Because I'm a recruiter specializing in Multi-Channel Marketing (it's all I do), I'm forever reading about the latest trends and ideas in the M.C.M. arena. To recap, a "multichannel marketer" is a company that develops and maintains customer relationships across multiple channels: Catalogs, Online, Stores, Call centers, TV home shopping, etc. Examples of multichannel retailers include Best Buy, REI, Home Depot, and Sharper Image. Most print catalogers like Hammacher-Schlemmer fall into the MCM category -- even though they may only sell through two channels (say, print and online).
It's relatively easy to sell through any particular channel -- but it's murder to determine how the channels provide lift to one another. Example: One of my pals at BestBuy says that 45% of their computer customers come into the store with a print-out from BestBuy's website. "Fine," he says. "But what about the other 55%? What drove them into the store?" It's impossible the effectively manage a marketing initiative that you can't measure -- and tracking customer relationships across multiple channels remains equal parts art and science.
But it's getting more scientific every day. There is an insane amount of technology investment flowing into the multichannel space (although MCM hiring levels are steady). As a result, the thought leadership from ROI-happy technology and financial journalists is ramping up.
Here's a recap of some of the best stuff I have read from these sectors:
1.) Multichannel Merchant magazine's Benchmark Report on Ecommerce: One of our industry's leading trade publications serves up a statistical abstract of the current trends in MCM. Nice job.
2.) CFO magazine I.T. Edition, Summer 2005, Old Dogs, New Clicks: CFO magazine is published by The Economist and it rocks. Every so often CFO will publish an I.T. issue, and the level of scholarship in the articles is noteworthy. No fluff. I have converted their recent MCM article to an Adobe file for ease of printing, but by all means please visit CFO's website and subscribe (for free, no less) to their fine publication. It'll make you a better general manager, I promise.
3.) Optimize magazine, July 2005, E-tailing's Next Lift: Published by Information Week, Optimize is the Harvard Business Review of I.T. magazines. Their analysis is always intellectually rigorous, and their articles are very well written. This month Cayce Roy of Amazon Services dissects the current trends in MCM. As with the CFO article, I have converted Optimize's MCM article to an Adobe file. But please -- visit Optimize's website and subscribe (also free) to their publication. It, too, will make you a better general manager.
And while you're tying up the printer, download my article from January's Optimize magazine, How to Hire a Problem Solver. In it, I (stupidly) give away many of my hard-learned trade secrets.
Oh, well. That's no reason you shouldn't be rewarded for sticking around for the end of this post.
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A: Download Harry's contact info for future reference.
