Articles
Solving Today’s Multichannel Challenge: A Practical and Tactical Exploration of the Most Effective Marketing Methods
Ron Jacobs, President, Jacobs & Clevenger
Creating multichannel campaigns is a study in complexities. Offline media are increasingly used to drive traffic online. And, online media have become imperative when integrated with the most successful offline campaigns. While marketers push information to customers and prospects across a spectrum of media, consumers pull information from their favorite channels at an increasing rate.
In order to be effective, multichannel communications require significant customer insight, coordination and accountability. This includes identifying the best targets, adapting to ever-evolving message delivery options, reaching markets with ever-increasing velocity, and generating measurable Return on Marketing Investment in the short and long term.
To accomplish this, marketers must drill deeply into customer knowledge to identify and prioritize market differentiators, carefully consider all possible touch points and their integration, shape each message to maximize the appropriate communication stream, recognize the distinct differences and individual preferences of customers, and understand that different communications do not necessarily share the same objective.
In short, marketers must have a multichannel process that can adapt to maximize customer value on every level, and deliver ROI for every campaign.
One approach has been highly successful for both business and consumer applications in virtually every sector.
This process involves four distinct steps:
1. Understand every customer and the most effective way to segment. The starting point is to closely examine individual customer and prospect groups to identify segments of opportunity that best match the organization’s objectives.
It may be important to focus on most valuable or most growable segments. Or, defining segments by demographics or lifestyles may yield the greatest results.
In addition, marketers must become familiar with every aspect of the customer experience. This is achieved by learning both the behavioral drivers and motivational factors effecting purchasing decisions and attitudes.
This new depth of knowledge allows for more clearly definable and applicable segmentation models for marketing efforts.
2. Define clear objectives and determine measures of success. The next step leads to both quantitative and qualitative measurements of effectiveness.
To achieve sound measurements, one must begin with clear and actionable objectives. It is important to identify and define the dimensions of each objective, determine the measures which will be used to gauge outcomes related to each objective, and identify the desired level of performance and the desired time frame associated with each objective.
Some practical examples of clear and actionable objectives include growing select segments by a desired amount, increasing qualification rates over time, improving conversion rates throughout the duration of a campaign, and realizing sales efficiencies by supplementing lead generation activities with complementary touch points, such as telequalification or micro sites.
The learnings gained in this phase should also prove highly valuable in the long term, because they may be applied against future efforts to build customer loyalty and sustain optimal growth on an ongoing
3. Determine the most appropriate contact strategy.
There is no universal formula in this phase, because the most effective contact strategies and messaging options are as individual as the specific segments which drive them. Adding to the burden, it is likely that different segments consume media differently. The use of highly personalized communications across various media has proven to greatly improve results.
Marketers report increases of five to ten times in both response and conversion rates when they use customized, personalized messages. These consumer relevant communications use customer/prospect data to customize the messages, conceive the offer and deliver it across the preferred channels. Carefully sequenced multichannel campaigns that mix direct response and transactional branding communications often increase these results, while helping to establish brand relationships as well.
Used in this way, multichannel communications are effective for direct marketers, traditional marketers, consumer marketers and business-to-business marketers alike. Multichannel communications provide many affordable and efficient ways to fill an organization’s sales and marketing funnel.
4. Craft the messaging and offer that will resonate best with each segment.
The final step crystallizes the efforts of the three preceding phases, and is firmly grounded in their key learnings.
What’s important at the execution phase is to leverage the full breadth of marketing channels. Adding personalized direct mail, transactional branding ads, permission email, targeted banner ads or specialized communications such as webinars can dramatically increase an organization’s Return on Marketing Investment. They benefit from the immense multiplier effect gained from using multiple, coordinated channels.
However, marketers can’t simply convert users to new channels. Best of class marketers don’t replace channels, nor attempt to migrate consumers to unknown channels. They learn what channels customers already use, and offer additional new channels and channel combinations that meet those needs.
This execution step also provides the ultimate litmus test, as a strong, campaignable idea is applied across multiple touch points. The specific messaging and offer must be clearly tailored to reflect customer value, leverage brand equity, and spotlight any important competitive advantages.
In the end, there are several key reasons that this process has proven so successful in solving today’s multichannel challenges.
It begins with a deeper understanding of customers; is designed around clear objectives; is based upon customer value; and is tailored and adaptable to form a more meaningful and responsive connection with every customer.
In addition, it takes advantage of the power of involvement in media, involvement that engages prospects and customers as a first step to relevant customer experiences.
