Remember the good ol' days when that magical "media mix" was the way to reach target audiences at different times in different ways to keep your product top-of-mind? Even though marketing has evolved into a complex dance of customer relationships, integrated communications and personalized media, the idea of creating numerous customer touch points with a mix of interconnected channels is sounder than ever.
At its core, multi-channel marketing offers customers more than one way to buy from or interact with a company, and can incorporate both traditional and newer media. For example, let's say you want to target real estate professionals for a seminar you're sponsoring. You might rent an email list to reach one group, a traditional direct mail list to reach another and a telemarketing list to reach a third. You may get to a lot of people, but chances are, you won't reach many of them more than once.
With a multi-channel approach, you would use the same list of prospects to promote your event through two or more integrated disciplines, such as an email with an embedded link to a website, or an SMS (short message service) message reminding recipients to call to register. Delivering multiple impressions and giving prospects a variety of ways to respond can dramatically improve results.
Good to grow
Retailers and others who have mastered multi-channel marketing have proven it is a powerful way to increase customer loyalty and profitability. According to JupiterResearch, retail customers purchasing from a store through multiple channels spend an average of 14 percent more per year than those using a single channel. McKinsey & Company studies show that in retail banks, multi-channel customers are 25 to 50 percent more profitable than their single-channel counterparts. Other industries, including transportation, telecommunications and hospitality, are also enjoying big dividends from the multi-channel approach. The reason? Customers who are multi-channel users receive benefits that lead to higher purchase activity, such as:
- More convenient experiences, thanks to fast access to information, the ability to shop from home and more personalized service.
- More targeted and actionable information in the form of personalized suggestions and advice.
On the flip side, high-value multi-channel customers may come at a higher price. They are 28 percent more likely to contact customer service after making purchases than single-channel buyers, and 26 percent more likely to cite store coupons as influential in their decisions to continue patronizing online retailers. These trends underline the need for multi-channel marketers to measure customers on gross margin and lifetime value to keep investments in line with returns.
Are you getting your share?
After proving it can increase sales, profits and loyalty, multi-channel marketing should be at the top of every marketer's to-do list. A JupiterResearch executive survey, however, says otherwise. Only 25 percent of retailers segment customers according to multiple channel usage. Not surprisingly then, only 28 percent of online buyers purchase from the same store via two or more channels, leaving a huge opportunity largely untapped.
Other companies are missing the multi-channel mark by adopting a "multiple channel" approach that involves merely adding a channel such as a website and operating it independent of other marketing efforts. The key to multi-channel marketing is true integration throughout the enterprise so the components support each other and convey a cohesive image to customers.
Multi-channel marketing musts
Implementing a successful multi-channel marketing strategy requires strategic focus and a commitment to measuring results in terms of overall customer profitability and lifetime value. These essentials will help kick-start your multi-channel efforts:
Integrate your online and offline marketing functions rather than keeping them in silos.
- Extend the effectiveness of your channels by unifying customer data collected at every touch point. Push your website to your offline customer base and vice versa.
- Collect customer information through every channel and feed it back during the customer's next store purchase, through direct mail or with an email.
- Make sure buyer experiences are consistent across all channels. Multi-channel buyers expect to see the same or more offerings online than offline, and often use the online medium to support offline experiences. Promotional calendars should also be consistent, but unique online promotions can be added to maximize multi-channel customers' high purchasing frequency.
- Maintain the customer policies across channels. For example, return policies, sales credits and order fulfillment times should be the same regardless of the channel used.
- Keep your staff informed of all channel activities so they'll be prepared to assist customers and deliver the offer, regardless of the channel used to promote it.
- Encode promotional offers and channels so you can link responses and preferences to customer records for results tracking and future campaigns.
- Continually test integrated strategies developed for various customer segments. Heavy catalog and direct mail responders, for example, may behave differently from online buyers and require different communications to generate incremental sales.
- Instead of analyzing results in individual channel silos, capture transactions across all channels and allocate them to the ones that drove response using a combination of methods.
Tricia Robinson is SVP of marketing for Premiere Global Services. Read full bio.
