Multi-Step, Multi-Channel

When marketing anything in your business it is important to use a multi-step, multi-channel system. It has been reported that your advertising or offer needs to be seen at least eight times before a buying decision is made.

I’m sure you can relate to this. You get something in the mail and you think you might want to buy it. You then set it aside. Time passes and the offer expires. Then you see an ad in the newspaper and clip it out and put it aside. At some point in time, it could be the 4th time it could be the 9th time, you actually follow through and make the purchase. You had the intention all along, it just took you awhile. Maybe you were gathering other info. Maybe you didn’t have the time. There are a multitude of reasons why people don’t act right away.

The point is not to give up on just one or two direct mail pieces or ads or emails. You need to keep pounding your message into your prospect’s brain. Even though it seems like you are beating a dead horse, they don’t see it that way. Your constant reminders are helping them remember.

Your marketing should also be multi-channel. People like to get their information in different ways. For me I would much rather have a printed newsletter rather than an e-newsletter. I would delete the e-newsletter because I don’t like to read that sort of stuff on my computer but I would save and read the printed newsletter. Same information, different delivery. The more ways you can get your message out there the better chance you have to reach all of your prospects.

Let’s look at an example of how this would work. Say you are promoting an event and have 2 1/2 months to the day of the event. Here’s how you might go about it:

Step One: Day 1, Emailr
Step Two: Day 7, Faxr
Step Three: Day 17, Letterr
Step Four: Day 21, Emailr
Step Five: Day 28, Faxr
Step Six: Day 38, Emailr
Step Seven: Day 45, Faxr
Step Eight: Day 52, Emailr
Step Nine: Day 59, Emailr
Step Ten: Day 65, Letter

If this were an actual campaign, you would most likely find less than half the response generated in the first seven steps with the majority of the response in the last three steps.

Moral of the story: Multi-step, multi-channel is the way to achieve results.