Cross Channel and Multi Channel Marketing

CROSS CHANNEL AND MULTI CHANNEL MARKETING

ABOUT THE BOOK
Take this example:-

John is having his morning breakfast whilst watching TV. He sees an advertisement with a gadget that he has always wanted to buy. He remembers receiving a catalogue with the gadget advertised. He goes to retrieve the catalogue and get the correct product description. Once he obtains this, he logs onto the website and does a search of the product on the company’s website. He checks to see if there are other better models. He finds most of the information he needs but there is no price information. He uses his phone to call the customer information line but the person he gets on the phone is not sure about the price as there are several different promotional events on offer. He decides to head to the local store personally and eventually purchases the product from a store.

In this example, John has used several channels to make one purchase. He has used:-
TV
Catalogue
Website
Phone
Store

John can be classified as a multi – channel shopper. More and more consumers are shopping across multiple channels. In fact, research has found that:

“Consumers are leading the multi – channel campaign for retailing whilst retailers are lagging behind.”

There was a time when it was sufficient to use a catalogue and a website as a means of communicating with your customers. This is no longer enough. Customers demand more engagement as they utilise different applications, social networks and smartphones to get information.

Many retailers realise the need of multi – channel marketing and are working towards utilising the tools available more effectively. However, very few have attained the holy grail; cross channel retailing.

Many people use the term cross channel marketing and multi – channel marketing interchangeably. This is incorrect. Multi – channel simply means to engage with your customers using different channels. Cross channel on the other hand is being able to conduct a specific campaign across channels in a co-ordinated consistent way. It is looking at the communication with the customer, from a customer’s perspective and not the retailers’ perspective. Some customers prefer to get their communication via email at a certain time whilst in other instances, the may prefer to get an SMS. Some would rather receive a catalogue on a monthly basis but may prefer social network notification during the month for special deals. Rather than bombarding your customers with several advertisements, and incurring more marketing costs, you can engage with each customer in the manner they prefer, at the right time and the right point.

This book will cover the true meaning of multi – channel and cross channel marketing from a retailers’ point of view. We discuss why it is important for retailers to consider multiple channels. We look at the customers purchase journey, taking into account the different decision points they undergo, before deciding to buy a product and any after sales service. We will specifically focus on the multi – channel customer and why we should be concerned with this particular market. We then look at the different channels individually including, in store, on-line, catalogue, mobile, TV, kiosks and casual leasing. We review how to best implement cross channel retailing and cover the potential pitfalls.