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Single Channel Communication is Dead

Editor’s Note: Today’s post was written by Steve MacLaughlin of Blackbaud and originally appeared on his blog, Connections. It is reprinted here with permission. Enjoy!

Direct mail is dead. Email is dead. TV and radio are dead. Face to face is dead. Telegraph is dead. Social media is dead. There are so many obituaries being written these days that it’s hard to tell what’s still alive. Is everyone just trying to be clever or are they auditioning for a role on CSI?

None of these channels are dead. Ok, telegraph is still dead despite rumors of a comeback. And there is a continual evolution within each of these communication options. Nonprofits are still improving their use of direct marketing, phone, email, and other channels.

What is dead is the use of one channel at a time to engage people. What is dead is operating in silos of data and systems that don’t play well together. What is dead is mindset that multichannel communication doesn’t apply to your organization. The old ways of planning and managing constituent communication are dead.

Single Channel is Dead

There, I said it. In fact, it’s been dead for a while now. Most savvy companies and organizations recognized this years ago and have diversified their engagement streams. The reality is that you can only get so far riding one horse. The channels aren’t dead — using them by themselves is dead.

Using a single communication channel to engage with constituents is a dead on arrival strategy. This isn’t just theoretical pontificating. An analysis of trends and data support this fact. And basic biology does too.

Humans are Multichannel

People come multichannel-ready thanks to sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. This explains why watching television, texting, and browsing the Web all at the same time isn’t a medical disorder. Thinking in single-channel mode almost always means ignoring multiple senses. Great communication strategies focus on hitting two or more senses. I have a sixth-sense feeling that most communication today is either seeing or hearing by itself.

People’s channel preferences don’t rise and fall as quickly as the prognosticators might like. I didn’t stop liking the alumni magazine just because my university started sending me emails. I didn’t stop liking video just because an organization decided to invite me to an event. I didn’t stop wanting to renew my membership online just because I can give via SMS. It doesn’t work that way.

Faux Multichannel is Dead Too

Just because you sent out a mailing, blasted all of your email addresses, and posted something on Twitter does not make you multichannel. That’s faking it. Multichannel communication means thinking strategically about how you combine the use of channels to work together.

The cause of faux multichannel communication is often the silos of systems and organization charts. It’s easier to just do your thing with your tools than worry about what anyone else is doing. Of course, this is very hard on your constituents. The end result is not pretty.

The Proof is in the Numbers

Some new trends were revealed in a recent donorCentrics Internet Giving Benchmarking Group meeting held by Target Analytics. The group was comprised of 14 very large nonprofit organizations and a review of online and offline giving between 2005 and 2009. The median percentages of multichannel donors compared to online or offline donors are very telling.

First year retention for multichannel donors was 51% compared to 30% for offline donors and 22% for online donors. Multi-year multichannel donors do even better with 75% being retained versus 59% for offline and 52% for online. The reactivation rate for multichannel donors was 16% compared to just 7% for both online and offline donors by themselves.

Tyranny of the Or

Recently, I’ve heard some in the nonprofit sector predicting a massive shift from direct mail to online giving. They’re missing what is really happening. This isn’t direct mail vs. the Internet. That’s the mother of all oversimplified ideas. That’s the Tyranny of the Or. The global fundraising perspective is that it’s about person to person and events and telephone and face to face and direct mail and web and email and peer to peer and social and mobile and other channels. Multichannel means more “and” — less “or” across the board.

Today, just over 5% of giving in the US happens online. While the growth in online fundraising has been tremendous let’s not forget that 95% comes from other channels. And it’s not all from direct mail. Nonprofits continue to diversify their channels. They aren’t turning them completely off. Don’t succumb to the Tyranny of the Or. Think multichannel and succeed.

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Facebook Places Round Up: 5 Resources for Marketers

Just in case you’ve been hiding out under a rock with no Internet access all week: yesterday Facebook announced its highly anticipated location feature, dubbed “Facebook Places.” Facebook Places is just starting to become available to users, but that doesn’t mean it’s too early to try to decipher what it means for marketers. With that in mind, here’s a round-up of some of the best resources for understanding Facebook Places and how it could affect your business:

Mashable: A Field Guide to Using Facebook Places

Mashable’s guide to using Places is primarily focused on users, demonstrating how to check in, add places and customize your privacy settings. There’s also a useful section on how to claim your business on Facebook Places.

