The secret to effective multichannel campaign marketing

In the modern multichannel world, having separate contact strategies for each media just isn't good enough, and isolated channel approaches are harming customer expectations and brand management. Jeremy Bedford reveals how to achieve effective multichannel campaign marketing.

By Jeremy Bedford, Neolane (UK) Ltd.

Customers expect a consistent experience when interacting with a company - regardless of how they touch the brand. They expect to be 'known' by the companies they buy from and as such for communications to be personal and of value.

This means that when a customer responds to a campaign, has made a purchase or sought after-sales, intelligence gained should be accounted for in the future, regardless of communication channel. Preferences expressed via one media ought to be respected across others. Having separate contact strategies for each media just isn't good enough.

Unfortunately, while many companies are attempting to follow such good practice, they frequently find that with multiple channels of communication, it is difficult to ensure compliance across every touch-point.

Multiple channels is not multichannel

Marketers find that with very high volumes, the speed to market of email, its low cost nature and ease of linking to a purchase opportunity, offers the highest return on investment of the marketing channels. Some four billion direct mail items were sent to consumers in 2006. And with 87% of the UK population now owning a mobile, many consumer organisations have also incorporated SMS into their communication channel mix.

Companies are clearly generating a staggering volume of communications. But speak with most marketers, and it's pretty obvious that but for a few shining exceptions, they focus on each channel separately.

Often there is a dedicated management team for each channel, campaign project plan and set of resources. Every campaign is treated like a project, with little or no cross-channel coordination. Goals will be short term; for the one channel, for the one campaign. Channel teams may even compete for the same customer, the company's marketers trying desperately to achieve the lacklustre 1-2% response rate that seems to have become instilled in marketing mythology somehow as 'the acceptable goal' of campaign marketing.

The bottom line is that isolated channel approaches and poor personalisation lead to communications that are out of kilter with customer expectations and good brand management.

Achieving true multichannel communications

Effective multichannel campaign marketing should be a cohesive process that emphasises the delivery of consistent messages to each individual, accommodating their feedback and actions to maintain a dynamic single view of the customer's profile. Rather than operating in silos, teams must work in concert to make sure that a campaign simply uses the right blend of media to reach the customer and achieve an objective, rather than each media team having their own campaigns and their own objectives.

The aspiration of achieving a single customer view, the resultant campaign delivery and performance measurement is an oft-repeated mantra; but attainment seems to be beyond the scope of the majority of retailers.

Nevertheless, an increasing number of organisations are recognising the importance of getting it right and the technology to help firms achieve multichannel success is also rapidly evolving.

Whilst basic multichannel campaign solutions include functionality for segmentation and campaign execution, the latest solutions also enable personalisation of messaging content to meet with the customer profile and allow thousands of hyper-segmented campaigns.

Other solutions, meanwhile, also offer scenario planning for predictive analytics, whilst event-triggered marketing automation may also prove valuable for firms, where certain defined customer actions command a prescribed response. Other useful solutions could include workflow management and collaboration functionality, whilst a 'closed-loop' process where responses directly update the customer view can serve to ensure that future actions respect customer preferences and can be even better targeted.

Sales boost

The number of firms implementing an integrated multichannel campaign strategy is swelling, and some notable examples of firms that have reported success include:

• FNAC, a high-volume French retailer, saw customer values increase when it coordinated print and email campaigns. Customers who previously shopped exclusively online or exclusively in-store, spent more overall when encouraged to also shop via the alternative channel.
• Meetic is the largest European dating site (known in the UK as Dating Direct). It runs over 1,500 campaigns per month in multiple languages; some 200 million personalised content email messages. It also runs integrated SMS alerts.
• Hager, a B2B manufacturer of electrical power distribution products, now wins around 50% of its B2B sales target via leads from its coordinated multichannel campaigns. Some 1,000 new prospects a month subscribe to communications programmes.

Other firms that have enjoyed success include Zavvi (Virgin Megastores), Accor Hotels, EMI and SAS Scandinavian Airlines.

Indeed, with customers increasingly dictating how and when they are contacted, expecting value and exceptional service in every communication, implementing an integrated multichannel campaign strategy is essential to brand value, consistency of service in customer communications and the achievement of revenue objectives.

Jeremy Bedford is manager of Neolane (UK) Ltd. During a 15-year career in the software industry, he has helped numerous organisations improve their sales and marketing operations and has held senior positions at Adobe, Intrinsic (SAS), Open Text and Aprimo.

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