When people talk about marketing channels, the conversation is often framed as a competition. “My internet is better than your direct mail piece.”

This is usually followed is a hailstorm of statistics that leaves everyone a little deflated.

A lot of this comes from vendors or departments (email, social media, print) defending their own vested interests and making a case that shines the most light on their solution. But of course this just muddies the water for a lot of our clients.

When I think of marketing channels my mind goes back to the old Reeces Peanut Butter Cup commercials. In these iconic ads peanut butter and chocolate lovers collide. And when they taste the combination of the two flavours they discover that what they have together is better tasting than either the chocolate or peanut butter alone.

I’m obviously a big advocate for print. But I’m also a huge advocate for technology. And when I see them working together I know the value it brings to my clients.

On the marketing website Whattheythink.com, Barb Pellow recently wrote a great article called  Marketing Attribution: Making the Case for Print.

In it she quoted some statistics from an InfoTrends.com study called Direct Marketing Production Printing & Value-Added Services.

In it she said that of 900 U.S. consumers surveyed, 68.6% said they responded to a direct mail piece within the last three months.

Furthermore they also reported:

• 55.6% visited a retail store because of a direct mail piece
• 56.4% went to the webpage of the company
• 45% said direct mail influenced a purchase decision
• 19.8% mailed something back (e.g., an application)
• 16.7% used a smartphone to scan a barcode to access a webpage
• 15.4% called a company

Those are really great numbers. But what really caught my eye was a chart from another InfoTrends study Micro to Mega: Trends in Business Communications which surveyed executives and showed the how well different channels performed alone and when in combination with others.

Well there’s the chocolate in my peanut butter moment. Campaigns that are restricted to a single channel consistently underperform when compared to those that embrace a multi-touch approach.

If you aren’t happy with how your current vendor is integrating your messaging across multiple channels, give me a call and I’ll show you how we do it.

Steve Falk   
President / Business Development
sfalk@primedata.ca
289.802.0584