PC World: Three Ways Businesses Can Take Advantage of Facebook Places

PCWorld writer Tony Bradley shares ideas for how your business can use Facebook Places to build customer loyalty and promote positive word of mouth.

MediaBistro: Agency Execs Weigh in on Facebook Places’ Marketing Implications

Robson Grieve of Creature, Kevin Purcer of Erwin-Penland and Frank O’Brien of Conversation discuss Facebook Places and how marketers can use it to connect with consumers without making themselves unwelcome.

Duct Tape Marketing: 5 Reasons Why Facebook Places is Kind Of a Big Deal

Noting that Facebook already has a much larger user base than services like Foursquare and Gowalla, Duct Tape Marketing’s John Jantsch goes on to explain why Facebook Places could be a much bigger deal to marketers than previous location-based services.

AdMaven: 5 Ways that Facebook Places Will Change the Marketing Game

Nicholas Kinports describes 5 ways that Facebook Places will affect marketers. Mostly, he talks about helpful new capabilities (once Facebook works unleashes its advertising tools) such as the ability to create a “swarm” of customers when business is down and the ability to get more data about your customers’ behavior.

What do you think of “Facebook Places?” Will it be a game-changer for marketers? And how will it affect startups like Foursquare and Gowalla?

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CrossView Study: Retail Shoppers Prefer Direct Mail, Email to Social Media

Although social media consumes ever-increasing amounts of our time and attention, another study, this one from Crossview, shows that marketers shouldn’t abandon traditional direct marketing tactics just yet. Interviewing 160 shoppers in North Carolina, Ohio, Illinois and Kansas, Crossview’s study showed that retail shoppers value promotions highly, and that they prefer to receive them via email and direct mail.

Looking at the breakdown of how the respondents preferred to receive marketing materials from retailers, 37% preferred email, 23% preferred direct mail, 18% preferred text messages, 11% preferred in-store and only 9% preferred social media.

Of course, social media marketing is still in its infancy. As customers begin to spend more and more time on social media sites and become more comfortable interacting with companies and brands in that space, their preferences will likely shift. In fact, companies from Einstein Bros Bagels to Dell have already used social media for promotions with great results.

In a press release, Mark Fodor, Chief Executive Officer at CrossView, commented on the results of the study:

“The survey findings reinforce how important promotions are in influencing consumer purchasing decisions. It also shows that delivery methods and consumer preferences are across the board, which means that retailers need to be able to communicate brand, product and promotional messaging consistently across channels. Consumers have very definite ideas of how they want to receive promotional materials. Regardless of which technologies are ‘hot,’ shoppers expect to navigate between channels based on convenience and personal preference.”

In such a rapidly changing marketing climate, how can you ensure that your campaigns have the highest possible reach and the best possible response rates? It’s simple-don’t put all of your eggs in one basket! Tools like Dukky’s personalized URLs allow you to design promotions that can be initially distributed by email and direct mail, then shared via social media. Dukky also allows you to poll your customers to see how they’d prefer to receive promotions in the future, if you’d like, and our analytics let you see which social networking sites your customers are using.

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4 Reasons For Small Business Owners to Jump on the Social Media Bandwagon

Rates of social media adoption have been climbing for small businesses, but according to the Small Business Index, only 24% of small businesses are currently using it. If you own a small business, you’ve probably already been told that your business needs to develop a presence on Facebook and Twitter, but you may not be sure why or even if it’s really that important. However, several recent studies indicate that small businesses are poised to benefit from social media, in some cases even more so than larger companies and brands.

So, if your small business is one of the 76% that hasn’t yet begun using social media, here are 5 reasons to hop on the bandwagon:

Reason #1: Connect With Existing Customers

Odds are, your existing customers are already waiting for you to connect with them on Facebook and Twitter. According to checkfacebook.com, 128.9 million Americans already have a Facebook account. Over at SocialMediaToday, Roy Wells crunched some numbers to determine that 41.6% of Americans are on Facebook.

Meanwhile, according to Edudemic, Twitter has over 110 million users and gains about 300,000 new users each day.

Reason #2: Find New Customers

Social media is also proving to be a great place to find new customers. According to social media expert Brian Solis, when it comes to finding new customers on social networks, small businesses seem to have an edge over the big guys. Solis quotes a study by Regus that found that 44% of small businesses using social media were successfully using it to gain new customers, versus 36% for medium-sized companies and 28% for large companies.

