• by Akin Arikan , January 30, 2009

As organizations cut their budgets and look to justify the ROI of all projects, smart marketers are those who work across channels and coordinate metrics for a complete picture of the marketing program, not just their individual channel. So why aren't there more multichannel marketers out there? While customers are comfortable moving from the Web site to the store, marketers in the online and offline worlds aren't always comfortable crossing the road and coordinating metrics.

Think of it this way: if marketers from the individual disciplines engage customers across all channels, but don't communicate with each other, they're bound to miss key parts of the conversation, namely the parts that happen on another channel. So many companies are stuck measuring in the silos (of direct or television or online) because it's difficult to find multidisciplinary marketers.

Multichannel marketers need to be savvy in more than one marketing discipline. They need to translate between the vocabulary and methods that online, direct, and brand marketers have each developed within their own confines. They need to know the business side and understand enough of IT to bring together data silos. They need to be strategic in their thinking, but analytic when it comes to the hard numbers. With my "Multichannel Metrics" book, I aimed to help jump-start the sharing of methods by outlining and synthesizing the approaches used by online and offline marketers.

Yet, creating multichannel marketers is a chicken or egg problem: many companies don't utilize multichannel metrics because their staff lacks experience. And many business analysts don't understand multichannel metrics because their companies don't use them. There is no better time for marketers to show their value by being the chicken and the egg. Let's cross the road between online and offline and shake hands with the marketers on the other side.

The benefits to coordinating your online and offline metrics are immeasurable. Why would a sports retailer send an email or catalog featuring gym equipment if the customer's Web behavior only included browsing for outdoors sports? Looking at activity on both the individual level and across channels gives you a more complete picture of each customer. Many companies lack this whole picture because their staff and data are segmented.

So why did the multichannel marketer cross the road? To share metrics for deeper customer understanding! Better understanding customer behavior holds the key to going from interruption marketing to relevant, timely communications. But many companies are stuck in "chunnel" vision, or silo-ed, channel-specific tunnel vision. Integrating metrics from both online and offline channels requires marketers to step outside their comfort zones and work across channels. Given that we can hardly go a day without hearing of budget cuts or staff layoffs, marketers can do themselves a favor and be the ones crossing the road and coordinating metrics between online and offline.