Online, catalog and retail trade journals (as well as industry conference speakers, vendors, and assorted industry leaders) have been telling us for nearly a decade that we must be "multichannel" retailers, or risk extinction.
So the folks who chose to listen to this advice must be thrilled to learn that research from 1,090 survey respondents indicate that multichannel customers are not necessarily the most loyal or profitable customers. I found the article via the Shop.org Smartbrief, a free and interesting daily e-mail summarizing news in the online marketing world.
Wonderful!
And then Experian tells us that only 10% of customers are true multichannel customers.
Wonderful!
I've become Frustrated. Exasperated. Agitated. Irritated. Irked. Miffed. Why wasn't the research conducted prior to the series of decade-long lectures from industry leaders suggesting that we all "had to be multichannel"?
Kevin,
ReplyDeleteFurther down the page from the one study:
Some 60 percent of American Marketing Association member marketers say halting or reducing spend on key marketing programs is the biggest mistake marketers can make in an economic downturn, according to (pdf) a recent AMA survey, writes MarketingCharts.
Interesting article that parallels your other post on non-traditional customers.
Yes, if you have a great product/service, world will beat a path to your door, but in "dark" economic times you should leave the light on for them.
As article suggests refine your audience, but take it a step further---once you have refined it, find out what channels work for that audience.
Great posts, as always.
K