Multichannel marketing is a well-established approach to staying close to a customer throughout their purchase journey. In PFL and Demand Metric’s latest report [download page] on the state of multichannel marketing, almost two-thirds (65%) of respondents report a good response rate, detailing the key factors needed to run a successful multichannel campaign.
What Makes a Multichannel Campaign Successful?
In the survey of more than 550 professionals in marketing, sales and the C-suite, data accuracy was rated the most important out of a selection of multichannel campaign success factors. Labeled as being of high importance by 73% of respondents, data accuracy is also one of many data-related challenges for organizations trying to leverage data.
Understanding audience needs – which can itself be facilitated by accurate data – was the second-most important factor cited by respondents (70%), followed by design and branding of delivered messages (58%). Factors that were rated as being of somewhat lower importance were orchestration/coordination with multiple channels (49%), personalizing delivered messages (48%), scalability (44%), channel attribution (39%) and a mix of offline and online tactics (33%).
What Are the Key Channels Being Used?
Marketers are using a variety of channels in their multichannel campaigns. Email takes the lead in this survey, used by a full 9 in 10 respondents. Social media marketing is used at a similar level (84%), with events (71%), display advertising/re-marketing (56%) and search marketing/PPC (48%) also commonly used among respondents.
Direct mail is used by more than 4 in 10 (44%), with response rates being high, particularly when direct mail is personalized.
In this recent survey, respondents indicated that the most common number of channels for a typical campaign is 3 (27% share) or 4 (27%). Slightly fewer reported using 5 channels (23%), with similar shares using 2 (13%) or 6 to 9 channels (14%). Just 4% use 10 or more channels, while even fewer (2%) using a single channel (obviously, as this negates the “multi”-channel approach).
Response Rates Have Improved
Overall, response rates to multichannel campaigns (e.g clicks, opens and registrations) are promising: some 70% of respondents label their response rate as good (65%) or very good (5%), and this share is up 4 percentage points since 2019.
Moreover, the number of channels in use for a campaign appears to have an impact on response rate. While the percentage of respondents reporting a good or very good response rate decreased from 77% in 2019 to 74% this year among those using 7 or more channels, those using 4 to 6 channels experienced a much-improved response rate (69% to 77%).
Although one-quarter (24%) report a neutral response rate, this figure has decreased from 30% in 2019, and just 6% of respondents have experienced a poor (5%) or very poor (1%) response rate.
Are Multichannel Campaigns Worth the Investment?
More than half of respondents to the survey describe the ROI from an average multichannel campaign as good (50%) or very good (6%). When it comes to this critical metric, around 3 in 10 (29%) report a neutral ROI, with fewer than 1 in 10 describing it as poor (6%) or very poor (2%).
Read the full report here.
About the Data: Results are based on a May-June survey of 589 respondents, the majority being marketers, from a variety of industries and company sizes.
