Big-Ticket E-Commerce Marketing StrategyBlueport.com

OK, so the headline is a little harsh. Personally, as a marketer, I love the emergence of multichannel communication. Why wouldn’t I want to be able to communicate with my customers (and customers-to-be) when, where and however works for them? Why wouldn’t I embrace social networking sites that give me insight into what the public thinks about my company or products? Why wouldn’t I thank the techies who created smartphones, making it possible for me to reach my target audience 24/7 without anyone having to be sitting at a computer or picking up their mail?

Of course, nothing this good is easy.

The Challenges of Multichannel Communication

In today’s marketplace, you see a lot of good examples of marketers communicating through multiple channels, but you also see a lot of bad ones. Some of the challenges of multichannel communication include keeping track of your own messages, monitoring what others are saying, determining which of the messages work, and consistency.

Consistency proves to be the big one. For example, if you’re like many of Blueport Commerce’s customers, you started out with a brick-and-mortar store and likely did direct mail and print advertising. Then you ventured online with an ecommerce site and perhaps an accompanying email program – somewhat similar, right? Now with social networking, you want to go viral and create community, and many companies think about what might be interesting without thinking about how it relates to their brand or the barrier to participate. Just because some college students think it’s OK to destroy their personal brands by uploading pictures of their Saturday night festivities, that doesn’t mean Facebook is an appropriate place to put your corporate brand through the same ringer.

So as you reach out to your customers using the multiple channels available to you – as you should – stay true to the brand you have created for yourself. Keep your multichannel communications consistent, so your customers can recognize you no matter how you reach them.