Multichannel Creative: Present Your Brand Consistently

When it comes to integrating creative between the three primary marketing channels – catalog, Web and retail – much has been said about presenting a consistent image across all channels. But doing so isn’t always so easy. As Carol Worthington-Levy, partner and director at San Rafael, Calif.-based consultancy LENSER, pointed during a session at the recent New England Mail Order Association conference in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., multichannel marketers should enroll their creative people in “taking a role in the actual selling process.”

She offered the following points and tips to marketers looking for ways to achieve multichannel consistency:

Leverage your branding across all media that sells or generates leads:
1. Create united messages.
2. Generate customer comfort in dealing with you in alternate venues.
3. Visually and verbally link your marketing channels together so customers visit all channels more often and sales increase.

Consider why prospects or customers would take notice of your e-mail or Web site:
1. They recognize you.
2. You make it worth their while to look further.
3. You get to the point.
4. You sweeten the pot with an offer.
5. You ask for the order.

How to keep your brand consistent:
1. Organize your brand standards and have them accessible to all who work on your programs.
2. Choose a direct marketing-oriented “brand police” person to review all your printed and online materials to make sure each one:
a. uses your brand elements correctly;
b. is doing the job it’s meant to do; and
c. includes all direct marketing tools if that’s its job.

Ways to keep e-mail consistent with the overall multichannel approach:
1. Make e-mails personal and friendly in tone.
2. Make them about customers, not you; skip the hyperbole.
3. Make an offer.
4. Stick to benefits; cover features on the landing page.
5. Test offers, subject lines, arrival days, times and html vs. text.