Delivering Multi Touch And Multi Sense Strategies

I wrote a while ago that you should cast your bread on the social media waters – in other words, get your message out there without too much prescription over where your message is placed – the reason being that more often than not you get growth from areas you did not expect. Today I’m going to address a way to do that through two strategies. But first of all, we need to define a few things:

• A strategy is a set of projected outcomes that move your desired ‘thing’ from one place to another, be it a market position, car journey, a blog rank, increased wallet-share – whatever.
• We fulfil these outcomes by employing tactics. In the case of driving from A to B, we require the tactics of driving a car. Note that tactics not are equal to the strategy, they are part of the strategy.
• Therefore, in the realm of social media, for example, the tactic of creating a Facebook page and setting up a Twitter account are not a social media strategy. And creating posters and flyers is not a marketing strategy.

I say this because a lot of ‘social media gurus‘ and dodgy marketers across all boards equate hooking one free service up to another a strategy – but it is not – this is just a tactic. We must have strategies that plot where these tactics lead to other than paying through the nose for SEO, PPC, etc. There is more to marketing success than hits and eyes.

Now that we have that out of the way, you may be wondering why I have a picture of our recent Exeter Tweetup above, and thinking to yourself “why is that there?” – Well, I’m so glad you asked! Here’s the answer: every person in that photo is part of a multi-touch and multi-sense strategy that I have employed.

Shock, horror?!?! “You mean they are a part of a strategy?” Well, yes and no. If you mean whether I’m treating them all as a marketing project, then no. But if you mean, am I treating them all differently because of who they are and what we have in common, then the answer is yes.

See the reality is that we are all using multi-touch and multi-sense strategies. Some people that we know are more visual than others, and in order to communicate more effectively to them, it’s all about painting pictures and metaphor. You might not even realise it, but guaranteed there are people in your life that you act differently towards that have different dominate senses, and your relationship works because you are ‘translating’ from one sense to the other.

Making Multi-Sense

We all learn and think differently. Some people see a film and remember the lines. Others remember the car chase scene, where others still remember how they felt about the characters. Any event you hold, any website you have, any interaction you make, anything, is all being perceived differently by people with different dominate senses.

So the question is, are you making sense to all the senses? I look at this a few ways. First, out of the 5 senses, we rarely engage taste and smell in the normal course of marketing (when I run events, I make sure I engage them both.) So that means hearing, seeing and touching. Do you provide content in text, in audio and in video? Do you provide tactile workable examples, and do you provide inspiration testimonials? These are relate to these three senses. If you are missing one out, you are missing out some of your audience (don’t feel guilty, I’m missing out some of mine too – it takes time to build it up.)

Next up is people’s motivational sense. It is considered that people are motivated in two basic directions – either towards success, or away from pain. Given this, do you make sense to both? If you marketing is all about success, then what motivation do you provide for those moving away from pain? And if your products are all about alleviating stress, then what about those who want to move towards something?

Being Multi-Touch

Our second strategy involves how people can interact with you and find you. Last week, when I published my PR 2010 framework, I updated my LinkedIn status to say that I have just published it, and provided a link. It just so happened that someone I’m connected with on LinkedIn saw that, read it, and contacted me. If I have just stuck to my usual Twitter stream, I would’ve completely missed it.

Likewise, I became friends with someone on Facebook the other day whose business I have helped through some of these principles (and a few others too – there’s more where this came from.) As I accepted his friend invite, I look on his profile to see that he was having whole conversations with people on his profile where he had posted links to my articles. There was a whole conversation going on about me but I would’ve missed it if I hadn’t been multi-touch.

Multi-touch, for many, means thinking outside of the goldfish bowl. Don’t just use your preferred channels and methods of communication – experiment with other forms and see how you get on. At the least, as far as social media goes, you should keep your LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles active, and I suggest using Flickr to store all your photos, while using Posterous to link a lot of this together. I regularly get people finding me through all 5 of these services.

Multi-touch really worked for me when Aaron+Gould marketed Touch 09 – an annual Christian woman’s conference with a lot of style. Over the course of a year, but concentrated over a 3 month period, we marketed the conference through multi-touch, across multiple social networks, digital channels, and traditional marketing. Of course, every touch was integrated and holistic, and linked back to the hub – the website where all the information, communication, and bookings existed. This approach increased by registrations by 100% – in a recession.

You also need to escalate multi-touch. Don’t leave your interactions at just tweets. Sending an email is still more personal than a tweet or facebook, because it requires more effort and is kept private. Set up Skype calls with the people that you connect with, and if you are able to, meet new contacts face to face. By escalating the level of touch you have, your relationship becomes stronger, more personal and more unique.

I can quite honestly say that I feel closer to people who I have met face to face and shared only a few tweets than those I have shared many tweets with. When I worked on a fashion start up, I sourced our designers by finding them on forums and emailing hundreds of potentials. After hundreds of emails, I developed the expression that a phone call is worth a thousand emails. It’s true.

And Finally…

In a shameless act of self promotion, and in the spirit of experimentation, I want to let you know that I actually consult with companies and individuals on these frameworks, and believe it or not, it even works. And if you want to see how this stuff looks in real life, check out Like Minds, and run a search on it too. It ticks most of the boxes.