Cross Channel Marketing & Direct Mail Alternatives

Key Fact
$2.064 trillion in sales forcasted for 2007 as a result of direct marketing.
(The Direct Marketing Assoc.) ________________________________________________

Cross–channel Marketing

Cross–channel marketing is the most effective way to establish your brand and capture mindshare with your target audience.  Increase your response rates and long-term marketing success through a multi-touch approach that integrates print, online and in person advertising. 

Print advertisements reach your audience through a channel they can touch with their hands.  Your appearance in a respected magazine communicates that your organization is established and builds reader trust and rapport.

Online advertisements convey that you are cutting edge and responsive, ready to serve and immediately available.  This is typically the best source to capture leads and with clearly trackable results you have a window into the effectiveness of your messaging.

In person you have the opportunity to deepen relationships with customers.  You can have extensive conversations about their needs and the solutions you offer to meet those needs.  In person you distinguish your organization, products and services from other providers.

Cross-channel marketing is effective because it reaches your target audience in multiple locations, and thus strengthens your brand in their mind.

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Build a Loyal Customer Base

Customer Loyalty means nothing less than getting people so jazzed about your brand that they become engaged contributors to your company’s sales, marketing, and innovation efforts, and ultimately its success. How does that happen? By knocking down the walls between “you” and “them” and creating a larger, looser community that is inviting to both your constituents and your employees. Starbucks and Costco have proven big companies can be adept at cultivating extremely passionate customers, shrinking the advantage smaller companies traditionally have had from their closer relationships with their base. Small companies must spot loyal customers and start real conversations with them. Customers should have multiple ways to express their views. Employees should then respond by addressing their concerns, enlisting their involvement, and collecting their suggestions to improve existing products and services and create new ones. Research by Bain & Co. over the past decade found revenues of companies with the highest levels of customer loyalty grew more than twice as fast as those of their competitors.
(BW Small Biz, Winter ’06)

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For decades the marketing model has been to push messages down to consumers. Not so today! Consumers want marketing that is more relevant and more precisely targeted. They want a different kind of relationship in which they are in control and receive value for the time and attention they give marketing. Consumers are so empowered and proficient today, they don’t need marketers anymore. They want products, and as far as they’re concerned, they can purchase them without marketing. Perhaps the most valued role of marketers today is to find effective ways to get aligned with what consumers want.
(Coming to Concurrence by Walker Smith, Ann Clurman and Craig Wood)

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Fast Facts

Customers rank salespersons as the most important factor in their buying decisions, even more important than price, quality and availability. (CRM 12/06)

US consumers are projected to spend $55.5 billion to purchase 3.17 million books in 2007.

Get it Right or Lose More than 90% of online shoppers abandon a web store after 3 or fewer unsuccessful efforts to complete a purchase. 75% of online shoppers complain web sites generally load to slow, and more than half will switch to a competitor’s site when this happens.
(Internet Retailer 1/07)

Religious book sales were up 28.2% in January, ($34.6 million), according to the Association of American Publishers (AAP). That compares to an 8.3% drop in December and 10.2% for ’06. Sales for all book categories were up 6.4% for the month. (Christian e-Tailing 3/20/07)