The latest report from The Relevancy Group — “The Value of Multichannel Real-Time Segmentation” — suggests that marketers using real-time multichannel data generate nearly three times more revenue in campaigns than their no-real time data brethren.
Another boon? Adding automation. The stats show that marketers who automate customer lifecycle messaging through tactics such as rules-based triggers drive 133 percent more revenue than those who don’t.
That’s the take from Jack Loechner, whose essay at MediaPost posits that email is the most effective channel to drive revenue.
“Ninety one percent of participants view email as the most effective channel to move the sales needle, says the report,” according to Loechner. “Though email marketers are rapidly expanding their strategies to encompass multichannel tactics, organizational structure, coordination and expertise are limiting opportunities.”
The most effective channels after email, say marketers surveyed for the report, include display advertising (81 percent); social marketing (86 percent); paid search (72 percent); and print direct marketing (70 percent).
But challenges still abound.
“Nearly a quarter of marketers state they don’t have adequate staffing resources, and marketing organizations remain siloed, preventing marketers from consolidating multiple marketing channels to one vendor,” reports Loechner. “Just 25 percent of marketers state there is central ownership across all marketing channels while 56 percent of marketers wish to consolidate their vendors across all channels.”
In addition, too many marketers lack the tools to capitalize on the explosion of data and marketing touchpoints.
“Twenty five percent of marketers use some form of real time data to drive segmentation and targeting, but the vast majority are not able to centralize customer data from across channels and recognize customers in a single record,” notes the report.
According to Loechner, email is increasingly being used to target consumers based on their behavior online and offline.
“Email ties the consumer identity together across channels and it is the mechanism utilized to drive real-time segmentation through multichannel data,” he notes.