The majority of marketers are using multichannel campaigns, but less than half know what channels their customers prefer, according to a new study by Forrester Consulting, sponsored by ExactTarget.
The study found the key to selecting the best channels for customer communication is to know something about customer preference and behaviors. Only 32 percent of marketers know how customers behave across channels and only 37 percent know what channels their customers prefer to use.
The majority (92%) of online consumers have opted-in for email marketing, making it the most popular channel for permission-based promotional messages across every age group, according to ExactTarget’s “2009 Channel Preference Study.”
Half of consumers consider unsolicited messages from companies whom they regularly do business with unacceptable, up from 26 percent in 2008.
When it comes to social media, seventy percent of consumers who visit Facebook at least once a month are a “fan” of at least one company/brand and they also say they have never given a company permission to send them information through a social network.
Marketers should use social media to listen and engage with customers, not to market to them.
“The bottom line is that in an industry where new digital communications make it easier to send a variety of messages, it’s imperative that marketers not only send the right message, to the right person, at the right time, but that they use the right channel as well,” said Morgan Stewart, ExactTarget’s director of research and strategy.
