A bigger pool of qualified, engaged prospects and customers equals more revenue opportunities. By creating relevant content that encourages sharing, marketers can help transform opt-in subscribers into advocates who will then begin to promote content on their behalf. As noted in MarketingSherpa’s, Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2010, ‘more than 80% of marketers stated that social helps extend e-mail to new markets’.
The reason tri-messaging is such a compelling and impactful strategy is that it helps to extend reach and build a wider community. By driving community building and advocacy through cross-channel engagement and content sharing, tri-messaging makes it easier for end users to consume content anytime, anywhere. When content is shared by opt-in subscribers, the burden of message relevance is shifted from the marketer to the individual, as people are more likely to share content to those who are most likely to be interested in it. Tri-messaging delivers bottom line results by providing valuable content via e-mail in tandem with social and mobile enabling marketers to enhance the user experience and build loyalty, as well as acquire new customers at a relatively low cost.
Marketers are at an exciting crossroads. Never before have we had more opportunities to interact with and reach our customers in so many ways. The beauty of tri-messaging is that it helps marketers bring together marketing channels to facilitate conversations, commerce and loyalty that can be managed, measured and monetized.
