When developing your multichannel campaign, you should lead with the web.

By Jack Gordon

Technology is changing the direct response marketing world so quickly that even some basic questions become obsolete. For instance, suppose that a new DR product is a hit on television or radio, and the seller wants to expand to a multichannel campaign by taking the offer to the Internet as well. What should the first steps be?

If you're asking that question, you are already behind the curve, say experts in online and multichannel marketing. And no matter how successful your offline campaign may be, you already are leaving money on the table.

Considering the high cost of media today, "I think it's a big mistake to start on TV and say, 'If TV works, then we'll post a website," says Nancy Duitch, CEO of Vertical Branding Inc. of Los Angeles, a consumer-products marketing company. The website should be up and running when the first TV commercial airs, she says. "Otherwise, you're throwing money away."

The most obvious reason is because consumers are increasingly likely to check out a product online before they call an 800 number or make a buying decision. "When they hear a radio commercial or see a TV ad, they write down the URL [for the product's website], then go to the office or home and start researching. Without a URL, you can't really brand your product anymore," Duitch says.

That consumer behavior is far more common than you may think, experts agree. Andy Houstoun, who heads marketing in the United Kingdom for Venda Inc., a New York-based e-commerce platform provider, points to a recent study by online retailers' association Shop.org, which found that 80 percent of consumers have researched a product online before buying it from an offline channel.

The Swivel Sweeper is a key example of a DR product that successfully uses multichannel marketing and has a strong online presence.

THE WEB FIRST
Not only has the Internet become an indispensable part of any multichannel campaign, but there are other compelling reasons to work out at least some basics of the online puzzle first, before spending advertising dollars in other channels. If nothing else, it behooves you to ensure that you can get a URL that matches your product's name, says Johnny Mathis, CEO of Livemercial Inc. of Valparaiso, Ind., which maintains a "virtual call center" for direct response marketers.

Mathis says that if he could offer only one piece of advice to an inventor or a company planning to sell a new DR product, it would be: "If at all possible, make sure to secure the URL of the product's brand name." If someone else has already tied up that URL, he adds, you should consider changing your product's name before you take it to market in any channel.

A URL that matches the product's brand name is a major advantage for several reasons, Mathis says, but the primary one has to do with the fact that consumers who remember your brand name and type it into a search engine such as Google are prime prospects. You want to make it as easy as possible for them to find your website--at the least expense to you.

Mathis points to a DR client that sells a hearing-aid device called ListenUp. The URL ListenUp.com belongs to another company that sells home audio equipment; its site, therefore, is the first "organic" listing that appears in a search of "Listen Up." The DR company with the hearing device had to settle for "BuyListenUp.com," and must pay for sponsored links--an additional advertising cost--to ensure that its site appears prominently in search results.

If the company had considered this from the start, Mathis says, the hearing device "could have been called something else--something [for which] they could have gotten a straight URL."

That is an argument for thinking about the web before beginning a DR campaign in any channel. As for launching or testing a campaign on the web before moving to other channels, experts point to the low cost of entry. It is far cheaper to test various offers and to tweak creative online than in other media.

This is true whether you intend to sell a product only through your own online storefront or to make it available via any number of online shopping sites, says Chip Arndt, co-founder of Merchant Advantage, a Miami company that helps retailers manage online campaigns and feed data in the proper formats to various sites.

Do you want to sell your product on Amazon.com or Shop.com? Do you want to list it on major comparison sites like Shopzilla or on specialty sites for gift items or golf equipment? A few years ago, Arndt says, it was a major technical headache simply to convert your data into the various formats used by those sites. Now his company and others have made that part much simpler, he says. "Today, 90 percent of the challenge is how to pick [the online shopping sites] that will work best for your product."

But there remains the issue of whether your data feeds are working correctly. So why not test them first, Arndt suggests, on comparison-shopping sites that offer free listings, such as Google Product Search, MSN Live Search and TheFind.com? "Ask your friends to go to the free site, look you up, and see what happens," he says. "Are they sent to the right screen on your site? That way, you can work the kinks out without paying anything."

DR IS STILL DR
Direct response marketers who have mastered a medium such as television or radio sometimes flounder on the Internet because they forget the basic principles that made them successful in other channels, says Ken Osborn, CEO of e-commerce marketing agency Liquid Focus Inc. of Westport, Conn. They hear so much talk about the differences between the online world and other channels, he says, that they lose sight of a fundamental similarity: "DR is still DR."

People tend to look at the Internet primarily as a medium for conveying a lot of information, Osborn observes. He meets marketers who want to fill their websites with text and graphics designed to "get my story out" and "work on my corporate identity." But the fact is, Osborn says, "DR works on the Internet the same way it works elsewhere: Keep it simple. If you're trying to sell things, the number-one thing your website should do is sell things."

When Procter & Gamble wants to sell Downy fabric softener, he points out, "it sells Downy, it doesn't sell Procter & Gamble. I tell [veteran] DR marketers, 'You guys had this down to a science before the Internet appeared.'"

That science teaches marketers that DR is fundamentally a cost equation. This applies to the Internet as much as to any other channel, Osborn says. Conversion rates, cost of media, cost per order--those measures are still crucial online. "If the numbers say that your TV campaign will succeed at a cost of $2 per thousand viewers [$2 CPM], and you're paying a $40 CPM for paid search on Yahoo, that's bad," he says. It doesn't become good just because the Internet is a Brave New World.

One principle that falls out of the "keep it simple" school of thought is the one-product/one-site rule. If you sell 12 DR products, Osborn and other experts say, it's fine to maintain an umbrella website that lists them all. But to maximize sales, each product also should have its own discrete website that searchers can reach directly, without going through the corporate site.

CONSISTENCY
In fact, because of a feature that really is unique to the Internet, a single product might have more than one site to appeal to audiences interested in different features. As Venda's Houstoun puts it, "The fantastic thing about online is that it is a truly measurable channel for marketers. All customer actions can be tracked right back to the source--with even more sophisticated tracking techniques." This makes it feasible to test very specific messages and offers with very specific types of customers.

The catch is that every part of your organization must know which marketing initiatives are underway in various channels. "Disparity between online and offline messaging is common," Houstoun says. "This becomes embarrassing if someone calls to interact with a different part of the company, and they don't know what is going on."

John Marrah, CEO of ProfitCenter Software Inc. of Uniondale, N.Y., a supplier of multichannel retail software, puts the point more strongly. "A lot of the systemic problems we see stem from having different architectures across [brick-and-mortar] stores, the web, television, and so on. Each channel will have its own promotion routines, pricing routines and tracking systems for customer information. If I buy something on the web, then contact your call center and get different prices and shipping charges, I'm going to be angry."

Consistency is a recurring theme in expert advice about multichannel marketing, especially when an online campaign is part of the mix. Marrah stresses the need for consistent, coordinated backend systems for inventory tracking and customer relationship management. Others point to the importance of consistent marketing and branding themes.

Some sellers still haven't caught on to the fact that online shoppers, television shoppers and mall shoppers are all the same people, Duitch says. "They believe they're marketing to different population segments, so they create different campaigns for the Internet versus television." That is exactly the wrong way to attack the multichannel challenge, she says. "We've found that if you stream your [TV commercial] online and your message is the same, that's when you'll optimize revenue and profitability."

In other words, on the web, as elsewhere, a good commercial is a good commercial. And DR is still DR.

Jack Gordon has served as Electronic Retailer magazines editor at large since September 2004. This award-winning freelance writer covers a variety of different industries and markets.