Recently I happened to come across a Marketing Sherpa case study that I had in my archives - it still holds relevance for today's marketer. The case study tells the story of a travel agency that was promoting its email programs to people as a way to reduce the cost of servicing customers.

But instead of shifting their entire focus to email marketing and abandoning all other channels, this agency actually developed and implemented a multichannel campaign designed to reiterate their message through a variety of mediums. By simply adding some additional life-stage and income variable data to their prospect file based on their recipients' postal codes, they were able to specifically target the most affluent prospects in addition to their existing customers.

Using a combination of direct mail and email marketing to deliver personalized offers produced impressive results. According to the case study, “The team noticed that those who received both the print and email communications were twice as likely to visit their personalized web pages.” In fact, 6% of the targets who received only an email visited their personalized Web page, while 12% of those who received direct mail and an email visited their personalized Web page. But the results didn't stop at the clickthrough - from the case study, “That doubling in response also translated to twice the conversion rate and twice the revenue from customers who received both communications, as opposed to customers who only received one communication.”

The Risks in Channel-Shifting Without Intensive Strategy Optimization

I know that today, many of us are being faced with a requirement to do more with less. And while it may be tempting during these trying economic times to look to the direct marketing budget as a potential area for downsizing - after all, moving people from direct mail to email marketing is inherently cheaper - it may not be the best option. Even though the obvious cost-differential allows marketers quite a bit more leeway with the metrics than direct mail, moving people from one channel to another (in this case, from direct mail to email) is not without risks.

In asking people to tune out of one channel and tune into another channel, you are putting an inordinate amount of pressure on a single channel to perform. As we saw in the case of the independent travel agency mentioned above, and as I've seen time and time again in my work with European clients, this shift from channel to channel and from direct mail to email rarely pays off without intensive email marketing strategy optimization.

Improve Conversions by Embracing “Non-line” Marketing and Channel-Neutral Planning

The reality is that our customers live in a multichannel world, and as marketers it behooves us to approach our customers through a variety of channels. In fact it is worth remembering those very customers rarely think of different channels at all. Embrace “non-line marketing” and make use of channel-neutral planning to take advantage of every engagement opportunity. Don't discount the power of direct mail to reinforce your online and email marketing messages and drive Web traffic - rather, plan marketing campaigns that maximize the value of each channel's strengths in an integrated way that will lead to conversion rates far beyond what a single channel is capable of doing on its own.

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About the Author

Riaz Kanani (@riazkanani) is Alliances Director for Lyris. Located in London, UK he is responsible for international agencies and partnerships. Riaz is also a member of the UK DMA Email Marketing Council and a passionate advocate and speaker for email marketing, social media and the future of digital marketing.

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