A blended marketing approach maintains a high frequency of touches and provides enough content to keep customers engaged. The Internet is where most customers choose to engage with you because they are increasingly reliant on the Internet.
Customized landing pages provide a complete company message, but one that is slanted in favor of the topic most relevant to the arriving customer. The Internet has made it possible to reach out to an almost limitless market, at any time, and usually for little cost. Yet sometimes, reaching out to one very important customer becomes more important, more effective, and more manageable than trying to reach 1,000 average prospects.
For example, influencers are people whose opinions may cause important customers to stay loyal, and even spend additional dollars. Creating unique brand-related experiences that the influencer will then report on to peers communicates your competitive advantage. Engaging influencers ties closely with conventional concepts of market segmentation.
Reconciling customer success across various touchpoints means counting a customer win as a win no matter where or how the transaction is completed and using every available tool to identify who your customers are through every channel. Kim Collins, research vice president of Gartner, says, "Customers may never agree to buy via email--they may drive to a store, use the contact center or the Web site, but it may never be clear that the email is driving the sale."
Source: Mastering the Complexities of Internet Marketing, 1to1 Magazine, May/June 2006