Reason #3: More Effective Direct Marketing

Integrating social sharing is also a great way to give your existing direct marketing campaigns a shot in the arm. For example, at Dukky we’ve seen time and time again how allowing your customers to share offers via social media can increase response rates for both email and direct mail campaigns. In fact, the direct mail campaign we did for a pair of local Chick-Fil-A franchises had a response rate of 279.8%! 22% of that came from the direct mail pieces; the rest was a result of social sharing.

Reason #4: Drive Word of Mouth

Used correctly, social media can be a powerful marketing tool because of how effectively it drives word of mouth. For example, a recent study by Yahoo showed that the Internet is even better at driving word of mouth than TV in some instances, and that people who use social networking sites are more likely to drive these conversations.

Stay tuned-later this week, we’ll take a look at some small businesses that have successfully used social media as part of their marketing mix!

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When It Comes to Social Networking, the Kids are All Right

Do you still think social media is just a passing fad? New research from Pew’s latest “Future of the Internet” study just might have proved you wrong. Social sharing is an integral part of youth culture today, and that is something that is not likely to change as Generation Y gets older. In fact, Pew’s study found that 67% of experts surveyed agreed with the following statement:

“By 2020, members of Generation Y (today’s ‘digital natives’) will continue to be ambient broadcasters who disclose a great deal of personal information in order to stay connected and take advantage of social, economic, and political opportunities. Even as they mature, have families, and take on more significant responsibilities, their enthusiasm for widespread information sharing will carry forward.”

What does this mean for marketers? It means you need to fish where the fish are, so to speak. If you’re not involved in social media yet, now is past time to develop a strategy.

Also, as you design marketing campaigns, consider how thoroughly and completely Gen Y has integrated social media into their daily lives. Shouldn’t you also integrate it into your direct marketing campaigns? Email and direct mail are still great ways to reach out to your customers, but shouldn’t you also take advantage of the fact that they are already used to sharing information online?

At Dukky, we’ve found that incorporating social media and social sharing into direct mail and email campaigns can have an almost unbelievable impact on response rates. Gen Y’s dedication to social networking means that given the right incentives, they can become powerful advocates for your company or brand.

Social media will no doubt continue to evolve, and the ways people share information online are likely to change in the years to come. However, the underlying forces that make word-of-mouth such a powerful form of marketing and that make social media such a powerful way to encourage it seem to be here to stay. Combining direct marketing and social media is one of the easiest and most effective ways to harness those forces.

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Social Media vs. Direct Marketing: Place Your Bets Now

Editor’s Note: Editor’s Note: Today’s post was written by Debra Ellis and was originally published on her most excellent Multichannel Marketing blog. It is reprinted here with permission.

Welcome to the match of the decade – Social Media vs. Direct Marketing. Around the globe people are choosing sides, anticipating that one will overcome the other. Let’s take a moment to review their features:

In one corner, we have Social Media, a young, agile, and engaging contender.

He’s been taking the circuit by storm. His ability to sweep the globe with your marketing message at minimal cost is particularly appealing. Then, there is that one-to-one contact with your customers and prospects. Having Social Media on your side turns your company into the corner store. You can chat with your customers and really get to know them.

Unfortunately, there is a dark side. Social Media is fickle. He’s there helping you one minute and the next, he’s alienating customers. Social Media is very unforgiving. One faux pas can undo years of brand building.

And, he is high maintenance. He demands continuous attention. Without it, he forgets you and everything you’ve contributed to his growth. Your message is like a bolt of lightning: one flash and it’s gone.

In the other corner, we have Direct Marketing, an established, proven, and measurable contender.

He’s been around so long the new guys keep saying, “I thought he was dead.” He isn’t dead, he’s working quietly in the background filling coffers and building loyalty. And, he has that long tail that keeps orders coming in months after the first strike. Let’s not forget how measurable he is. Almost every aspect of Direct Marketing can be tested and measured so you can maximize your return.

Direct Marketing has a dark side, too. If you are into instant gratification, he is not for you. It takes time to plan and implement one of his programs. And, then more time to see the return. He is expensive, too. Upfront costs can be prohibitive for start-ups and newcomers.

Before you place your bets, consider this:

What would happen if we could get Social Media and Direct Marketing to work together? Wouldn’t they be a great tag team? Just think about how it could be:

Direct Marketing could invite your customers to join your network. When they arrive, Social Media could personally welcome them.
Social Media could create anticipation by telling customers when Direct Marketing is sending new information.
Direct Marketing and Social Media could work together to provide 5 Star customer service.

