News
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Game of Seek and Hold for Multichannel Marketers
Today’s consumers have an overabundance of
communication channels available to them, and with
the arrival of the tech-savvy consumer, marketers
must take a multichannel approach to reach them, and
hold them.
Marketers are seeking out ways to connect with their
customers and to hold their attention. According to
Yolanda Noble, CEO of Corporate Mailing Matters,
“The notion of a consumer as a passive, mono-mediac
is outdated and nowadays, each customer will have a
preferred communication medium, which may even vary
between the different products or services that an
organization may offer.”
Multichannel marketing is offering customers more
than one way to buy something - for example, from a
Web site as well as in retail stores. For
manufacturers, multichannel marketing also includes
the use of partners, sometimes known as channels,
who market directly to the customer as consultants,
re-packagers, or retailers.
For retailers, advocates claim that, in addition to
offering the customer more options, multichannel
marketing allows a business more opportunities to
interact with customers - each channel can help
promote the other channels. Since Web site and
phone-in mail orders collect information about the
customer that a retail sale may not, these channels
make it possible to develop mailing lists for future
promotions and branding campaigns.
So where should marketers and CRM professionals
focus their attention?
Research carried out in 2003 revealed that consumers
pay almost twice as much attention to statements and
correspondence than they do to direct mail or TV
advertising. And, since every household receives
bills and statements of some kind on a regular
basis, why not make these pay for themselves? By
using existing communications channels to insert a
marketing message, the cost of design, print and
mail can be greatly reduced.
The most attractive feature of this approach for any
experienced direct mail marketer is that, due to the
critical and personal nature of these documents,
customers always open them and usually keep them.
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