In this industry, we’re always talking about expanding into multichannel marketing services, but as many printers know, it can also be a tough sell. If you’ve ever wondered why, even though multichannel is clearly the direction marketers are going, perhaps a survey by Lifecycle Marketing will help.
At the 2014 Direct Marketing Association annual conference, Lifecycle Marketing surveyed more than 250 marketers and found that the multichannel environment is highly fractured. Twenty-eight percent of marketers manage relationships with seven or more technology vendors and service providers as part of their multichannel marketing efforts, and 21% spend up to 15 hours each week coordinating them.
We’re talking about a lot of channels. More than half of marketers surveyed (52%) use at least six outbound channels to connect with customers, while 21% use more than ten.
Lifecycle Marketing did note a “less is more” trend toward using fewer vendors, and that 72% do use less than six. Still — six vendors? That’s no easy task to coordinate! 
Let alone effectively compare and evaluate results to wrap around to next time.
Selling into a highly fractured environment can be difficult, but it can offer opportunity, too. As an MSP, you can use the knowledge of this environment (and the pain points it causes) to your advantage. When selling multichannel marketing solutions, knowing these pain points can be a great place to open a conversation.
According to the survey, here are the top obstacles these marketers see to accomplishing their marketing goals:
- Multiple tech vendors and service providers failing to integrate well (13%)
- The need to consolidate vendors to be able to achieve goals (15%)
- Too many vendors to coordinate (12%)
If you offer marketing strategy and multiple channel execution under one roof, offering integrated, coordinated marketing strategy, planning, and execution, this is a great place to start asking questions…and offering to provide solutions!