I don’t know about you, but I’m betting on the DM/SM team. Together they infinitely expand their individual potential.

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Will Social Networking Replace Email?

Is email about to go the way of the dodo bird? Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg thinks so. When she spoke at Nielsen’s Consumer 360 conference earlier this week, she told the audience, “If you want to know what people like us will do tomorrow, you look at what teenagers are doing today…E-mail–I can’t imagine life without it–is probably going away.” (via FastCompany).

That’s a bold statement. For support, she turned to a Pew Study that looked at the communication habits of teenagers and found that only 11% of them used email daily. Teens are much more likely to use text messaging, instant messaging, social networking sites and even the telephone to communicate with others.

But does that mean that social networking will replace email anytime soon? My Magic 8-Ball says “Outlook not so good.” The results of a recent study by ExactTarget and CoTweet indicate that email still holds an important place in the lives of many US consumers. In fact, over 58% of US consumers with Internet access start their mornings off by checking email. Only 11% check Facebook first thing.

Email is also the most common way for companies and brands to connect with customers. According to ExactTarget, 93% of online consumers subscribe to emails from the companies they patronize, receiving one or more permission-based marketing emails per day. In contrast, 43% of consumers either “Like” a brand on Facebook or follow one on Twitter.

The other thing is that all of those teenagers who don’t use email on a daily basis today may well start using it more when they get a little bit older and their life circumstances change. As Good Morning Silicon Valley notes:

“The problem with that is that those teens, who for now lead mostly carefree lives with no bills to pay, and who have time for face-to-face interaction, will eventually grow up. For now, they have no professional need for e-mail. But they will, and they will find that it generally isn’t wise to reveal details about a work project via commenting on Facebook.”

However, that doesn’t mean that marketers can afford to ignore social media in favor of email. Social networking sites continue to grow in reach, frequency of use and importance, especially among younger adults. For example, another recent study by Nielsen notes that 22% of all time spent online is spent on social networking sites, and the average visitor to a social networking site spends 66% more time there than last year.

Also, social networking fans are more likely to engage with and share content from a brand they’ve connected with. ExactTarget notes that people who visit Facebook first thing in the morning are more likely to engage with brands for purely social reasons than are people who visit email first. However, the overwhelming majority of consumers in both categories listed “promotions and deals” as their top reason for seeking interaction with brands online.

Fortunately, there’s no need to choose one or the other. For most marketers, the wisest move is to create campaigns that incorporate both email and social media to achieve the greatest possible reach and effectiveness.

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8 Reasons to Add Social Sharing to Your Next Email Campaign

How can your email campaigns benefit from integrating social media? To find out, MarketingSherpa surveyed email marketers to see how adding social media to their email campaigns has helped them.

Using their survey results, along with other research and our experience here at Dukky, here are 8 great reasons to start incorporating social media elements into your email campaigns:

Reason #1-Increasing awareness

Adding social sharing to an email campaign is an easy and effective way to increase awareness of your brand. Social sharing prompts your customers to forward your offer to their friends and family, generating positive word-of-mouth that people are likely to remember. MarketingSherpa found that 35% of email marketers believed social sharing was “very effective” at increasing awareness, while 58% believed it was “somewhat effective.”

Reason #2-Increasing Reach

By generating positive word-of-mouth, social sharing also increases the reach of your campaign. According to MarketingSherpa, an analysis by email service provider Silverpop found that adding social sharing to an email campaign increased the reach of that campaign by an average of 24.3%.

Reason #3-Increasing ROI

Since social sharing increases the reach of your campaign at minimal additional cost, it often greatly increases the ROI. To increase ROI even more, you can also use your company’s social media accounts to support your email campaigns with appropriate content and messaging. MarketingSherpa found that 22% of email marketers rated social sharing as “very effective” for increasing ROI, while 51% found it “somewhat effective.”

Reason #4: Get past the “spam filter”

Sure, your emails may be getting past your customer’s email providers spam filter, but does that mean your customers ever really SEE them? Not necessarily…people’s inboxes are bombarded by so much unwanted marketing material that they develop pretty keen “spam filters” of their own, screening much of it out.

However, when someone forwards an email of yours to their friends and family, their friends and family are almost guaranteed to pay attention, unless the customer in question is an incorrigible sender of junk mail and chain letters. Great aunt Flo, I’m looking at you!

