LEWIS whitepaper multichannel guide i

INDUSTRY GUIDE

MULTICHANNEL MARKETING Define, Design and Deliver Campaigns with Impact Part One: The Science

Multichannel Marketing Part One: The Science

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Multichannel Marketing Part One: The Science

CONTENTS Introduction 4 Setting campaign goals Defining metrics and accurate reporting

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Building operational foundations 8

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Multichannel Marketing Part One: The Science

INTRODUCTION Today there are more ways to reach customers – both in terms of volume and variety of channels – than we could have imagined only a few years ago. And as the number of channels continues to rise, the need to embrace multichannel marketing will become not only a good idea, but a critical one.

Multichannel marketing is important for the simple reason that you must be where your customers are. And they are everywhere. If you need another reason, consider this: multichannel customers spend three to four times more than single-channel customers do.

Our multichannel marketing research revealed that the majority (73 per cent) of marketers are allocating less than half of their marketing budgets to multichannel marketing.

Key challenges of multichannel marketing: Targeted messaging Thanks to the plethora of channels and choices facing customers, delivering the right message to the right audience isn’t enough. Not only must your customers receive your message, but they also must be attentive, receptive and willing to act – regardless of the channel.

Highly orchestrated campaigns Expecting customers to change channel or device preferences is unrealistic.

As a result, marketers must constantly develop and coordinate highly orchestrated touch points and micro-campaigns that span multiple channels fluidly, in a way that the customer finds meaningful and trustworthy.

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Multichannel Marketing Part One: The Science

Marketing response attribution It is increasingly difficult to know which channels, campaigns or sequence of touch points contributed to qualified conversions and sales. Knowing what triggered each response would enable marketers to assess whether or not their marketing efforts were getting the best results.

We have produced a series of guides to help you define, design and deliver effective multichannel campaigns and maximize your key channels.

Each guide provides strategic insight on a particular phase of a multichannel campaign, to give you a holistic view of multichannel marketing strategy development and implementation: Part One: The Science focuses on the discovery, assessment and planning stage of a campaign.

Part Two: The Art focuses on defining the story, the creative and developing tailored content that appeals to your target audience.

Part Three: The Delivery focuses on your strategy for delivering the story to your target audiences and integrating and maximizing your key channels.

Part Four: The Results focuses on the reporting and evaluation phase of your campaign; real-time reporting and optimization and creating actionable insight.

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Multichannel Marketing Part One: The Science

SETTING CAMPAIGN GOALS The foundation of a strong campaign starts with understanding the goals, the metrics for success, the segments, and the personas you’re targeting.

And while much of that can be based on experience and “gut”, you want to have the numbers and research to confirm, clarify, or challenge your theory so that you know you’re setting yourself up for success.

It all starts with the goal – you can’t build a strong campaign, and you can’t claim success, if you don’t know what you’re aiming for in the first place.

This is one of the biggest and most common flaws in campaign planning.

Campaigns are often built and executed without a clear view of the desired business impact. That’s the key – the business impact. What are your desired outcomes?

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Qualified leads that convert to opportunities?

Measureable traction in a new market?

An increase in customer renewals or retention?

Overall pipeline growth?

Greater channel productivity?

Focusing purely on click-throughs, follower growth or registration figures as indicators of campaign success isn’t good enough. The ultimate goal for any campaign should be in some form of measureable business impact – aligned with key business objectives. Everyone involved in the campaign needs to understand what that is so that they can plan and adjust to make sure that’s what they achieve.

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Multichannel Marketing Part One: The Science

DEFINING METRICS AND ACCURATE REPORTING Once you understand the goal, you need to identify the numbers or benchmarks that will determine success. The key here is getting endorsement from all of the parties who will be affected by the results.

Specifically, you need to include your sales team – or whoever will be responsible for follow-up and conversion – in defining those goals. It may be sales leadership, it may be inside sales, it may be a channel partner, it may be the executive who approved the budget for the campaign in the first place, or it may be all of the above. But they all need to be in agreement during the planning process, before the campaign actually launches.

And that same “committee” should also receive regular reports on campaign progress along the way, versus one summary at the end. This will give the campaign proper visibility and credibility, and it will allow for the necessary assessment and adjustment along the way to help ensure that the campaign stays on a successful track. For example, checking in with inside sales after an initial outreach to get a sense for the quality of the first respondents will help you determine whether to stay on the current course or adjust your profiles or personas to get to a more qualified or enthusiastic audience.

Our multichannel marketing research revealed that only 38 per cent of marketers actively use measurement to track campaigns and refine channel activity and spend throughout the campaign cycle.

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Multichannel Marketing Part One: The Science

BUILDING OPERATIONAL FOUNDATIONS You should also ensure that you set up any supporting systems or infrastructure correctly from the beginning – sales automation, marketing automation, analytics tracking etc. Build the operational foundations early on and define the dashboards that you’ll use to measure the results of the campaign. You will get a more immediate sense of what’s working, what’s not, and what levers to pull to help drive greater response on the next round.

It will also help you ensure reporting accuracy at each step of the way.

For more insight on campaign reporting and optimization Read Part Four: The Results.

Once you’ve set your campaign goals, key metrics and have your operational foundations in place, it’s time to tackle the story development and content creation.

Read Part Two: The Art to learn how to develop a deep understanding of your target audience and effectively package your campaign to appeal to their pain points and interests.

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Multichannel Marketing Part One: The Science

With contributions from:

About us LEWIS Pulse is the digital marketing team of LEWIS PR, a full service global integrated communications agency. LEWIS Pulse specializes in social media marketing, search engine marketing, advertising, web design and development, analytics, content and mobile marketing. LEWIS Pulse serves a full range of client industries including technology, financial services, automotive, consumer, travel, sports and healthcare.

Find out more at www.lewispulse.com or contact us at hello@lewispr.com Š Copyright LEWIS Pulse. 2015 all rights reserved.

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