Hello blogosphere! And thanks to last month’s Marketer’s Consortium blogger, Akin Arikan, who’s on-line/offline postings are a great segue into this month’s first post. Check out Akin’s blog at: http://multichanneltimes.com/.
I’m in complete agreement with recent research from Forrester’s Laura Ramos that “B2B marketers should take the plunge and use online ads, microsites, blogs, and video as part of an integrated marketing mix”, yet don’t forget to use a portion of your demand gen efforts to go retro where it makes sense. Highly targeted direct mail may seem ancient, but it can still be a vital component of your multi-channel mix.
According to Sirius Decision’s Jonathan Block “about 9% of the B2B demand gen budget is spent on direct mail, yet it can be highly effective.” While I’m lucky enough to get to understand marketing challenges, strategies, and successes from a variety of Unica clients, very rarely do I get to see their granular demand gen results, so I’ll use a recent Unica campaign to illustrate my point. We recently ran a highly targeted new product cross-sell campaign with multi-dimensional direct mail as a good part of the mix. The number of leads generated was about 5X higher than similar multi-touch on-line campaigns.
To close, what types of multi-channel campaigns are working best for you? Any insights into what's working best with new tools like blogs and video? Please share your thoughts and experiences!