What if you could double or triple your lead conversions in marketing campaigns? What if you could hold a prospect's attention 30 seconds longer than you do now? How would that affect direct response advertising? What about building higher quality lists producing twice your usual results?
Marketers who implement strategies combining traditional communication channels, such as telephone and email, with innovative uses of new channels--podcasting, in particular--are generating superior results in their marketing campaigns.
Why, you ask? Because podcasting is becoming very popular in both B2B and B2C campaigns, and companies today are leveraging marketing assets that improve conversion rates. Try Googling "leveraging." I just did. The result?: 9.8 MILLION hits clearly demonstrating the synergy marketers achieve by channeling their messages through multiple communication channels.
Googling podcasting resulted in 16.9 MILLION hits. Clearly, the Internet buzz means greater interest in listening to audio content at one's leisure, similar to webcasting, combining video and audio to explain more complex subjects. But audio-only podcasting may have greater exposure and impact due to its availability and ease-of-use. (You don't see many people working out in a gym with a video Ipod.)
E-mail...3 BILLION Google hits. And the lowly telephone? Only 302 MILLION.
If there's that much interest in emailing and phoning each other, why bother with the newer technologies? We're back to leveraging. However, this time, it's about leveraging one's time. The telephone is intrusive requiring immediate action. You either answer the phone or let the call go into voice mail. Email is a bit of both, depending on the sender. If you receive an important email--perhaps one you've been expecting--you open it, then leave the rest for later. Many times, emails and phone calls together enhance marketing effectiveness, accounting for their common use in marketing campaigns.
Aratron in a post on the Invision Power Board, writes about the concept of complementarity:
"Throughout my discussion I will be sustained by the concept of complmentarity. For if I ask a question from one point of view I will have one answer. But if I ask the same question from another and quite different point of view I may very well have a second answer. The second may be inconsistent with the first, but it can be viewed as complementary. And the two answers taken together will provide a richer, truer picture than either separately." Aratron could easily have been writing about multi-channel marketing.
Whether you prefer the word "synergy" or "complementarity" or "greater impact," the result is the same. A killer advertising or marketing message, delivered across multiple channels in non-linear time far exceeds the results of "forced compliance" channels such as broadcast advertising.
To demonstrate the power of 1+1=3, I've written a PBFA (pain, benefit, feature, advantage) strategy sheet, an outbound call guide, and a email landing page, explaining the call guide for a fictitious company called Routing.Com. Notice the consistent message content and consider implementing similar multi-channel campaigns for your company.
