Multichannel Engagement; 6 Requirements and 3 Takeaways

There’s an ever increasing range of media and channels with which to engage customers. And although companies know an integrated multichannel engagement strategy is a must, most still struggle with how to do this well - and how to integrate the data into a singular customer centric vision and process.

For starters, marketers need to understand that the world is shifting from forcing customers to sort through piles of spray and pray stuff to find useful communications, to a world where personalized, relevant multichannel communications find consumers based on their opt-in preferences.

The average U.S. consumer spends 60 hours a week consuming content across devices. Many channels are also delivered via multiple devices, making marketing and data collection increasingly more complex. With customers coming into companies from multiple directions, the challenge is to generate seamless, consistently high value, integrated customer experiences—no matter which medium a customer selects.

Multichannel strategies have to begin with an understanding of the requirements customers use to define “Engaging Customer Experiences”. Following are the 6 requirements that have emerged from over 10,000 hours of Voice of Customer research conducted by our firm, ERDM for clients such as MassMutual, IBM and QVC:

1. Improve the customer experience across every point of contact with your organization.

2. This applies to all elements of the media mix and all departments of your organization.

3. High quality experiences must be maintained throughout the relationship, not just when you are “selling.”

4. Customer experiences must be driven by the customer’s individual preferences regarding message, timing, frequency and media mix.

5. Preferences must drive high quality personalization of communications and experiences.

6. Absolute commitment to safeguarding privacy of preference information is essential.

A company that has used its multichannel insights to develop new marketing initiatives is Beyond the Rack, which uses customer data based on media usage to shape its future engagement strategies.

The company’s sales for mobile users skyrocketed from 10% of total revenue in mid-2012 to nearly one-third by 2014. Most recently, Beyond the Rack has revealed that their new focus centers around taking their mobile insights to set the standards for all interactions with customers.

Three Key Takeaways for you based on Beyond the Rack’s strategies:

1. Using its data to understand that 40-50% of their 12 million daily e-mails are opened on mobile devices, the company maximizes the impact of their mobile emails to make them more appealing on mobile devices. All marketers should identify and optimize the most active media channels to make them more engaging for customers.

2. Beyond the Rack continually engages with customers via contests such as its web-based model search. This gives customers an active opportunity to become a part of the brand through multiple media channels and not be just an impersonal buyer.

3. Yona Shtern, CEO of Beyond the Rack, stated that “Consumers have very different expectations of what they want you to be …. [at Beyond The Rack] we spent a lot of time figuring out who we needed to be.” Marketers need to build their media and marketing strategies around what customers want and where they spend their time.

How Social Listening Helps the Red Cross and Dell

Challenge: Today’s consumers are more connected via new media than ever before. To fully engage the multichannel consumer, companies need to leverage the power of social listening.

According to Nielsen’s, 2014 U.S. Digital Consumer Report, it’s critical to know how consumers are behaving in today’s fast evolving digital environment;

» Americans now own four digital devices on average.

» The average U.S. consumer spends 60 hours a week consuming content across devices.

» Today’s constantly connected consumer is active using social media anywhere they go. Nearly 64% of overall social media users say they use social media sites at least once a day via their computer, and almost half (47%) of smartphone owners visit social networks every day.

Dell understands the importance of connecting with customers across digital channels. They’ve implemented innovative social listening strategies. Eric Nystrom, Director Social Media Services Group, summarizes Dell’s priorities:

• “Listening has a major impact on nearly every aspect of Dell’s operations beyond marketing and sales to product development, customer care, talent acquisition and shared innovation.”

• The outcomes of effective listening include: improved brand health, CSAT and loyalty; positive impact on revenue and lead generation; product ideation; and predictive analytics and actionable insights that create value and accelerate overall business outcomes.

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In a unique social listening initiative, Dell helped the Red Cross build a Digital Operations Center. According to Wendy Harman, director of social strategy for the American Red Cross: “We began to concern ourselves with scaling our social media operations and expanding the limited scope of what we listened to on the social Web.”

Dell Public Sector Marketing Director Colleen Ryan saw the opportunity to answer the American Red Cross’s need. “It seemed like a very intuitive thing to explore bringing to the Red Cross what we already do at Dell for our customers,” says Ryan.

• The discussions between Dell and The American Red Cross resulted in the first large-scale social media command center, with six large screens showing a variety of data, and relevant public conversations across the social media.

• Staff member and trained volunteers monitored these conversations to improve response ability and anticipate the public’s needs.

• The social media program allowed the Red Cross to expedite their connection with people and get resources distributed during times of disaster.

5 Strategies Marketers can Learn from Dell’s Social Listening

Eric Nystrom provides the following 5 smart recommendations;

1. Listening is really at the heart of any social strategy and marketing; Listening to who’s talking tells you who your advocates are, your influencers, your ranters and your ravers. This forms the basis of all relationship marketing.

2. Social listening can impact every part of your business; Integrate social into all aspects of your marketing so that business value may be realized.

3. Remember that the voice of the customer is strong; Listening should lead to meaningful connections and two-way dialogue that is authentic, honest and direct.

4. Listening should bring you the information you need to develop your strategy; Avoid ready, fire, aim. Let the results inform a platform-agnostic, overarching social strategy.

