Multi-channel Acquisition Campaigns
Multi-channel acquisition campaigns add new levers to improve marketing campaign performance. They can include any combination of direct mail, email, digital, social or mobile media. To get the greatest benefit, the target audiences across the various media should overlap as much as possible.
They also introduce additional complexity and require a minimum budget to all for a sufficiently large campaign given the need for minimum test cell size for statistical accuracy within the Test and Analysis Plan. Prior to introducing new media channels, the Prospect Target Audience should be well understood to reduce the number of variables involved.
Direct mail is a media that benefits tremendously from combinations with other media that reinforce the physical mailer with multiple low-cost impressions. Here are some sample multi-channel sequences involving direct mail:
- Postal
This approach puts maximum emphasis on the mail piece with an email before and after the expected mailer in-home date that may even reference the mailer.
Another option for those with a tighter budget is as follows:
- Postal (only to opens or clickers)
This strategy is possible because we are able to provide the names and mailing addresses of those who open or click in order to send a mailer. Across three email deployments the number of opens will be in the 15 to 30% range and the number of clicks will be in the 0.5 to 3.0% range so if 100,000 recipients are emailed 3 times, the total number of mailers based on opens would be 15,000 to 30,000 and the number of mailers based on clickers (who did not already convert) would be in the 500 to 3,000 range.
Multi-channel works because when we see an advertisement in multiple media our brain is triggered to try to recollect where we saw the prior add (to a greater degree than a repeat impression in the same media). For example, using a combination of both email and digital display media, the click through rate for both media improved significantly:
- Email Only Results: 0.82% Click-through-rate
- Display Only Results: 0.24% click-through-rate
- Combined Campaign
- Email Results: 1.02% CTR or a lift of 24%
- Display Results: 0.41% CTR for a lift of 70%
Multi-channel marketing can have great benefits and positive impact on ROI and other key metrics and should be approached in a thoughtful data-driven way that fits goals and budgets. It is best thought of as a long-term project (3 to 12 months) that uses a series of campaigns with analysis of results and improvements and revised test designs as new insights are gained. This is the best (if not the only) formula for continuous ongoing improvement.