The pitch:

By PENELOPE MEHRTENS*

With the ever-increasing demand on marketing executives for delivery and accountability, marketers are realising that they need to bring the marketing and sales functions closer together to produce tangible results.

With response rates for permission-based email sitting at 0.5 to 1 per cent and direct mail campaigns at 1 to 3 per cent, these below-the-line activities might be measurable, but wouldn't you rather have a 10 to 30 per cent response rate?

The 2003 Australian Financial Review Boss Marketing Directions Survey, published in May, listed marketers' top three objectives this year as:

* Boosting sales.

* Brand-building.

* Customer relationships.

Return on investment has also ranked as an important objective for marketing personnel.

While boosting sales has become the number-one objective, the survey noted that marketers' top challenges were budget restrictions and costs.

When you add to this the third- biggest challenge of reaching their target market and the fifth of defining messages to customers, it becomes clear that small and large companies alike are crying out for simple solutions.

So how can you boost sales, build your brand, forge real customer relationships, and fit into tight budgetary constraints, yet achieve a 10 to 30 per cent response rate?

One answer is to add face-to-face sales to the marketing mix.

Multi-channel marketing, using a variety of complementary techniques to target customers, is now being recognised as an effective way to maximise the effectiveness of marketing spend.

Multi-channel marketing allows you to retain existing customers while acquiring new ones. You can balance your approaches while fighting back against competitors and raising brand awareness.

It works because you interact with your customers through different channels. The customer is offered a choice of how to engage with your product or service.

Combinations of print, direct mail, television, website, email, outdoor, web advertising, radio, telemarketing, point-of-sale, text messaging and call centres can be mixed together to maximise results.

Companies are putting more of their budgets into these below the-line marketing channels - where results can be accurately measured.

It's the mix of all of these channels that will determine your overall marketing cost and result.

But too few businesses have remembered the power of including face-to-face marketing in their multi-channel marketing strategies.

How many dollars are spent each year on ineffective mail-outs that customers don't even open?

How many dollars are spent each year on broad-based advertising messages that don't apply to most customers and can even have the reverse effect of alienating them from your business?

Smart marketers combine these channels with carefully designed, exclusive messages and offers for targeted audiences, and will include a service like The Cobra Group's trademark Human Commercial - a "dynamic direct mail" service - delivered face-to-face to their customers, who receive a unique, personal message that's actually relevant to them.

They have the opportunity to be fully educated on your products and services, to have their questions answered, and to make informed decisions they feel confident about.

These customers feel appreciated, and now have an emotional connection to your company - because they perceive that you have taken the time to visit them and speak to them personally. As emotion wins over rationale just about every time, by using a face-to-face approach, you've just built the platform for a long-term, loyal customer.

You've also boosted sales, increased brand awareness, rebuilt old relationships and built new ones.

And, you've produced immediate, measurable results, reached your target market with clearly defined messages, and found out what the consumers of your products and services really want and need.

*Penelope Mehrtens is business development manager for The Cobra Group.


* The Pitch is a forum for those working in advertising, marketing, public relations and communications. We welcome lively and topical 500-word contributions.
Email Simon Hendery.