Evolving from multi-channel to true cross-channel direct marketing - a Neolane white paper

Multi-channel Marketing Hits the Wall
Evolving from multi-channel to true
cross-channel direct marketingThe number of ways in which marketers can reach out to customers andprospects has grown rapidly in the past decade as traditional channels suchas outbound telephone and direct mail have been complemented by email andemerging technologies, including mobile marketing and social computing.
This broader range of choices has created a new challenge for marketingorganizations: ensuring that they meet customers' channel preferences whilepresenting consistent and coordinated information across all channels. To do"Multi-channel this effectively requires a single view of each customer or prospect and theability to centrally drive campaigns that span both traditional and emergingisn't necessarily channels. Marketers that persist in treating channels as independent silos willsuffer from continued declines in response rates and weakened customercoordinated and relationships.
consistent; Why Multi-channel is Not the Same as Cross-channelLet's start with some vernacular. Many marketers use the terms "multi-channelcross-channel is." marketing" and "cross-channel marketing" interchangeably. But they aren'texactly the same. "Multi-channel" infers the ability to drive marketing throughmultiple channels-something most marketers have certainly achieved. "Cross-channel" is different-it denotes the ability to drive campaigns that spanacross channels-same campaign, same messages, across channels. Multi-channel isn't necessarily coordinated and consistent; cross-channel is.
Email campaigns, for example, are rarely coordinated with direct mail oroutbound calling initiatives. If an organization takes advantage of emergingtechnology, such as mobile marketing, the problems caused by the lack ofcoordination are exacerbated. Disparate systems, often located both in-houseand at vendor sites, make it difficult to track interactions, and multiple, discon-nected communications can leave customers and prospects feeling angry andfrustrated.
Why are coordination and consistency important? Because they have tremen-dous impact on the customer experience. Imagine a customer's reaction toreceiving two different offers from a triple-play telephone/cable/Internet provider.One arrives by direct mail, and offers a bundle of all three services for $99 permonth. One arrives via email, and offers the same bundle at $99 per month plusas an additional incentive, a free HDTV. The consumer calls the toll-free numberon the mailed postcard, and asks about the email offer. The call center agent isn'taware of the HDTV offer and cannot honor it. The customer is annoyed and,believing the experience may be symbolic of the type of service she can expectshould she switch, decides to remain with her current provider.
These types of scenarios play out every day in hundreds of ways. Driving cross-channel offers that are centrally coordinated prevents them from happening.
The solution is the adoption of true cross-channel marketing, a fully integratedapproach that combines the attributes of multi-channel marketing with toolsthat manage customer information and marketing performance-extendingacross multiple channels, including traditional and emerging technologies, todeliver meaningful content to customers and prospects.
2The Cross-channel Marketing Maturity CurveThere is a maturity curve for cross-channel marketing. In the beginning, a typicaldirect marketing organization often outsources planning and execution of itscampaigns to agencies, letter shops, mailhouses and email service providers.Every campaign is treated like a project, with little or no coordination acrossprojects. When coordination does take place, it is manual and cumbersome.Lists are pulled and exported for each individual campaign, a process that oftenresults in the list being outdated almost immediately after it's pulled. Production"Why are time for a campaign is measured in days or weeks.coordination In time, the organization matures to the point they have one key preferred,strategic channel of interaction (for instance, direct mail) at which they excel.and consistency Often, it will decide to begin handling that channel in house by acquiring data-base marketing technology aimed at optimizing the use of this channel, whileimportant? continuing to outsource execution of other marketing channels. One by one,as the organization grows more adept at han... [download for more]