Multi-Channel Marketing: Putting The Pieces Together
In Today’s Marketplace

by Carol Milano

How do you want your store to be known? Would you like its name associated with lifestyle, price, fashion, or some other feature? With today’s profusion of marketing methods— direct mail, catalog, web site, in-store promotion, print, etc.—using a multi-channel approach will integrate several options into the best mix for your own business.

Choosing the right combination begins with defining your store’s own ‘brand,’ and then developing a plan, explains Jim Okamura, Senior Partner at J. C. Williams Group in Chicago, international consultants specializing in multi-channel strategies. “See how your current situation differs from where you want your brand to be. Then, with the goals you’ve set, start looking at all your options for achieving that brand position.”

Think about your target market, who you want to reach, and the main message you’d like to convey. “You need to tailor your channels of communication according to each medium’s strength. Do you need more mass media, or more targeted media, or more interactive options?” asks Mr. Okamura. Consistency is essential, he stresses. Your web site, catalog, ads, and direct mail all have to share the look and feel you’ve selected for your store’s brand.

Multi-channel Success

Mr. Okamura admires Crate & Barrel’s effective multi-channel marketing. “Let’s say they’re trying to promote a certain color. They will be pretty consistent across catalog and in-store displays,” he’s noticed. On-line, Crate & Barrel offers a shopper added depth, for example, by presenting a room with the featured color as its base. Then, to leverage the value of their web content, the company will let a visitor look at complementary colors and patterns for matching certain products with the featured color scheme.

Ideally, print and electronic media should push traffic to each other. For instance, a suggestion in Crate & Barrel’s print catalog might invite the reader to “look for more home-styling ideas at our web site.” However, cautions Mr. Okamura, retailers often omit a reason for directing a consumer to an online site. To cultivate a more active multi-channel shopper, offer a specific incentive: “for great assortments of [product category] not carried in our stores” or “if you’d like some special beverage recipes for these glasses, please visit [website address].”

Williams-Sonoma, another leader in integrated multi-channel, continually invests in expanding circulation of its catalogs (which include such wellknown brands as Pottery Barn). “They use directchannel capability to develop new product and business ideas,” says Mr. Okamura. For a line of foods that people can serve while entertaining, Williams- Sonoma first tested each item as a catalog or Internet product. “This is tailoring the merchandise to the medium. To test a new item in-store would be much more expensive, requiring a storage unit and inventory. Once Williams-Sonoma established that they could sell high-end foods, they created refrigerated units at some bigger stores. Now, they frequently expand their Food Halls, adding other products.”

A classic example of integrated marketing is the way Williams-Sonoma leverages the appealing recipes on its web site. Their flagship stores feature point-of-sale Information Kiosks. If a shopper looking at an attractive blender starts thinking, ‘what could I cook with it?,’ she’s encouraged to turn towards the nearby kiosk for recipes.

Individual stores, too, can attain strong results by multi-media marketing. Blinds By Debbie in Las Vegas took advantage of the integrated marketing program offered by one of their suppliers. Since they began carrying the Hunter Douglas Gallery line and utilizing their available media services, “We’ve seen about a 40 percent increase in sales,” says Debbie Mauro, President. “The Internet is working well in conjunction with our direct-mail pieces. People see the mailing, then go online – or vice versa – and then call us or drop by. Not many people fill out the contact information on our web site, but when we ask, a lot of them have found us online.”

Blinds By Debbie had always done direct mail, and advertised in local magazines and with area retailers. Now, Ms. Mauro finds, people will say, “I was online looking, and then your letter came in the mail.” She calls the leads generated by her Internet presence, “very good – about twice the usual average. Our general average sale is about $2,500. With people who found us on the Internet, I’ve had some individual sales of $20,000.” Customers also seem willing to travel a little farther when they want a particular line her store carries.

Training and Traffic

Experts find that the success of multi-channel marketing rests on two strong pillars. The first is making sure that enough consumers are led to your web site.

To build traffic, successful multi-channel marketers leverage all available search opportunities. Unfortunately, most retailers don’t try to understand or improve search engine optimization or search marketing, Mr. Okamura fears. Simply posting Internet banner ads is a costly mistake. The popularity of online shopping can be a boon for retailers. In furniture/home furnishings, 77% of buyers first searched the web, then bought offline. How often do people actively search for products on the World Wide Web? More than one-third of online buying activity now starts at a search engine. “If retailers aren’t looking to online advertising, they’re really missing the boat!” exclaims Mr. Okamura.