Reason #5- Grow your lists

Incorporating social sharing into your email campaign can also help you build your lists. Your customers undoubtedly have people in their networks who are interested in your product-by allowing them to share your offer, you can bring these other potential customers into the fold.

20% of the email marketers surveyed be MarketingSherpa found adding social media components to their email campaigns to be “very effective” at growing email lists, while 52% said it was “somewhat effective.”

Reason #6 Encourage Customer Loyalty

Did you know that customers you gain through recommendations are more loyal to your brand, right from the start? It’s true-a 2009 study by PeopleMetrics found that “A customer is more willing to forgive a service failure if they chose that organization on the strength of a friend or family member’s recommendation than if they came to the company ‘cold.’”

Reason #7: Lead generation

Combining email and social media is also a great way to get more leads. According to MarketingSherpa, 21% of email marketers believed this technique was “very effective” for lead generation, while 55% felt it was “somewhat effective.”

Reason #8: Identifying your Influencers

When you use Dukky to add social sharing to your email campaigns, you get the added benefit of being able to easily identify which of your customers exercise the most influence on behalf of your brand. Find out who your biggest influencers are, and create special rewards and promotions just for them to keep them talking about your company.

Did I miss any reasons? Post them in the comments!

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Viral Marketing FAIL: Roger Waters Defaces Elliot Smith Memorial

I love Pink Floyd as much as anyone, but Roger Waters just doesn’t seem to get viral marketing. Yes, you want to get people talking about you…but usually, it helps if they are saying nice things.

Water’s new viral marketing campaign got people talking all right…specifically, it got fans of deceased singer-songwriter Elliot Smith talking, but they didn’t have much of anything nice to say about Roger Waters or Pink Floyd once they found out his team of street artists inadvertently defaced Smith’s memorial.

To promote an upcoming Pink Floyd reunion tour, Waters paid street artists to wheat-paste the following quote from Dwight D. Eisenhower on various walls in cities across the US:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

So far so good, right? Well, except for the fact that the Los Angeles team pasted the quote and an accompanying picture right on top of Smith’s unofficial memorial, covering up tributes from his fans.

Not a good move. Opinion was actually a bit divided over whether Smith would have liked the quote/sticker or not, but there’s nothing like an old-guard rock singer appearing to disrespect a young, deceased, indie singer-songwriter’s memorial to unleash mass amounts of righteous hipster outrage.

For his part, Waters said it was an accident. The LA Times quoted his apology:

“It was absolutely an accident,” Waters said. “I didn’t want to disrespect Elliott Smith’s fans, and I’ve instructed (the team) to remove the wheat paste immediately. It was a random pasting in the normal course of this, and I want to make it public that we had no intent to offend or cover up something precious.”

This incident provides a handy demonstration of the reason why most social media “gurus” advise you to “listen” before you jump in and start participating: you don’t want to end up inadvertently sticking your foot in your mouth. Obviously, the “listening” step is just as important for viral marketing efforts that start in the street as it is for viral marketing efforts that start online.

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10 Things Sesame Street Can Teach Us About Email Marketing

Editor’s Note: Today’s post was written by Jim Ducharme and was originally published on The Email Guide website. It is reprinted here with permission.

As we all know, Sesame Street is celebrating 40 years of being a best friend for all of us growing up. So we got inspired here at The Email Guide and put together the top ten things we’ve learned from the show about eMail marketing.

1- Wanna buy an 8?…probably not a good email marketing subject line.

2- Love what you love with all your heart! Cookie Monster would make a good blogger for Mrs Fields.

3- Twitter like you’re a Big Bird.

4- Bert and Ernie know relationships don’t just happen and you have to work hard on them.

5- Oscar the Grouch reminds us that how you say something is as important as what you say.

6- Mr. Snuffleupagus (when he was imaginary) reminded us that while chasing after more and more possible clients, we should never forget the real ones who got us here.

7- Elmo loves learning something new every day and we should too.

8- Mr. Hooper taught us that serving a community means being a part of it.

9- Kermit knows that being a good listener is the key to any relationship.

10- “Sunny days sweeping the clouds away…” is something any of us would smile at in a email marketing subject line.

Have we missed any Sesame Street insights on email marketing? Of course we have! Post your muppet motivated inspirations!

For more email marketing insights, check out The eMail Guide – The search engine for eMail Marketing:

Web: http://www.theemailguide.com/
Blog: http://www.theeMailguide.com/blog
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/theMailguide

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