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‘And’ is better, 5 techniques to achieve marketing effectiveness

Posted by Sheera Eby on June 25, 2013

Thank you, Ford and Coke, for spending millions of dollars to remind us that “and” is better than “or.”  While the commercials weren’t written about multichannel marketing, it turns out that “and” applies in this case as well.

 

 

Many marketers are turning to new channels and techniques such as social media and mobile as a stand-alone solution. Marketers are turning to these new vehicles as a way to deliver new revenue, hoping there is no cannibalization with current channels.

The reality is that marketing channels work together. And almost nothing works as a stand-alone vehicle.

While direct mail is growing annually, and response rates remain steady, it doesn’t perform on its own. Two out of three people who receive direct mail make a purchase or also engage in a different marketing channel.* This demonstrates the significance of ensuring integration and cohesion of marketing messages. Here are five tips to ensuring effective multichannel response-oriented communications.

 

1. Ensure landing pages provide a cohesive extension

Landing pages are a step in the decision lifecycle. Consider where the storytelling left off from the users’ standpoint and what needs to be covered to get them to the next decision point. If the goal of the landing page is to get users to “yes,” then provide the final information necessary to get them to that point.

If you’re using personalization in outbound communication efforts such as email and direct mail, consider the use of personalized URLs (PURLS). PURLs serve a unique purpose that landing pages and websites simply do not. That’s because PURLs provide impressive tracking abilities and very strong insights. You know exactly who engaged with the PURL, what captured their interest and whether or not they moved on with the engagement or transactional process.

In addition, PURLs provide a curiosity factor that can result in a healthy bump in response. When people receive an email or a direct mail package with their name embedded in the URL, it definitely captures their attention. This can become the ultimate form of multichannel integration and lead to improved marketing effectiveness.

 

2. Marry social and email efforts

Social media marketing can’t be very effective as a stand-alone medium. Integration is required for long-term success. One of the quickest and easiest methods for marketers is to marry email efforts into the social media marketing strategy. Leverage social behavior through targeting content for lead nurturing, as well as communicating with prospects and ongoing customers.

Analyze content that drives engagement, social sharing, comments and reviews, and information downloads. As you progress toward creating a cohesive multichannel strategy, utilize this information to create integration with SEM, email, direct mail and other outbound as well as inbound communications.

 

3. Ensure each channel is optimized to its fullest extent

Marketing optimization comes down to applying best practices and testing various techniques to improve response. Optimizing a channel can improve response anywhere from 10% to 200%, making it a worthwhile investment of time and money. This is a positive for marketing effectiveness.

For the most part, each channel within a multichannel strategy has unique aspects for marketing optimization. So where should marketers start to optimize their tactics? Typically the best place to start is with measurable mediums, since these will be the easiest to determine optimization impact.

Direct response techniques are now being integrated into many different marketing communications mediums. The principles of response marketing such targeting, delivering relevancy and effective calls to action are critical to make all marketing work harder. Check out my article on optimization for specific tips on optimizing your marketing channels.

 

4. Shape the amount of information based on where the communication falls in the lifecycle

Each channel should also be focused against where it falls in the decision process and the objective for that individual tactic. For example, if your goal is lead generation, then less content can be more, but data capture components, such as lead forms, become critical. If your goal is to drive response for acquisition, then all of the content and information to get the target to a decision point is necessary. And that information should be carried across and elevated at each contact point.

 

5. Every channel can provide an action; you just have to settle on that as the primary objective

Leveraging strong and clear calls to action, compelling offers and other response best practices almost always works to improve response. While each channel is different—e.g., email versus a retargeted banner ad—following response basics almost always ensures success. Focus is always critical and often difficult to reach a consensus on among different stakeholders within the organization.

Wouldn’t it be nice if every tactic could deliver on multiple objectives? The reality is the more focus that is brought to each channel, the better the results tend to be. Our methodology is to look at the decision process as a whole, considering the role of each channel and tactic along the path. Constructing a strategy for each channel independently can often leave the prospect or customer feeling like the process is disjointed. And it can compromise your marketing effectiveness.

 

Multichannel, integrated marketing communications have gotten more complex. More and more channels exist now. And for many organizations there are many different cooks in the kitchen. The reality is that nothing really works alone. A synchronized, integrated effort will always outperform a series of independent actions.

 

We’ve created several ebooks, by channel, that can serve as a road map to analyzing and determining ways to improve the response aspects of your tactics. These techniques are proven winners. To learn more about optimizing measurable marketing tactics, check out our ebooks:

* ExactTarget 2012 Channel Preference Study

Topics: CMO

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