5. Listening objectives should be defined; For example: (1) Radar – early warning detection (2) Learn – learn keywords used to fine tune SEO/SEM (3) Track – track conversations through lifecycle of campaign (4) Identify - identify sites, key opinion formers and peer influencers for engagement (5) Support - provide information or answer questions where consumers are online (6) Humanize - humanize the brand by participating in conversations and (7) Connect - connect with industry influencers and build relationships.

Burberry's Multichannel Innovation; 3 Tips

The Challenge: What can we learn from a 157-year-old fashion company that’s being called “the world’s most digitally competent luxury brand”? That a multichannel and personalized customer experience is becoming the expected standard among consumers.

Just as high fashion brands have been trendsetters in clothing, they are now trendsetters in multichannel marketing. Global fashion icon, Burberry, launched a program recently that upped the ante on multichannel marketing. Burberry’s Millennial-targeted “Runway Made to Order” campaign allowed viewers from around the world to live stream their Fall fashion show, and purchase and personalize items directly from the runway via a state-of-the-art interactive e-commerce platform.

Key Takeaways for Marketers:

1. Offer a Seamless Multichannel Experience
Burberry’s innovation is truly remarkable. The brand has taken the 2013 Autumn runway show -- traditionally an exclusive event, accessible only in-person -- and spread it across every conceivable digital medium: the show, streamed on Burberry.com and other sites, was the first in history to be broadcast live on Twitter; purchases through Runway Made to Order are accompanied by Smartphone-compatible product videos upon delivery; the live stream was accompanied by an Instagram feed showing close-ups of the products as they hit the runway, and a dozen digital cameras photographed handbags and shoes to be turned into an ‘accessories-only’ Facebook photo album.

Burberry has long been on the forefront of digital; but now, as marketers struggle to create a valuable customer experience across many seemingly disparate channels, Burberry shows us just how seamless it can all be.

2. Make it Personal
The ability to order products the moment they’re debuted is impressive enough; but, Burberry has added to this ability a highly-personalized touch.

Upon adding an item to an online shopping bag, customers are immediately informed that their purchase can be “customized with a bespoke nameplate and smart personalisation technology.” Orders are placed with the promise that a Burberry rep will soon reach out to the purchaser personally to ‘confirm requirements.’

3. Adapt Proven Tactics to the New Integrated Multichannel Mix
In a modern twist on product placement, Burberry, according to the recent New York Times article, supplies A-list celebs with key items in order to capitalize on the many active fashion bloggers and social media followers. By not limiting its presence to digital alone, Burberry applies the ‘influencer’ tactic to traditional media, using print and video advertisements featuring British actress, Gabriella Wilde.

The lesson: for maximum brand building, impact, and revenue, deploy a seamlessly integrated multichannel mix.

Sephora: Succeeding Where Others Fail; Integrating Offline into the Digital Mix

The Challenge: To engage increasingly multichannel customers, businesses need to integrate their digital and retail experiences.

Today's customers expect businesses to personalize their experience across channels. And as Urban Outfitters CEO Glen Senk explained, multichannel customers are the most valuable customers: “Multichannel customers spend two to three times more than single-channel shoppers ... Consumers who engage with the company across three or more channels spend six times more than the average customer.”

To take advantage of this value, many businesses are integrating their digital presence: Web, mobile, and tablet. But, many businesses fail to integrate offline experiences into their multichannel mix.

Global beauty retailer Sephora is taking the lead in integrating online and retail shopping experiences. As Sephora Direct senior vice president Julie Bornstein told Forbes last month, "lots of retailers are hesitant to bridge the online and offline world," but Sephora is embracing the opportunity. Recently, they've put iPads in 20 stores, so customers can read product reviews and look up their own purchase history.

While in-store iPads bring digital convenience to retail stores, updates to Sephora's online presence are bringing the full retail experience online. Sephora's new search capabilities allow online customers to ask many of the same questions they ask at retail locations. "Is this product right for my skin type?" "What's the SPF?" "What should I use for fine lines and wrinkles?"

Bridget Dolan, Sephora's VP of interactive media, described the value of these website updates: "We have all the expertise of Sephora's staff built into a web interface, and that's extremely powerful.”

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Similarly, Neiman Marcus recently launched a new app - NM Service - that allows customers to interact with sales associates remotely, and alerts sales associates when customers who have the app walk into a store. As Jim Gold, Neiman Marcus' president for specialty retail explained, "The NM Service app allows us to take our service philosophy into the digital era." In the latest phase of our digital era, the integration of digital and retail experiences is crucial.

TWO KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR MARKETERS:

» Use Your Retail Staff as a Source of Online Intelligence
The convenience of online shopping is old news. Today's customers need online intelligence. Your retail staff know what questions your customers ask, and what criteria they use to shop. Collect this intelligence, and put it online.

» Use Mobile to Keep Customers Digitally Engaged at Retail Locations
Use creative solutions like Sephora's in-store iPads or Neiman Marcus' iPhone app to keep customers engaged online while they're in your stores. Sephora's Dolan explains: "There's a lot of rich information you have access to on the web. Why not leverage that in stores?”