Which marketing channels get the most bang for your buck these days?
The Eight Annual Alterian Customer Engagement Study, which includes responses from more than 1,400 sales, marketing & IT execs, reveals the percentage of companies that implement strategy based on each specific marketing channel.
Here are the top five, along with some commentary about why each one is so popular with modern-day sales and marketing pros:
- E-mail (72% of companies): It was only a few years ago that e-mail surpassed cold calling as the primary mode of contact for salespeople. Since then, it’s skyrocketed as the central hub for the majority of sales and marketing strategies. E-mail is the ideal way to forward links, solicit feedback, schedule phone calls or meeting times, and/or maintain constant communication with customers.
- Direct mail (58% of companies): Companies may not be enjoying the same response rates they were when DM was all the rage back in the eighties and nineties. But it’s still an essential part of the overall sales and marketing strategy, especially for b2c companies, some of whose customers may not be as web savvy as others. A lot of companies are slowly phasing out their DM campaigns, but they’re still not in a position to stop relying on the mode altogether.
- Company website (56% of companies): A lot of companies have shifted gears, focusing on their corporate website as a central hub, so to speak. In other words, e-mails, social media pages, advertisements and online blogs all track back to the company’s website. Product reviews and comment sections are great ways to drive additional traffic, but the key seems to be setting your site up as a platform that every other marketing channel leads into.
- Social media (53% of companies): The ongoing challenge for social media campaigns is determining how much impact each of them are having. Some companies have had tremendous success with social marketing campaigns, but they can’t specifically pinpoint just how much success because it’s tough to tie direct metrics to social media sites (since most of them are built in such a way that you can’t know who’s visiting, or how often). Regardless, social media still has a long way to go before it reaches its peak, and now’s the time for companies to either hop on board or ramp up their efforts.
Source: The Eighth Annual Alterian Customer Engagement Survey.
