Kodak's German Sacristan

Cross Channel Marketing: Print Makes The Relationship Real

  

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

 delicious  

  

I can hear the grumblings already, after my last blog, about my remark that today’s multi-channel marketing is really just a digitally-enabled version of what we’ve all been doing forever. But don’t get me wrong. I’m not lukewarm about it. You won’t find anyone who’s keener. What I’m worried about is just people mistaking technology for strategy and losing sight of the basics they have always understood. 

If you want to know what really excites me, it’s the way digital print and the internet work together and complement each other. Both have a lot to offer, individually. But put them together properly and the combination is just unstoppable. It’s amazing how well their strengths dovetail with each other.

When I’ve cut through the clutter and gained a prospect’s attention with a relevant and well-judged direct mailer, I can send him or her online via a personalized URL (pURL) or a 2D code printed on the mailer. Once there, my potential buyer can be tracked around the pages of my website, shown case studies or product videos, invited to give more information, or offered the opportunity to subscribe to a blog or to ask technical questions. This is all helping to build information and a more personal and specific relationship, with plenty of opportunity to carry it forward with a follow-up mailing or an email.

In this example, it’s the direct mail that gets the communication process under way, and the channel sequence is personalized printed piece first, then pURL, website, and DM or email follow-up. Printed paper comes into it either once or twice, but is clearly integral to the whole operation.

Turn the situation around and you can use a customized printed mailer to firm up the relationship with online prospects who have provided information on your website. Just knowing the postal address can potentially fill in a lot of what you want to know about a prospect’s financial situation and lifestyle. But nothing does more to make the relationship real than putting a physical object – a gift, a catalog, or a sample – into someone’s hands. Items that sit around the home or on the corner of the desk for days, weeks, or months help implant your branding and act as reminders, prompting buying or further enquiries in ways that on-screen images cannot equal.

Every business and almost every consumer operates at least partly online these days. But, despite appearances sometimes, nobody lives entirely in the online world. Offline is still where most things happen. Bringing the two worlds together is central to effective multi-touch, cross channel marketing. And, believe me, from what I’ve seen, digital print’s key role in that is something nothing else can match.