Planning for online advertising forces a retailer to consider how shoppers view their merchandise. When someone shops for a new rug, what terms will they type in? “Area rug”? “Handmade rug”? A particular country? A type of design? “The more advanced we get at Search activities, the more consumers do. This is clearly an area that has great payback,” says Mr. Okamura. “If you invest the money and have experienced search specialists helping you, you can see a good return-on-investment. Compare this to putting an ad on television, or in a newspaper or other mass medium—there’s no way to know what that’s actually doing for your store.” (The number of specific words and combinations of search terms your store chooses will determine costs.)

Blinds by Debbie worked with Marcom (the advertising agency Hunter Douglas recommends) last summer to set up a Pay Per Click program. “You just tell them how much money you want to spend per month,” Ms. Mauro explains. “We started in July, 2005, at about $250. By December, we were so pleased, we increased it to $500 per month.” The store uses Google’s Pay Per Click plan, City Search, andsome other programs. “Since July, the number of people who visit our web site has increased dramatically.”

“The bottom line is that the Internet is the glue for the multi-channel experience,” says Jeff Janke, Vice President of Retail Alliance Programs for Hunter Douglas, North America’s leading manufacturer of custom window fashions. “You can be in the newspaper and Yellow Pages, sending direct mail, and have a van wrap, but the Internet brings everything together and strengthens your other initiatives. A web site is a 24/7 resource for a dealer’s business and adds credibility. Traditional media is just not enough any more.”

Affiliate programs are also helpful online traffic builders. Check with your suppliers and importers about referring consumers to your site directly from theirs. Look for existing web sites that advise people on home decorating, for example, and see if they’d add a link to your store’s site. In return, they would receive a commission or a set fee for each customer who clicks through to your store.

The second pillar: make sure that once a consumer finds you, your staff has all the skill and information needed to answer questions and assist them, via telephone, e-mail or in-store visits. “At your 800 number, staff need to be knowledgeable,” Mr. Okamura emphasizes. “Any retailer with service excellence as a foundation of your strategy has to consider how to make your multi-channel advertising known and understood by all your service and salespeople – anyone in contact with customers. “If a shopper asks for something that’s a web-only product, a representative should lead them to an in-store computer terminal so they can compare the web item to an available in-store counterpart,” says Mr. Okamura. He calls these ‘don’tlose- the-sale’ tools: “We worked so hard to get the customer into the store, let’s close the deal.”

Ms. Mauro, too, is convinced of the importance of staff training. Three months before their Gallery installation, she and her husband (co-owner of Blinds By Debbie) attended an intensive fourday Gallery training program. Last September, her office manager and a sales representative went through training, as well. Topics include lessons about the web site, how to personalize it to their store, and how to pull leads off the web site. “There’s lots to learn and know,” says Ms. Mauro.

Time and Money

What kind of investment will multi-channel marketing require? “Costs” vary widely, not only in dollars, but in time and effort required to use multi-channels well enough to please increasingly demanding customers.

“You can’t implement these changes and expect them to happen overnight,” Mr. Okamura confirms. “Don’t just put computer terminals in the store and hope that your sales associate will know how to use it.”

Instead, utilize the opportunity of your new multi-channel strategy to introduce shoppers to added benefits. Have a sales associate show how your improved web site is organized, or the best way to discover which items are on-sale. Let them know that for any web-only item they’d like to purchase, they can order it at the store and have it shipped to them. “These steps will take time, effort and resources, so choose carefully in setting your strategic priorities. Choose the ones which seem best for your business, then execute them well,” advises Mr. Okamura. “But don’t bite off more than you can chew – it will only frustrate your customers,” he adds.

“To build loyalty, you probably have to exceed expectations. The real cost is not just introducing these channels, but doing it with excellence,” he finds. Capital-intensive units include a new pointof- sale system with browsing capabilities, or a hightech database allowing very precise information-targeting that can serve as the engine driving all your multi-channel activity.

For the Hunter Douglas Gallery program, dealers pay a fee, calculated to the size of their display space. Blinds by Debbie chose to devote 800 of their 1,300 square feet to their Gallery display.

It could be costly to redesign your store to be a friendlier multi-channel setting. “If you find you’re doing a lot of business with people who buy online and want to pick up in-store, consider putting your pick-up area up-front, or giving it a separate entrance, instead of hiding it in the back,” Mr. Okamura suggests. For convenience-driven customers, adapt to their needs – “they’re time-conscious, informationstarved, and want solutions that help their lifestyle.”

Summary

Multi-media marketing starts with observing all available channels, and who else is using them. After viewing different media in terms of your own store’s goals, select a few approaches to try integrating. “This is not all capital-intensive or demanding special expertise,” says Mr. Okamura. “The e-commerce industry is thriving; we see many independent niche retailers coming up with great ideas for multimedia marketing.” Every step to building a successful multi-channel operation is available to retailers of any size, he concludes.

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