Interactive cross media marketing campaigns create stronger, multi-faceted, communication that builds brand awareness, customer loyalty, and most importantly increases response.
That’s great, but how do you build that into your marketing mix… and budget? We get this question from time to time and the answer is simple; a carefully thought out PLAN.
Cross-media marketing is not something to jump into blindly. It needs to be strategically planed and with the right plan in place you can allocate your marketing budget accordingly.
First, you need to understand your audience, where they are and how they like to respond. By understanding this you can help ensure you do not waste time, money and effort on channels and response devises that have no relevance to your audience.
Recently, we had a client say to us “Personalized URLs don’t work”. We were surprised to hear someone say this, as we have had great success with them and have case studies and references from others who have as well. The client was a loan officer and after digging deeper into the campaign we learned he was targeting low income individuals, living in multi-unit dwellings such as apartment complexes. This helped explain why he had a low response rate via the Personalized URL. Many of these people may not own computers, plus they tend not to be as comfortable with web interaction as they are with face to face or telephone communication. Understanding who you are marketing to gives you the opportunity to strategically place and tailor your message, offer and response channels.
Next it is important to have a follow up plan in place. The team needs to be raved up and know how to respond. Without a plan of what you are going to do if these people actually respond, you risk appearing unorganized and will loose potential clients before they even walk in the door. It is important that the whole organization be prepared. This might mean staggering your marketing, thus allowing your team time to follow up with the first wave before the next one hits. Also everyone should be aware of the promotion and its restrictions so they are not blindsided by a customer’s questions. It is extremely frustrating, as a consumer, to walk into an establishment with their latest promotion and the clerk acts like you are showing them something they have never seen before. Clients should not be educating employees. Also it is important to have enough staff and/or product on hand in order to contend with the new business. A direct marketer learned this valuable lesson the hard way.
A restaurant sent out 10,000, beautifully designed postcards with a great offer. The response was just what they had hoped for, an overwhelming renewed interest in their restaurant. However where the campaign fell short was that they did not have the internal staff to support the new serge of new business. This lack of planning lead to long wait times, subpar service, dissatisfied customers and ultimately a tarnished reputation.
Finally it is critical to have a plan in place to not only track the leads that come in, but to be able to identify where they came from. If you use a combination of direct mail, radio advertising and mobile marketing you need to understand where each lead comes from in order to better allocate your marketing dollars the next time. This step is often over looked yet it may be the most important.
Today marketing is moving from a transaction-based effort to a conversation. This conversation gives us the opportunity to engage and interact with our clients and prospects on an individual level. Jumping into cross-media marketing without a plan or consulting an expert is not a good move and can result in a campaign failure. However by incorporating the proper combination of cross-media platforms we can capture the attention of consumers and deliver a positive ROI.
Posted by jleder 
