35% Of Marketers Admit Failure At Multi-Channel Interaction

In a world where consumers have a rich choice of shopping platforms, success for brands is determined by their ability to become well-oiled multichannel machines operating efficiently and effectively on several fronts.

This is hardly any news but it is always interesting to see how marketers rate their performance on that score. According to a study commissioned by Sitescore and conducted by Forrester, 35% admit to losing business due to their inability to integrate digital, social, mobile and offline customer interactions.

Forrester polled over 270 senior-level marketers from various industries and regions for a report entitled “The Multichannel Maturity Mandate”. According to the survey findings, 77% agree that an effective multi-channel business will have better sales and higher profits and 40% consider themselves mature practitioners of multi-channel marketing. The latter say they have reaped significant benefits, among their business gains being improved campaign performance and higher returns on marketing investment (ROMI). While respondents are well aware of the value, some of them cite a lack of knowledge and skills as an obstacle to implementing a multi-channel marketing strategy.

The report features a section dedicated to the benefits derived by mature multi-channel marketers. For 40%, the practice has delivered a hefty improvement in revenues attributable to marketing, while 60% have seen a clear reduction in average sales cycles. The results also show that 60% have achieved a substantial increase in ROMI and 69% have improved their customer satisfaction scores by more than 10%. In addition, 40% have been revealed as more likely to engage in collaboration with sales on field programmes.