There have never been so many extremely personal ways to communicate with your user base. Social media, email, push notifications—we’ve never had more options, and the ability to personalize based on medium and preferences.
But it’s hard to manage all these messaging platforms and then optimize based on user cues. That’s why you need a good strategy—and solid tools—to hold your multichannel messaging program.
Gearing up for Admonsters’ (Folio:’s sister brand) upcoming webinar with Powerinbox—Multichannel Messaging Made Easy, where we’ll dive into the key elements of a successful cross-platform messaging strategy, as well as what technology will bring it to life—we caught up with Powerinbox CEO, Jeff Kupietzky to talk about why marketers and publishers struggle with messaging and why they need a platform that targets users with personalized messaging across their preferred channels at the right time.
Admonsters: Where do you see your clients struggling the most when it comes to their messaging?
Jeff Kupietzky: Publishers are struggling to reach the right person on the right platform with the right message at the right time. There are a lot of options out there for push, email and social engagement, but they’re all siloed and fragmented.
Content that works to engage a subscriber on one channel may not work on another, even for the same subscriber—it’s all very nuanced in terms of how people want to receive what content. Getting that right is very tough, and publishers need something that works and works well, across all channels.
Admonsters: Are they overwhelmed by the amount of platforms or do they perhaps struggle with automation reducing the time to manage?
Kupeitzky: I think both. On the one hand, there are so many platforms and finding ones that work to engage the intended audience is tough. Plus, while these platforms say they’re automated, many of them still require a lot of upkeep and hands-on management, which makes it time-consuming and a hassle for publishers.
Some are probably also a little skeptical that an automated system can actually do a good job of choosing the right content for subscribers, and they might also be afraid of overwhelming their audience with too many messages. You don’t want to annoy your audience and risk driving them away. A platform that can deliver that right message, right time, right channel to the right person is the Holy Grail.
Admonsters: Where do you think publishers (and brands!) get most tripped up when executing cross-platform messaging strategies?
Kupeitzky: Figuring out which message/platform/person/timing is probably the biggest obstacle, but that’s also exacerbated by shrinking budgets and staff. Publishers and brands alike don’t have a lot of resources to experiment with, and the risk of alienating audiences is very real if you don’t get it right.
That’s why having a platform in place that has the intelligent algorithm to target users with personalized messages over their preferred channel at the right time, that works across all channels and that is simple to manage is so critical.
