Building an Integrated Marketing Plan

Test and measure
Most multichannel marketers will find themselves capable of executing stages one and two with relative ease. Still, there's no magic answer that says, “Mailing eight times and e-mailing 46 times is the perfect mix.” The key is to test various contact strategies against one another with clear objectives and control measurements. Using sample sizes from which reliable results can be obtained, create hold-out and frequency tests with various combinations of catalog and e-mail campaigns. The goal should be to find the marketing mix that produces the maximum sales and the minimum cost and greatest profit. In other words, the goal is to maximize sales and ROI simultaneously.

By creating a unique, relevant, and enduring brand position and developing a solid understanding of your customers' purchasing behaviors, you give yourself perhaps the most important tool of all: a fighting chance. The role of the catalog may be shifting, but the opportunity for the multichannel merchant is as strong as ever when integrated with brand and executed through a complete understanding of the data.

Steve Trollinger is executive vice president of J. Schmid & Associates, a Mission, KS-based direct marketing agency and consultancy.