A Multichannel Marketing Roadmap

Forget about managing your relationship with your customer. Today, she manages the relationship with you! by Martha Bush of SIGMA Marketing Group

This new fact becomes real in every dialogue or customer interaction you have. When your customer or prospect finds the information they were looking for – or were ready for – they feel satisfied and empowered. On the other hand, if they can’t put their finger on the right information they feel confused and frustrated, and they rightfully take it out on the last place that didn’t deliver satisfaction – your website, your email, your direct mail, your call center.

These dialogues happen at many touchpoints – or in many channels – from the first visit to a retail store or the website – and dozens of other places as well — both online and offline. Making multichannel marketing work means having a contact and messaging strategy for key member segments and every one of the key touchpoints they are likely to use. You need an understanding of what makes those individual dialogues successful. For multichannel marketing to be manageable, process is critical, as the number of components will be large and will grow exponentially as you experiment with new channels like mobile and social.

A must for multichannel, multi-segment programs is tight integration between creative strategists, marketing analysts, and the marketing technology team. Each marketing solution must be collaboratively designed with strong process management across each of these competency areas – and the creative design of campaigns is where this integration comes together, creating the moments of truth with your customers.

Continues at:  A Multichannel Marketing Roadmap: Messaging Strategy and Campaign Design.

Related articles

• Inception: multichannel marketing that works like a dream (econsultancy.com)
• Best defence: governing your multichannel campaigns. (econsultancy.com)
• How HSN’s New Crowdsourcing Project Could Shake Up Online Retail (mashable.com)
• Neuromarketing – Ads That Whisper to the Brain (printmediacentr.com)